I Like Thursday #352

There's a fall feel in the air around here.  The afternoons are still warm, but evenings and mornings are very cool.   My garden is just about finished, too.  We've enjoyed those tomatoes I picked last week, and I made one last batch of pickles from the cucumbers.

This pot of flowers is still happy, though.  Maybe because I gave it a fertilizer boost a few weeks ago when we were going to be having some family over for a backyard picnic.

We took a little trip to the Celestial Seasonings Tea factory in Boulder the other day.  Our son had never been there before, and has been enjoying having a cup of tea every evening when he's working.  There's an interesting factory tour and then a shop, of course.  The tour costs $5 and then they give you that much off a purchase in the store.  We got $15 to spend in the store so came home with several boxes of their tea.

A week ago or so, I pulled this old quilt book off my shelf and started looking through it.  Its copyright is 1993!  The quilts are very country style, which isn't necessarily me, but I do love to make little quilts.  I wasn't even a quilter in 1993 - I think a friend must have passed this book on to me from her stash.

I got to this one ⬇️ and decided I wanted to make it!  I've been seeing framed 9 patches on different blogs, and like the look of them, so why not?!

I used some browns I had out from making the journal cover a couple weeks ago, plus a couple fall prints I bought recently (one of them has an aqua background color!), and a cream Grunge for the setting triangles.

And fussy cut a sunflower for the center!  

This measures 14.5 inches square right now, and there's a two inch border to add yet.

It's been a fun little project to sew on in between other things!

(A bunny was hanging out with me when I took this picture - can you see him there out in the grass?  I'm sure he was wondering what I was up to!)

What have you been up to this week?

Sharing at I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

To-Do Tuesday #196

Good morning, friends!  It's To-Do Tuesday and time to share my progress on last week's list and then see what's next.   Hard to believe another week has gone by already, and we've moved on to September as well.

Last week, I had just finished my ScrapDance Quadrille quilt, called Mermaids Dance and I shared it in a post on Friday, found here. 

Another item on my list was to finish up the placemats for my niece, and they are done!

Before I get these ready to send off, I'd like to make some coordinating cloth napkins, but haven't made it to the quilt shop to get some fat quarters for the napkins.  Hoping to get that done this week!

I also got started on a few aqua blocks for the September color of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - these are pieces and parts for the zipper blocks I'm making.

So, for the coming week...?

• Find two coordinating fat quarters and sew up the napkins to go with my niece's placemats, and get them mailed off.
• Continue working on the aqua RSC blocks.
• Get started on some Happy Blocks for the current Compassion Quilt block drive at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Cynthia is asking for popsicle colors!  I think these might work!

Hope you're having a good start to your week, and getting lots done!

Linking up with Carol at Quilt Schmilt for To-Do Tuesday.

Also Midweek Makers at Quiltfabrication.

More cross-stitching...

Apparently I have a new obsession, and I blame it all on Melisa, who has many lovely designs on her blog and offers them all for free!  I've stitched some of her embroidery designs, some of the small cross-stitched stamps, and now I'm on to the mini samplers.  I shared the Mini Sunflower Sampler a couple weeks ago. 

Back in February I stitched the Red Heart Mini Sampler.  I'm not sure I even ever shared this on the blog, and I definitely never fully finished it.  I think I was stitching this during my cataract surgery weeks, so it was actually quite challenging!  (But I did it!)  

And this week I started the Mini Squirrel Sampler.  It's got a bit of a fall feel to it, and I love watching the squirrels in our yard - they're so entertaining!

 

I'm really enjoying stitching these mini samplers!  I might need one for every season...

I bet you know what I'll be working on for Slow Sunday Stitching today!  Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

 

Mermaids Dance

I have a finish to share to end August and begin September.  It's my version of ScrapDance Quadrille, the 2022 mystery designed by Carole at From My Carolina Home.  I started with a fat quarter bundle of ocean-themed prints that I bought at a fun quilt shop that I visited on Cape Cod in May of 2022.  We made lots of HSTs, and they turned into two pretty blocks.

I made four blocks plus added two borders, and ended up with a 33.5 inch square tabletopper that I'm calling "Mermaids Dance!"  

I had one fat quarter that didn't make it into the quilt top, so I used it for the back.  Loving a pieced back, I brought the fat quarter up to size with scraps of Sprinkles.

I bought a fun batik for the binding from my LQS because I couldn't come up with anything in my stash that seemed quite right.  I knew this would just look like swirls of blue-green and white in the binding, but I couldn't resist it!

This is going in my aqua stash for the September Rainbow Scrap Challenge color!

I made a special label for this one, so you could see the mermaid print.

Mermaids Dance is perfect for the outside table on our back porch.  

I'm hoping to take Mermaids Dance along to visit the ocean when we head to the Oregon Coast in a couple weeks.  Maybe I'll get a couple of fun photos of it there!

Meanwhile, I'll be sharing my finish with several link-ups this weekend, including:

Favorite Finish Monthly Link-up at Meadow Mist Designs 

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts 

ScrapHappy Saturday at SoScrappy and

Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

I Like Thursday #351

Finally, I have a basket of tomatoes to show!  They took long enough, lol!  I was talking to one of the ladies who lives at my mom's place who evidently used to be quite a gardener, and she was telling me that everyone says the tomatoes have been slow to ripen here this year.

Aren't they pretty?!

Over the weekend we went to one of our favorite trail areas here and went for a hike.  This one cuts through the golf course, so the views are fun for both golfers and hikers!

Younger son wanted to try making yeast bread in his air fryer, and it turned out very nicely!  He had never made bread before, but with just a few tips from mom, he did really well.  We hadn't had any homemade bread in a long time, and it was delicious.  Pretty amazing that it can be baked in the air fryer!

We've been having some storms late in the day recently, and I caught this double rainbow the other day.

Beautiful!

Tuesday I put the last stitches in "Needle Love."  I enjoyed stitching this one!   I need to look and see what I have to make a border for it, and then a special place to hang it, too.

It's I Like Thursday over at Not Afraid of Color!

Head over there and check out all the positive posts.

To-Do Tuesday #195

Good morning, friends!  It's To-Do Tuesday and time to share my progress on last week's list and then see what's next.   I shared last week that I had been distracted by a squirrel project, and that turned out to be a good thing because once I got that out of my system, I made progress on several other things as well!

The "Drop Everything and Make It" project was a journal cover made with a quilt-as-you-go technique using a piece of embroidery I finished earlier this year.  Read more about it here.

Finishing that little project must have given me a burst of energy because I also finished ScrapDance Quadrille - quilting, binding, and all!

This one deserves its own post, so I'll put that on this week's list - 

take photos and write it up.

The other two small projects made progress, too - placemats for my niece are quilted and need binding and the cradle quilt for Carole's donation drive is a top.

It's been an enjoyable and productive week in my sewing nook!

So... on the list for next week:

• Photograph and write a post for ScrapDance Quadrille.
• Get binding made and sewn on to the placemats.
• Find a backing for the little cradle quilt and work on quilting it.
• Get started on aqua blocks for September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color.

I think those items will keep me busy!  Linking up with Carol at Quilt Schmilt for To-Do Tuesday.  And at Quiltfabrication for Midweek Makers!  

QAYG Journal Cover

Ever since I stitched this cozy looking little chair design from Kathy Schmitz back in February I've been trying to decide how to finish it.

Cozy Up

I have also - for a long time - wanted to try making a quilted journal cover.   After finding a tutorial for one done with the quilt-as-you-go technique, I took off on a squirrel project and did exactly that - made a quilt-as-you-go journal cover featuring that cozy reading chair on the front!   The tutorial I used is found here at Scrap Fabric Love.

The tutorial has you sew scraps onto a piece of batting cut 2 inches larger than the height and width of your journal, and mine measured 16 inches (edge of front cover to edge of back cover) by 9 and 5/8 inches.   One learning experience part of this project was that by making the qayg panel two inches larger than the the journal measurement, and then trimming it to only one inch larger, I lost quite a bit of the brown dot print I sewed along the outer edge of the panel.

That little bit of brown with white dots that you can see along the back edge is all that's left of the 2 inch strips that I started with!   When I make another journal cover, I plan to organize my quilt-as-you-go strips a little differently.

I am definitely happy, though, with how the embroidered piece is featured on the front of the journal cover!

The inside flaps that hold the cover in place are a great place to stash important papers.

The whole project only took a couple hours - one to make the qayg panel and the other to add the lining and cover flaps.  It's not much different than making a tote bag, really - you just don't sew the sides up!  I'll definitely make more of these, and I think they would make fun gifts, too!

After I got that squirrel project out of my system, I was able to get back to one of my longer term projects - finishing up Scrap Dance Quadrille.  Today's slow stitching will be hand sewing the binding down.  My favorite slow stitching to do!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Sharing at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching and at 

Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!