Scraps, Minis, and Mini Scraps!

I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the Marvelous Monday Mini blocks from Temecula Quilt Company.  Although some of my earlier blocks turned out a bit wonky (probably because of the teeny, tiny pieces!), these look pretty good to me!  I've used lots of starch on these blocks to keep them under control.

I have nine blocks made so far, using orange, lime green, turquoise, and some light blue.  Each block measures 4 inches.  I like them!

This week, I also finished up this low volume piece that I am hoping to do some applique on.  It measures about 16.5 x 16.5.  I actually quilted and bound it already, because that is how the inspiration piece was done. 

It was a bit hard to capture the color in this piece with my camera.  It's made with mostly tone on tone cream, and beige-ish scraps, but has a few little bits that pop out here and there.  I like these grapevines and the alphabet fabric.

I found this fun postcard fabric in my stash and it seemed perfect for the backing.

The next decision is what to add on to this low volume piece.  My original plan was to have brighter colors layered on top of the background - bright green, purple, pink, etc., to applique flowers, leaves, and stems. Unfortunately, sometimes my skills don't match my vision, but I am always one who likes to try something new and see what develops!  

Just for fun, I took some hexies I had made and laid them out on the background.  This could turn into something intriguing, but very different from my vision.  I'm still contemplating this one!

I'll be back another week to share what I end up doing with this!  Stay tuned!  Meanwhile I'm sharing my scrappy mini blocks and projects over at Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework!

A Little Bit of Blue

It's always fun to have a new color of the month to work with for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I didn't post about my Maple Leaves and 9 Patches in June because I had already made the yellow blocks last year when I was first playing around with the idea of multi-colored maple leaves.

But I did get them out this week and made some blue blocks to add to the collection.

I'm not sure what I will do with these blocks yet - keep adding to them until I have enough for a lap size quilt, add sashing or not, make a table topper or mini - just not sure.  I need at least one more color if I want a square of just the leaves, but what color?  So far I've made red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, brown, and purple.  Suggestions, anyone?!

For now, I'm just enjoying all this lovely color!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!

I Like Thursday #37 - the 4th of July

I have always loved the 4th of July, and still do, in spite of the challenges and concerns facing our country these days.

I liked this political cartoon that was in our paper the other day.  

I like how people in our town put their flags out for the day, including my husband at our house.

I like eating outdoors and having picnic food.

I liked my "once a year" attempt at making potato salad.  Even though my mom's potato salad always tastes the best (and I used her recipe), it turned out pretty good!

I really like this relish that I put on my hotdog.  It's made specially for a funny little grocery store in our town called Esh's Grocery Market that is full of all kinds of odds and ends and brand names you've never heard of.  

I like these veggie chips that we splurged on for our 4th of July supper.  I don't know that they're any healthier for you than potato chips, but I love that they are colorful and tasty!

I especially love fireworks on the 4th, and we got to see two sets of them this year!  Over the weekend, we went up to my SIL's cabin and watched fireworks from their deck, where my husband attempted to take some photos of them.  Here's one that turned out pretty good.

On the night of the 4th we always walk down to the lake in the middle of our city and sit on the lawn of the high school to watch our local fireworks display.  It is an amazing time because EVERYBODY comes out for it, and there are thousands of people at the high school, the surrounding parks, and all along the edges of the lake watching the display together.  At the very end, you can always hear everyone whistling and cheering and clapping.  Very fun!

I hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July as much as I did mine!

I like "I like Thursdays" and look forward to reading everyone's post who joins in this week!  You can, too, every Thursday, over at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

A Finish for the 4th

Happy 4th of July!  Right after my last post, I had a chance to finish up my little improv red, white, and blue flag mini quilt.

A look at the back shows the quilting I did.  It created some fun texture!

I really enjoy seasonal sewing - using colors and fabrics that fit the season we're in, like Christmas or spring or something red, white, and blue for the 4th of July.  This is the third one I've made.

The flag mini is very different from last year's with its flying geese and 30s reproduction fabrics.

And the very first one I made was this little mug rug back in 2015.

It's kind of fun to add to my little collection of 4th of July themed quilty things!

Have a fun and safe holiday!  I'm linking up with Val's Quilting Studio for her Tuesday Archives.

Three Cheers for Red, White, and Blue!

Having finished my yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge sewing for June, and not yet knowing what July's color would be, I decided to do some seasonal sewing this week, and pulled out some red, white, and blue.

The family of a quilting friend who passed away last year offered her stash for those of us in her quilting group to share, and since I love fabric with stars, I knew I would enjoy making something out of this collection.  We are invited up to my SIL's cabin this weekend, and I thought this would be the perfect fabric to make her a little something to say thanks for the invite.

After cutting some 2.5 by WOF strips into 4.5 inch bricks, I sewed them into a red, white, and blue table runner that I think will work nicely for a mountain cabin.  It measures about 17 x 29.

It was fun to pretend to decorate my own table for the holiday weekend with this table runner!

Of course, since I am in that "one thing leads to another" mode lately, I couldn't put the scraps from this project away and move on to something else, so I decided to keep going with red, white, and blue, and ended up with this little mini to keep for my house.

It was fun to start with, "I wonder if I could..." and end up with a (sort of) flag!  Since taking this photo, I've finished the quilting and will be stitching the binding down this evening while watching a little TV.

Have a fun and safe holiday weekend!  I'll be sharing this at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and on Sunday at Oh Scrap over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

I Like Thursday #36 - Inside and Outside

Welcome to I Like Thursday, sponsored by LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color!  I look forward to checking out the weekly posts written by the positive thinking community we've created here, and invite you to join us!

My first like of the week - all of you who commented on my question about whether or not to put water in my new iron.  Thanks for your input!  It seems that most people DON'T put water in their irons anymore, and use a spray bottle for spritzing the fabric instead, so that's what I've decided to do, too.  So far, that's working just fine!

I like going out to my garden and harvesting fresh lettuce for a delicious dinner salad!  Because our backyard is so shady, it's one of the few vegetables I can grow out there!

If you've read some of my previous I Like Thursday posts, you know that my husband and I like to explore the natural areas and open spaces that communities around northern Colorado have developed for all of us to enjoy.  Saturday, we went to a new one to us - Soapstone Prairie Natural Area  - which we really liked.

It is truly an amazing place where you can see forever; full of wildflowers, birds, and butterflies.

We've gotten pretty good at identifying birds we see, but it was a new experience to try to identify this butterfly.  They were all over the place as we walked!

We think this is a type of Fritillary.  In researching it, I think there are 6 different types of fritillaries in Colorado, and they all look a lot alike!

On another day, we spent some time wandering around looking for yellow-headed blackbirds, and found them in a couple different open space areas.  They like to nest in the reeds by ponds, so if you know where to look, there they are!  They are beautiful birds!

Back at home, I've been sewing every day, and I really like my set of square OmniGrid Rulers that came with four different sizes.  I don't have many specialty rulers, but these have been a good purchase and I use them a lot!

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you are enjoying a great week!

Bits and Pieces

This really has been the week for me to sew with little bits and pieces!  Although it would take a long time to finish even a baby quilt with these small scraps, other things can be accomplished and creating them is lots of fun!

My Desert Bloom HSTs, leftover from the X's and O's table runner, turned into these coasters (or maybe I could call them mug rugs).

I found this fun fabric in my stash that reminds me of fireworks for the backing and binding.  These measure about 6 x 6.

I also made one more Marvelous Monday Mini block, pattern coming from Temecula Quilt Company.

And one other scrappy thing...  I've worked with a lot of low volume scraps recently - in my log cabin quilt and my string star project.  I use up the long pieces quickly, and am left with lots of chunks.  I've been wondering what to do with those chunks!

Then I saw THIS, friends.  It is a beautiful mini quilt made by Teje at Nero's Post, made with a low volume background and raw edge appliqued flowers.  I love it, and want to make something similar, inspired by Teje's work.  Perfect for those leftover chunks that don't really work in string piecing.

I started by sorting out all of the chunks from my black and white scrap bin, matching up pairs that were similar in size, and sewing them together.

After a little trimming, I was able to match up similar size pairs into groups of four, and so on, until I ended up with this nice piece!  It measures about 13.5 x 5.5.  Not very big, really, but probably a good size for me to experiment with some applique on!  I think I'll have fun looking through my colorful scraps for pieces to make stems, leaves, and flowers.

Sharing my little bits and pieces at Oh Scrap!, the Sunday link-up hosted by Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework!