Little Baskets Finished

Years ago, I briefly flirted with basket making as a hobby, and have enjoyed having the ones I did make around the house to use for various purposes.

When I purchased Gail Pan's Patchwork Loves Embroidery a couple months ago, and saw that she had little baskets to stitch up, I knew they would have to be on my list to make!

This week I finished up my mini quilt of little baskets and am excited to share it today!  It measures about 21.5 x 24.5 inches.

The alternate blocks, sashing, border, and binding are all from three fat quarters of a line of fabric called Provencal by American Jane for Moda.  These sweet flowery prints seemed perfect to go with my embroidered baskets!

The backing is birds' nests, leftover from the bird quilt I made my husband earlier this year.  Birds' nests are a kind of basket, aren't they?! :)

I quilted Little Baskets in an uneven grid following the seam lines.

I really like the design this made!

Little Baskets will most likely hang somewhere in my house eventually, but isn't it fun hanging in the apple tree?!

Meanwhile, I had to pull out another basket I made years ago, and fill it with some rolled up quilts.

Linking up today with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! and

Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Pulling out the Purple!

This was a good week to dig out all the purples I had and do a little thinking about what kinds of blocks I need for the month of September.

This photo doesn't really do all the color justice - in real life there is everything from an almost brown purple to a pale lavendar, and every shade in between!

Then, looking at the various blocks I've been making, I saw that I definitely need another purple Tiny Rails block.

This one was made during our purple month in 2018.

I've also been making these color gradient blocks this year, and need a purple one.  Here's one of the blue blocks I made earlier for an example.  These use 2.5 inch squares.

Looking at the purples I have, I wondered if I could pull off a gradient block in purple.  Maybe so!

And then, of course, I need a purple string block, so I sewed one up on Thursday.

So now there are nine of them on my design wall, but this is definitely not the final layout!

I'm auditioning these neutral string blocks as a border for this colorful quilt - 

I think this is going to work!

And late yesterday afternoon, I got a teeny tiny start on a teeny tiny Storm at Sea block.

Thank you, Angela, for designing this block for us!

Linking up at Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and looking forward to seeing lots of pretty purple over there!

I Like Thursday #150 - Wowie!

Good morning, and Happy Thursday, friends!  I have a few things to give a "Wow!" to this week!

Pretty sunrise

This temperature...

That's not a happy wow!  :)

There I was last week, crowing over temps in the 70s.  

The atmosphere said, "I'll show her!"

I'm really not complaining - so many people have been affected by Hurricane Dorian, and I never have to worry about events like that.

These flowers!

So bright and pretty, even into September.

New fabric!  

A selection of Christmas-y Grunge Stars to make the Christmas in July quilt from Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict - I finally have the right ruler and the fabric I wanted!  Maybe I'll make Christmas in July of 2020... :)

And a lovely package of winnings from Michele, our friend at 3 Poodles and a Nana, who also blogs at Pennsylvania Piecemaker.  Over at her other blog, Michelle is holding a year-long celebration of Women's Suffrage, and I happened to win her recent giveaway.  Thank you, Michele!

Lovely blue batiks, buttons, notecards, and a neat needle carrier!  

Those batiks will be for something really special!

(If you aren't following Pennsylvania Piecemaker, you should!  Lots of fascinating info on women's lives and history in the early 1900s to take in over there!)

And not necessarily a "Wow!" but how about a "I sure enjoy this!" A new Gail Pan embroidery design that I've been working on this week.

And finally, this - 

You are the "Wow!"

Thanks for visiting and reading my 150th "I Like Thursday" post!

Check out the other Thursday posts at Not Afraid of Color.

To-Do Tuesday #4 - Hijacked by a Squirrel!

Okay, it was just a little squirrel, but I was still distracted by it!  And I have to blame it on Chris at ChrisKnitsSews and this post about her Sunflower Tablerunner.

So... I just *had to* cut up a few scraps,

sew them together like this,

and finish it off with a green border, some quilting, and binding!

This measures about 11 inches square.

All because I *needed* something exactly like this for the wall of minis in my sewing room!

Yep, I needed that one!

Meanwhile, I did get some other things accomplished from last week's list.

1. Quilting is still in progress for the Basket Quilt.

2.  Tiny Tuesday blocks all done for August! ✔

3/4.  Handwork projects for slow stitching: I finished my EPP tablerunner! ✔  More about that in my last post.

5.  Helping out a friend who had lots of family in town for a funeral.  ✔  It is always a good feeling to have done that!

So for this week - 

1.  Really finish the Basket Quilt, lol!

2.  Get started playing in the purple scraps - the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for September is purple.  

• Sew up the Tiny Tuesday block whenever Angela posts one.  (Angela and family are in the midst of hurricane evacuation, so we'll all just be patient this week, and have positive thoughts for their safety!)
• Make some purple string blocks similar to the light blue ones I made last week.

3/4. Hand stitching projects - work on blue and white hand-pieced blocks or trace more embroidery designs.

5.  Get the house ready to host my Book Club!  That means fire up Mr. Roomba and put him to work.  

Plus, figure out a treat to serve to my book club friends, and (oh yeah) *Read the book!*

Hope everyone enjoyed the Labor Day holiday and is having a good start to your week!  I'm linking up with Roseanne at Home Sewn by Us for To-Do Tuesday.

And with Sandra at mmmquilts because I just saw that her DrEAMi link up is still open!

An EPP Finish

Just yesterday I finished up a long-term English Paper Piecing project that I think I must have started back in 2017!

This is the first picture I could find of the hexies from when I originally began making them - July of 2017.

They are made from a mini charm pack of Persimmon by Basic Grey.

Over time they turned into diamond shapes - 

and the diamonds were connected with a light blue Kona solid.

I added one row of a neutral Grunge Dots as a final border.

In recent months I've been hand quilting this tablerunner - 

To finish the edges, I decided to trim off the neutral hexies to create a straight edge.

I folded over the edge of the backing to create the binding - and stitched that down on Friday night.

After a quick hand wash, and run through the dryer, it's finished!

This has been a great learning experience, and I still have lots more to learn about this kind of hand stitching!  I will definitely try another EPP project - it's been a great take along project, as well as perfect for evening sewing time while watching TV.

For now, I'm pleased to have this little project completed - and completely done by hand!

Sharing at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap, and 

Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

The End of August

I think I say this every month lately - but where did August go?  Even though September has always been a favorite month of mine, I'm still not quite ready for it this year.

The color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge has been light blue, and I've really enjoyed my time with the light blue scraps!  This week, I finished up the last light blue Tiny Tuesday block, an hourglass block.  Angela generously gave us tutorials for three different sizes, and I chose the middle size.

I had fun laying all my blocks out on the design wall yesterday.  That's a fun rainbow!

I also worked on my string blocks this week.  I had been thinking I needed an alternate block for this quilt that was a bit different, so this month I made each block half blue and half neutral.

They could be sewn together like this -

Or this!

Here's what I chose - 

I think I'll make the purple one this same way.

Maybe some all neutral blocks will be made, too!

Hope you've had a great week with your light blue scraps!  

Sharing at Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.

I Like Thursday #149 - garden, sewing, and a book

Good morning, friends!  Thanks for visiting my "I Like Thursday" post, and be sure to visit all the other bloggers who link up their positive posts with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color every Thursday morning.

The other day I liked this temperature on our weather station at about noonish.

A couple days before, at about the same time, it was reading 100 degrees, so this change in the temperature was much appreciated!

I like pulling carrots out of my garden to have with dinner!

Makes me feel like at least I can grow *something.* 😍

But then, look what I found growing!

Finally, some peppers, and a few cherry tomatoes, too.

I like sewing string blocks.

I've been making these every month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

This month I decided to try an alternate block with only half being the light blue, and the other half sewn with neutrals.

I like this!

More about these blocks in my RSC Saturday post.

This week I've been reading a book from the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr.  Thanks to Karen at Karen Quilts, etc, for recommending this series earlier this year.  

I've been making my way through the series little by little, downloading the ebooks from my library whenever the next one is available.

I've liked these books because, although they are romances, they also have good storylines about how the characters take care of their families and solve problems in their community.  Very enjoyable reads!

Have a great Thursday, friends!