Bits of Turquoise and Teal

The past week has been a bit crazy (and therefore, unusual) in the Little Penguin household!  A variety of out of town guests coming and going, and preparing to be out of town ourselves, has left me with very little time in my sewing room.  ;(

 I did have a chance to dig out a few teal and turquoise scraps -

so I could put together the Squared Away Sampler blocks for June.

I'm awfully glad this month's block went together so quickly... at least I accomplished something!

Here are all of my Sampler blocks up on the design wall together.

I'm really happy with them so far!

The smallest leftover bits and pieces get sewn into these Tiny Rail blocks - 

I need 25 of these 2.5 inch squares to make a 10.5 inch block, so I'll keep working on them throughout the month.

For more teal and turquoise inspiration, check out all the posts at Angela's ScrapHappy Saturday link-up for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, HERE!

Also linking up with Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework on Sunday!

I Like Thursday #85 - Baseball!

We are big baseball fans at our house, and our favorite team is the Colorado Rockies - even when they aren't playing very well.  Lol!

So, when one of Mike's cousins called and said they were coming to town for the Rockies game last Friday and had two extra tickets and would we like to go - of course, we said yes!

I only had my phone with me, so I enjoyed playing around with the camera on it, while carefully watching out for foul balls!

We liked the new giant scoreboard/ screen, built this year for the Rockies 25th anniversary.

We liked the seats we got to sit in - really close to the field - and a close-up view of one of our favorite players during the National Anthem. 

Charlie Blackmon!

Here's the actual view of the play at first base from our seats - 

And then I figured out how to zoom in and crop the photo!

I always like figuring out something new like that!

We loved the sunset view over the stadium!

Even though our team didn't win that night, I really love going down to Coors Field for a ball game!

Happy Thursday!  Hope you're having a great week!  I'm joining in, as always, with all the I Like Thursday bloggers over at LeeAnna's place, Not Afraid of Color.

Birds and Bowties

Since this felt like an in between week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I decided to get out my bowtie blocks and do a little sorting and counting.

I decided to go for a 9 x 10 layout, so 90 blocks.  Some colors I already have plenty of, and others need to get caught up so I can work on sewing them together!  These blocks are 6 inches finished, so I should get about a 54 x 60 quilt top out of them.

This week I made bowties of many colors - because these were the bits and pieces that were sitting on my cutting table that I needed to sort through and get put away!

You might notice that while I was cutting pieces for my Happy Birds blocks, I also cut for bowties!

I added a few more bird blocks to the collection, too.  I'm having fun finding the perfect light or dark border for the inner squares - keeping in mind that I need 24 of each eventually.

And then, since Angela announced that teal and turquoise are the RSC colors for June, a couple more bowties were stitched up!

I had fun fussy cutting those frogs! 

Happy beginning of June to everyone!  Linking up with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  See you there!

Update on my Experiment with comments - it worked to bring comments to my inbox, but not sure if my replies back to you went anywhere.  I tried replying to my own comment and it never came back to me.  ;( Darn it!  

I Like Thursday #84

Happy Thursday, friends!  Thanks for visiting today!  For more I Like Thursday posts, don't forget to check out LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

This week, I liked that my bloggy experiment worked!

Leaving my own comment on my published post, and then checking the "Notify Me" box underneath brought comments back to my email!  It's a ridiculous thing to have to do, but until Blogger (or whoever) fixes the comment problem, I'll continue to do that.

This week, I enjoyed this email note and photo from our son who lives in Nebraska.

"What is this bird?

It was outside the office today. The bright yellow belly caught my eye. It’s bigger than a finch, I think."

Our kids know that Mom and Dad love birds, and we also really enjoy seeing their photos now and then.  (It's a Western Kingbird!)

We enjoyed one of our favorite hikes this week - the Lumpy Ridge trail near Estes Park.  I liked these rocks - 

Doesn't it look like someone is giving a friend a piggy back ride?

Later on, we were in town walking on the path by the golf course, and Mike caught this fun picture of some golfers waiting on the elk.

The elk were definitely not worried about delaying the golf game!

These pretty snap dragons are blooming in my garden!  I love their bright color!

I also like this pot of petunias in the backyard.

See the sunflower?  It's a volunteer in this pot, and it is really happy!  I'm just letting it go to see what happens.

Have a great Thursday, everyone!

An Experiment

This morning while doing my usual blog reading, I came across an idea from another blogger that might work around the comment to email problem we're all having.  More about that in a minute!

To try out my experiment, I decided to do a quick post about the Happy Bird blocks I've been working on.

I realized this morning that I should have a bit of a plan for these blocks, so I drew up a quick sketch.

I need 48 blocks - 24 with light borders and 24 with dark borders - for a 6 x 8 layout.

So I've made a few more since yesterday's post - 

They're kind of addicting!  :)

After I publish this post, I'm going to leave a comment on my own post, and check the box below the comment box that says "Notify Me."  Maybe that will get comments made after the first one to get emailed to me.  Leave me a comment and I'll let you know if my experiment worked!

Linking up with Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share at Koka Quilts!

Easily Distracted!

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Sometime between my post on Thursday and yesterday's post, Blogger stopped sending your comments to my email inbox.  Please know that I really appreciate your comments, and will definitely try to reply to them as soon as I can!  I hope Blogger will fix this problem quickly, since I haven't been able to figure it out myself!

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Meanwhile, earlier this week, while straightening up my sewing room, and supposedly planning to finish cutting pieces for my Mellow quilt project, I got distracted by this pile of scraps -

"I'll just make a bowtie block out of some of those," I thought to myself.  So I did.

But there was still quite a bit of the penguin fabric left, so I thought I would make one of these - 

Cathy, at Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting, calls these "Happy Blocks," and I had been thinking I might start making a few here and there.  Why not use the penguin fabric to get started?

Well, you know what that leads to!  "What if...?"    I started cutting 5 inch squares out of all of my bird fabrics, and 2.5 inch strips for the borders, matching up darks with lights to get some contrast.

I had more than I realized - not just penguins, but owls, cardinals, swallows, and more!  

These blocks are 9 inch squares.

And just like that, a new project gets started...

So here's how my sewing table looks now - 

Pieces cut for bowties and bird blocks - always something to do!

Linking up with Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  

May Blocks for the RSC

Do we say this at the end of every month?  I can't believe May is almost over!  I have enjoyed sewing with pink this month and finished up everything I set out to make at the beginning of the month for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

This week's blocks to complete were a couple of pink Scrappy Sprouts -

Aren't these looking like fun all together?!

I'm thinking that some kind of flower blossom at the top of these would be fun, too.

And here is all my pink sewing for May - 

Happy ScrapHappy Saturday to all!  Linking up with SoScrappy.  Be sure to check out all the pretty pink sewing that has been happening over there!