I Like Thursday #427

I love green!  It has always been my favorite color, so when LeeAnna asked about green this week, I decided to dedicate my whole Thursday post to green.

How about green vegetables?  This asparagus and mushroom stir fry was quite tasty.  It was an easy recipe - asparagus, mushrooms, olive oil and your favorite seasonings.  

It was my turn to host book club this month, so how about green plates and napkins for March?

Peanut butter cookies (always my favorite) 

and dark chocolate almonds for treats - yum!

We read an interesting book for this month's discussion - A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler.  The main character is Barnaby, who is described as a loveable loser who's trying to get his life together.  

The title of the book comes from a quilt that one of the characters was making.  I loved this quote from the story:

"Planet Earth was makeshift and haphazard, 

clumsily cobbled together, overlapping and crowded and 

likely to fall to pieces at any moment."

I have made quite a few green things for our house over the years.  You can tell these placemats have been used and washed over and over!  My favorite shade of green is in the top placemat - what would you call that shade?  Maybe emerald green.

I'm so glad Spring is on its way - that mean lots of green coming in the near future!

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday. 

Midweek Update

I haven't had a lot of time for sewing in recent days, but I did go shopping!  We had an errand to run in a shopping area south of here closer to Denver, so I took that opportunity to stop in at a favorite quilt shop that I hadn't visited in awhile.   Isn't this a fun view?

A little bit of each?  Yes, please!

To be honest, though, I didn't buy anything particularly exciting.  I was looking for some low volume background fabrics and some green.  I bought seven fat quarters because they had a "buy six, get one free" deal! 

I know these will get used!

So, what have I gotten done in the sewing room in the last few days?  I'm making good progress on quilting the Stay at Home Round Robin.

I also sorted through a bunch of yellows (the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month) and sandy/gold scraps to pick out enough pieces to make two sixteen patch stars.

Since then, I have cut pieces for two sixteen patch stars, 

more about that in my Saturday post!

So - my goal for the rest of this week is to get the SAHRR quilted, and the two sixteen patch stars made.  That sounds doable, right?!

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

And at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Choose Kindness

 is all finished!  Well, the stitching, at least.  I still have to decide how to fully finish it.

Meanwhile, it is still winter here, so I've continued to work on the Winter SAL from PinkernPunkin.   Stamp 5 is done, and I've started on Stamp 6.

Of course, I'm always tempted to start something new - something for Spring.  Melisa just shared a sweet little flower basket design - check it out at her blog here.  It's calling my name! 

So, whether it will be for Winter or for Spring, I will have plenty of slow stitching to work on today!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

A little of this and a little of that...

My focus this week has been on finishing up my Stay at Home Round Robin project, and I'm right on track with that.  It was sandwiched and basted for quilting on Wednesday, and quilting started, too.

For the backing, I used up most of the last of my favorite floral that I first used in Pieces of My Life, and also in this project.  It has such a great selvage!  

There was enough of this one left that I could make some quarter star blocks for my current Rainbow Scrap Challenge project - these are fun!

And then I got to thinking about a possible layout for these blocks - different from what I had originally been thinking.  Maybe you would call it a starburst?

These are all the blocks I've made so far - eight each in blue, pink, and yellow.

For a design like this, I'll probably need to do some planning.  I might need more of some colors than others.  Time to start thinking about that!

Sharing a SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday

I Like Thursday #426

Good morning, and happy Thursday!  How's your week going?  We were supposed to get snow the other day, but just got a little rain.  I like that!  Last week definitely felt like Spring - we had such nice temperatures that my golf group was able to get out and play a round!

Definitely still winter conditions, though - still dry and brown!

I decided I would just attach my mini heart quilts to the display stand with clothes pins, and the other day I found this bag of mini clothes pins in a rainbow of colors at Michaels.  Now I can match the clothes pin to the quilt!

Green for March!

On Sunday nights we've been watching a mini series narrated by Tom Hanks called "The Americas."  It's so good!  (Of course, they had me at Tom Hanks, lol!)  It's about all the amazing animals who live in different regions of North, Central, and South America.

LeeAnna's question of the week is "as a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?"  I always wanted to be a teacher.  Always.  And I grew up to do that!  Although, not without a few detours along the way.  I spent many years as an early childhood teacher and even worked at Walmart for a few years when our young family just needed some money!  But I finally got to be a 5th grade teacher in my 40s, and loved that career.

I had to dig around in the "archives" for this photo!  Did you get these class pictures for your kids every year?  I got to be in many of them!

This was my smallest class ever - 18 kids (one must have been absent that day)!

Usually I was in the 25 - 30 kid range.

The lady on the right side of the class was our principal at the time.

Joining in with Not Afraid of Color for I Like Thursday. 

Midweek Update

I've spent the last few days getting my Stay at Home Round Robin project to the quilt top stage, and it started with making a bunch of four patches.

Then figuring the layout on each side - I wanted each side, plus top and bottom to have the squares in the same order, starting with the kite.

And then it was all sewn together.  I think this looks like a basket of Easter eggs!

27 x 28 inches

Next step, sandwich the layers for quilting!  I'll be working on that this afternoon.  

Sharing at The Inquiring Quilter for Wednesday Wait Loss.

My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday

Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Hello March!

Are you ready for Spring?  I sure am!  It has felt like Spring here all week, and to celebrate, I finished up the March heart mini quilt for my table top quilt display stand.

And rearranged all the bowl fillers and quilty things that go with it, too.

Sometime last year, I stitched this Shamrock Blessings mini sampler that is from Melisa at PinkernPunkin Quilting.  I'm not sure I ever shared it on the blog, but this week I finally finished it up, too.  Good timing for the month of March!  Mine looks a little different from Melisa's because I didn't cut the Aida cloth big enough, so I had to rearrange the letters a bit.  

Since February is over, it's time to finish up the International Embroidery Month stitch-along design from Crabapple Hill Studios.  Just a little bit left!

So that's what I'll be working on for my Slow Sunday Stitching!

Linking up at Kathy's Quilts.

And at Melva Loves Scraps for Sew and Tell Monday.