Tiny Tuesday - Weathervane

Today I quickly did a paper pieced block called Weathervane. It is #92 from the Sentimental Stitches Midget blocks that are free right now here. The hardest part of this was picking out the colors and marking them onto the papers for piecing! Now that one kid is up from her nap and the other has picked up his room ( I really should take a picture so I can remember it was clean at one point today and I could walk in there without injuring myself stepping on something!) it is time to make some pecan sandies that Daddy can actually eat. A good thing to do while the rain is pouring down during a thunderstorm.

Slow Stitching Sunday.....

After a whole day of resting and generally feeling icky, I am so happy to be feeling better and in the mood to do something today. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until after I get home from a short day of work today. I had hoped to get a quilt quilted yesterday so I could be working on binding but since that did not happen I'll pull out my never used quilting hoop and put it on my fireworks quilt which is all basted for hand quilting. I see some straight stitches being added to this while relaxing on the back porch later this evening enjoying the quiet sounds of the evening. Hopefully the thunderstorms stay away, although I do love watching the lightning in the sky.

Head on over to Kathy Quilts and see what other hand quilting projects are being worked on today.

Scrappy Saturday in blue.....

I made a blue and white Lady of the Lake quilt for my parents about 3 years ago. I seem to have made way too many hst's in blue and white. I used most of the leftover hst's to make Aidan's twinkle star quilt that I finally finished quilting this year. It lives on his bed. Well, there are still bits of blue left in that container! I got it out and started making some blocks. This is what I have so far..... some 16 patches, logs, a star from broken dish blocks and a mix of two of them. I finally ran out of blue and white hst's in this box! I think these will become a little 'doll' quilt for Emmy - Either Buddy the dog or Strawberry the Cow needs a cuddle blanket for her to cover them up with at night. I'm thinking a thin white to surround them and maybe some blue blocks along the outside to make it a bit bigger. Each block should finish about 8 inches.

As I was looking at the big pile of blue scraps left in the box I was thinking - what can I do with these.
Then it hit me.... how about making some log cabin blocks! I do love log cabins and blue and white/cream quilts. I made a blue/yellow log cabin a few years ago during the rsc challenge here and a scrappy version last year here. I use the instructions from Mary's blog for her strips and strings log cabin. I should probably dig into the closet and grab the big bin of scraps and pull more blue and neutrals out so I can play with some very scrappy, unstructured log cabin blocks. I am making these blocks 12.5 inches and here are my first 8 blocks which need some trimming up and a couple more logs put onto them.  These are so fun to make - no thinking until you get close to the end when you need to measure.

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday morning and see what other blue projects are being worked on this weekend.

An order.......

I ordered a couple of battings from Connecting Threads late yesterday to hopefully get an antique feel for the graduation quilt this year. My warm and natural would just be too dense for her. Since I needed a little bit more to get free shipping at the $50 limit....... I picked up a set of FQ in this.

It is called Hope Chest Sampler and I think it will look so cute in a Kaleidoscope quilt with a light cream print with little purple swirls on it as the background. The last one went together so easily that I want to do another one! I also got a couple sets of little 5 inch squares to get over the limit. You can never have too much fabric..... right?

GC - Nameless star

This week's block is another star block -Nameless Star. I really like these and it was super easy to sew together in a quick 15 minute slot of time last night. I believe there are 10 more weeks to this sew along. Time to figure out how to use the letter card on my machine so I can stitch the block names onto the sashing strips.

This afternoon I got the rows all sewn together for the Kaleidoscope graduation quilt. The directions can be found at Don't Call me Betsy's blog.This just needs a good pressing and then a wash for the backing and I can pin it for quilting on my kid free Saturday afternoon. It is measuring 60x close to 80 so perfect for a twin size. I'm thinking loopy swirls or straight line stitching.... the loopy swirls might win since I remember I have put words into the quilting the last two years so she might be expecting that on hers too. This has sewn up really easily so I could see making another one in the future. 

Tiny Tuesday - Blazing Star

Today I decided to skip ahead two to number 91 - blazing star. This one is paper pieced and went together 'easy peasey' as my kids would say.

This was my breakfast on Sunday. Aidan cracked and scrambled the eggs. Daddy cooked them and the sausage. Aidan arranged the plates for everyone. Two blueberry eyes, watermelon ears, a sausage nose and eggs for a mouth. It was a very cute monster for breakfast.

Saturday in Blue....

This weekend I will relax with a little bit of hand work when I am not working a sale at the store.
This my ongoing orange peels...... which I guess will be blueberry peels this month.
These are the prepped peels so far and a shot of all my hand appliqued peels for the year. The bottom part of the picture is the Kaleidoscope quilt which is sewn into rows. One month and I need that one done and shipped.

Another project is to baste the Fireworks quilt for hand quilting. I think I will just do some straight stitching through the chains and then something with curves on the outside borders. I want a little chain in the white border. The outer border will be decided on later but I have a few ideas running around in my head. Do you use a special thread for basting your quilts? I had a bit of thread left on a spool that was causing my machine to have fits so I am using that end for basting this.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other blue projects are being worked on.