I Like Thursday #90 - Out and About and a WiP

We took a quick road trip to visit our two sons earlier this week, and had a really good time!  I know the plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska are not the scenery for everyone, but we love it.  The big sky and wide open spaces really are beautiful!

Something we particularly enjoyed on this trip was seeing the winter wheat harvesting crews hard at work as we passed by -

Photo courtesy of Google!

In our yard this week - more baby birds figuring the world out!

I think this little guy was wondering where his mama went!

I'm liking this pretty bit of color in my small flower garden - 

I rarely manage to pull together a mid-week WiP post, so I thought I'd include it in this one.  I've been enjoying stitching these hexies together over the last few months as we watch TV in the evenings.  (This is a true slow stitching project!)

I glue basted the hexies from one of those 2.5 inch square charm packs at least a year ago, and then they sat!  I think it is Persimmon by Basic Grey for Moda.

I liked this shape you can make with 9 of them - and was able to make 4 of that shape out of my charm pack.

Recently, I've started making some more hexies out of a Kona solid blue - I think it could be Lagoon - with the idea of them becoming a background for the project and a way to join the original shapes together.

There were just enough pieces left to join together in a flower - that's what I've been working on the last couple nights.  Maybe it will go in the center of the diamond shapes...?

What am I making?  I knew you were going to ask me that!  Of course, I don't know yet - it will probably depend on how many more hexies I want to stitch together!  I'm just enjoying the process for now. 

Hope you're having a great week! Thanks, as always, to LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color for hosting our weekly "I Like Thursday" party! 

The Red Scraps are Out!

It's July, and the new Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for the month is red - both the lighter and darker shades of it.  So the reds are out on my cutting table!

I'm hoping to get closer to having enough bow tie blocks to be able to figure out a layout and start sewing them together soon, so I always check that collection of blocks first.  Here are the red ones I've already made - 

And a few new ones added this week - 

The first week of a new color, I always do a lot of cutting - 3.5" squares for bow ties, 2.5" squares for Scrappy Sprouts, and 1.5" x 2.5 inch rectangles for my Tiny Rails blocks.

Meanwhile, the 4th of July holiday this week put me in the mood for some Red, White, and Blue sewing!  So I made a couple new coasters/mug rugs, which we use daily for setting drinks on where we sit to read and watch TV.

They go perfectly with the 4th of July flag table topper that I made last year!

And with this mug - 

And one last bit of sewing - I turned this orphan string block (leftover from my String Star finish earlier this year) into a potholder.

I layered the string block with a scrap of regular batting and a piece of Insulbrite plus backing fabric to make it thick and heat resistant.  Such a good way to use up orphan blocks!   I know other quilty friends have done that and gave me the idea to do the same, so thank you for that!

Sharing at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday, and

at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! on Sunday.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I Like Thursday #89 - Happy 4th!

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope those of you in the U.S. enjoyed the 4th of July holiday!  We did at our house.

This week, I liked finishing up this little project, which ended being called Lemon and Lime, because I used Aurifil Lemon thread to quilt it.

Earlier this week, I really enjoyed spending a few hours boating out on a lake near us with some special friends from my teaching days.

Beautiful, green, and peaceful!

Lots of laughter and good conversation!

And our intrepid mascot, sweet Remi, who evidently loves going out in the boat!

I love fireworks!  Every 4th of July we walk down to the park near us to watch our city's big professional display, and it never disappoints.

I really liked this song that we heard in a local coffee shop lately - 

"Love is a Wild Thing," by Kacey Musgraves.   You can listen to it on YouTube  - just search for it and it comes right up.  The words, melody, and voice are really beautiful!

Running like a river trying to find the ocean

Flowers in the concrete
Climbing over fences, blooming in the shadows
Places that you can't see
Coming through the melody when the night bird sings
Love is a wild thing

My favorite line is, "Even if you lose it, it will find you."

Joining in with I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of Color - click the link to see what other blogging friends are sharing this week!

Lemon and Lime

... a scrappy DrEami!

I posted about this project earlier this week - *Lime Sherbet.*

I was hoping to have it completed to share this weekend, but not it's not quite done yet.  What I forgot to mention when I shared it before was that I have a spool of Aurifil #2115 *Lemon!* that I thought would be fun to quilt it with.

I decided to play with the quilting to see what different kinds of designs I could figure out for the different sections.  

This one might be my favorite - 

Or maybe these wonky square spirals!

I found the perfect backing fabric in my stash!

There's just a little bit of quilting left to do, but the binding is ready to go.  I'm hoping for some slow stitching time today or tomorrow to finish it all up!

Sharing at:

Sandra's June DReaMi link-up

Oh Scrap at Quilting is more fun than Housework 

and Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

June in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

My sewing room has been happy with its infusion of turquoise sewing this month!

I especially love these Scrappy Sprouts blocks!

I think I need to remake the purple ones, though... They were the first ones I made, and I mixed the darker purples with the lighter, lavendar ones.  I think I would like them more in separate blocks - a dark one and a light one.

The one project I hadn't spent any time on this month was my Sawtooth Stars quilt.  So I pulled out that project box and sorted through to see if any of those pretty Blush and Bloom florals had some turquoise in them.

Sure enough - here are two I hadn't cut into yet.

So I made a couple 12 inch Sawtooth Stars - 

This quilt is slowly taking shape!

For more turquoise fun, check out the ScrapHappy Saturday link-up at SoScrappy!

I Like Thursday #88 - Green, Growing, and Yummy!

Happy Thursday, friends!  Hope you're enjoying the week!  I'm joining in with LeeAnna of Not Afraid of Color and other blogging friends to share my favorite things of the week.

Sunday I shared my "Green Project, " which I think of now as "Lime Sherbet" thanks to Mary in Peoria.  Thank you, Mary!

I wasn't quite happy with the dark green bottom strip, so after pulling it off, cutting it up, and messing around with it some, here's where it is now - 

I'm liking this better because the dark green strip is floating, like the rest of the pieces are, and it feels lighter that way.  This piece measures about 20 x 20, and will become a small wall-hanging when I finish quilting it.

I like my two container gardens - a tomato and a jalapeno pepper, and both are doing well.  

Mike has already harvested a couple of the peppers.  I think the tomatoes will take a little longer!

I like that we have lots of little apples on our tree this year!  Last year we didn't get any...

The tomatoes and apples are about the same size right now, but they will definitely have different (though both yummy) results happening in a few months time!

I like that my potted flowers are pretty and happy right now!

I like this picture Mike took of a couple of young nuthatches on our feeder the other day.  We have had a bunch of baby birds in the yard this last week - we know this by all the noise they make and the funny things they do.  

These little ones were just learning how to land on the feeder, and the one on the bottom just hung there for the longest time.  His next job was to learn how how to eat from it!

And one more "yummy" to share - have you eaten at Mod Pizza?!  We went there this week for the first time.

They have lots of choices - we each got our own mini pizza - and they charge by the size not by the ingredients.  It made a very tasty lunch!

Thanks for visiting today!

Daydreaming...

I've been continuing to make Happy Bird blocks, using 5 inch squares of fabric I have that feature different kinds of birds, with either dark or light sashing around them -

I have about half of the blocks made that I think I need.  I'm shooting for 48 - 9 inch blocks.  

Meanwhile... since these blocks are so easy to make, while working on them, I started daydreaming, and you know what that leads to, right?!

What if????

What if I took a few of these Kona greens, and the Kona Cream that was leftover from my Stash Statement project, and... started sewing?

My husband will often ask, "What are you building?" when he sees me working on something.  That usually makes me laugh, but this piece has felt to me like I really am building something.  See the progression - 

You can see I started to think about adding some pink to the mix.  The very bottom is the darkest green I have.

Maybe even another bit of pink..

Connecting the different parts together...

And then...

I'm not sure about this bottom chunk yet.  I like the spacing between the colored bits in the rest of this, so the bottom section seems almost too dark and heavy.  I'll have to think about this part some more!

I'll be back next week to show you how this finishes up - I hope!  :)

Hope you're enjoying some sewing time today!  

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!