Saturday in purple

 Starting off with the dog curled up on the quilt I am unpicking the machine quilting in the middle and replacing with hand quilting of each block. Curled up with Lambie his stuffed animal from Easter.

I did get the second kite block completed and there were some 1.5 inch left on the backing so I cut it to size and made a couple of these little blocks as leaders and enders.

Then I found the basket of purple and started with some random sewing for some crumb blocks.

The finish this week was of the Garden Path quilt. I made the majority of the blocks last year with this challenge. It finished at 48x60.

Linking up with the RSC.

The dog got a walk with Em and Greg and I. Greg and I checked out the floor plan of a house being built near us - with an in-law suite. Time for a shower before taking Emily to horses. I think I am taking a break from riding until fall when it gets cooler.

2022 Finishes

 I got a very slow start this year as I was dragging my feet on working on the memory quilt for Olivia. I went looking through my quilt album on Facebook and realized I had not been placing everything where it should be! A few moves and some looking through the blog to find those finished quilts that were missing.  Let's take a look and see how I did, shall we?

Hand pieced Hexagon Quilt as you go front. 60x80.

The back of the Hexagon Quilt.

Olivia's memory quilt. Queen size.

Scrappy Crumb quilt.

Sweet Confetti (2021 RSC blocks I think)

Crossed Canoe 2022 RSC blocks... finished the same year and everything!!!

Row House Sew along with Accuquilt.

Endless Diamond. Hand pieced and Hand quilted.

RSC Squares from 2021. This one lives up in Vermont now.

Scrappy Irish Chain was a leader and ender of 2 inch squares years ago. Bear has claimed this quilt. Well, all quilts really!

I dissected an attempted tumbler flag into these two runners.

A baby quilt from a sew along years ago.

Baby Masala that still needs to get shipped off to my great niece. (bad auntie!)

A snowman from the table scrap challenge. 

The Ravelry UFO Challenge has been a big help in getting some old UFO's finished off. I am itching to start some new things in 2023 or grab some kits I have that have been hanging around. 

I liked the idea of doing one Hexagon a day in 2021 and would like to do something one a day in 2023 but have yet to decide on anything. Maybe monthly and change things up a bit? I have been paging through quilt books and magazines and there are plenty of quilts I would love to make. Paring things down is the problem. 

** Edited and linking up with the RSC since quite a few of these finishes are rainbow challenge quilts.

Wednesday check in....

 The kids are back in school! If you heard a big cheer this morning, it might have been me dropping them off to school! They both indicated that just a few of their teachers wore masks, the principal did (as they said he always has his on! Smart man!). Not many kids did- about what it was in December. As the Florida government passed a law in November not allowing masks mandates, vaccine mandates, and allowing parents to opt out of quarantining and isolation.... it should be an interesting month.

I opted out of a GS leader meeting tonight as I know the only ones wearing a mask would be me and Jenny, another leader who lost a parent to a few girls in her troop in October to COVID. I am planning to meet with my troop for our normal Monday night meetings,  but we meet at a church where masking is required and the girls and parents respect that. There are only 6 now so I can spread them out well too.

Lets see - meals for the week since I know I struggle with coming up with things I figured others do as well! Monday it was cool (60 degrees and lovely weather from the 85 on Sunday!). I decided it was a great night for meatloaf and baked potato with green beans. I use the Betty Crocker cookbook for my meatloaf - and use about 3-4 pieces of white bread instead of bread crumbs because that is what my Mom did!. We add mozzarella to half the loaf in the middle (emily does not like the cheese in there and she helped make it) and ketchup on top. Tuesday - I had ground pork to use since I forgot to separate it before I froze it and there was 24 ounces in the package. I had half a cabbage in the fridge and some carrot and scallion so I made Egg Roll in a Bowl on Tuesday night. Ms. Emily made some rice in the quick cooker (Pampered chef version of insta pot) and added some soy sauce and an egg to make her version of Japanese Steak House rice.  Wednesday.... it was lemon chicken with thyme over rice with green peas. I believe if I remember to get mushrooms tomorrow we will do beef stroganoff on Thursday with a green salad and egg noodles. Friday - Papa Johns Pizza (supporting the local economy!). I have been doing salads for lunch with cucumber, roma tomato, olives, hard boiled egg and a home made vinegrette. Breakfast has been oatmeal with craisins and a little brown sugar. 

As for sewing.... I have been stitching away at hexagons and have all the black ones into sets of 4. I'll prep the needed extra hexagons to finish up the color sets tomorrow and then will begin putting the sets of 4 into sets of 8. 

I have tomorrow off so I will plan to do a little prep work on the memory quilt and sew the last 2 blocks needed for the RSC21 Squares quilt. I was able to find and cut out the parts needed for the four patches and all the other squares for a maroon and a red block.  I also pulled out the little basket of red scraps and cut out 20 'wings' for a red butterfly block. I should be able to  machine stitch that tomorrow so I can hand baste it in the car line tomorrow.

I may take the 2 crumb blocks in red and stitch them together to make a table placemat size rectangle. I am picturing a nice white snowman on one side of the placemat. He might need a jaunty top hat... we will see what happens.

RSC Saturday in multi colors....

I figured I'd better find something this month to join in on the RSC Challenge. I made the mistake  was checking out blogs and stumbled upon the free patterns at quiltville.com a la Bonnie Hunter. I found this crayon box quilt... and just had to make a few blocks on Friday afternoon .....

While digging in the box for 2.5 inch strips I found these 6.5 inch crumb blocks and decided to sew sets of 4 together. I seem to have no green or orange crumbs.... I might need to remedy that. I certainly have the scraps hanging around to make some!

Then.. my quiet time in the sewing room was over as the girl decided she wanted to work on her quilt.  Something about banging her head on a board where Dad is expanding the deck off the pool. She is fine.  

A few of her hst blocks got sewn together and then I had to supervise the start of dinner. The kids picked the meal - kielbasa, mashed potato, corn, cucumber salad and pears... but seems I am out of pears so they are going with the jar of mixed fruit. I'll just have a few bites before I head out for my cooking club tonight. 

Linking up Saturday morning with the RSC Challenge.  Oh, if you are interested I finally got the cat and mouse quilt to a top stage this week. You can see that here.

Another Saturday in Black.....

I had some partially made crumb blocks so I just added a little bit to them to make four - 6 inch squares to add to the collection of colors. I missed a few months so I need to make a few more.... or I'll just wait until next year and get them made when the colors come up again!

I also got the checkerboard quilt completed this week. I decided Mom was right and just left it and added a colorful binding. This was easy straight stitching through the squares and then I did a little curve in the sashing and cornerstones. This one is now a completed quilt from the RSC challenge last year. Sorry for the bad picture - it is around 7AM since I got the binding finished off late last night. It just needs a wash and it will be ready to go.

Now to start playing with all the birds in the air blocks from last year!

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other projects are being worked on to use up the black scraps this month.

Scrappy Saturday in red

This week I made a few crumb blocks with my reds. They are about 6 inches each right now. I think I may sash them with white into groups of 4 to make a bigger block. I need to go back and make some orange and green ones to add to the rainbow of colors.

I got all 12 of the red 9 patches done and now am starting to work on the apples. This is the first two that I managed to get done on Friday. I'll decide about adding a little leaf in there once they are done. I may just add a leaf or two on a few of the apples. Two down and eleven to go! I really like how this is starting to look.

Next week I'll have to make my snails trail blocks. Thank goodness there are five weeks of red to play with this month. Who knows, maybe I'll have the apples done and sewn together with the 9 patches!

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other red projects are in the works this week.

Scrap Happy Saturday in Yellow

After dropping the kids to Grandma this morning, I got a pedicure and then ran some errands and finally made it home around 1PM. That allowed me a very quick lunch and then it was off to the sewing room for me.

First I pulled from the little pile of yellow and made these four crumb blocks. Since I had the blue pile out still I also made four blue ones. I seem to have issues with my pink blocks disappearing since there are only three in the bin with the others. I need to go back and make some orange and green ones to catch up. Here are all the crumb blocks so far.

I have been busy working through the blue and cream scraps from last month and have 28 of these wonky log cabin blocks. Each will finish at 12 inches. I have 8 more started for a 6x6 set..... but I'm not sure that will be big enough. I may have to make a few more.

Option one layout (I really like this one)

Option two layout. I've done this layout before in blue and yellow.

Time will tell as to how this one ends up - size and setting. I'm shooting for a full size - so 80x80 would be great. I hope to get it done and quilted with a machine binding to one side by the end of the month. I don't know if it will happen or not but that is my hope. I am also plugging away on another scrappy quilt - same hope for that one - to get completed and quilted and binding attached to the top. I'm trying to give myself something to do in the evenings in Vermont AND keep warm! It does get chilly at the camp in the evenings - down anywhere from the 50's to the 60's. They of course will stay up there when completed so no shipping back to Florida. I'm hoping to get the other one to a top form by tomorrow night. It is the bricks and stepping stone pattern from Quiltville.com in homespun, checks and solids with a cream/black four patch. I just need about 14 more four patches and then I can sew the matchsticks together.
Now I'm off to change and head over towards The Villages to pick up a gift card for my FIL and then meet G for dinner out after he finishes closing the store. Then I get to go pick up the kids from Grandma's house..... oh, I need to grab their jammies so they are ready for bed when they get home.

Head on over to SoScarappy and see what other yellow projects are being worked on today for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Finishing off Purple in the RSC challenge.

Since it is the last day of February I decided to do a little purple sewing. I had enough of these purple 4 patches to make a 64 square block.... and there was enough yellow to make one of those too. I went back and cut out a few more of my other colors so I will be able to make some more of these little guys next week.

Then I got down to some scraps and made a few crumb blocks. I need to go back and make another pink one from last month. I am thinking I might use a bright white 1.5 inch strip and hook these together.... but I'll wait a few months and see if something else pops into my head for setting these guys together.

After this..... I am hoping Angela's 'clue' about orange means that is the color for March.... cause I started some prep work and sewing with Orange today too! That bunch will wait for Saturday's post.

Last Saturday in pink....

Well, after not feeling great yesterday (I got the bad sore throat and feeling icky that my kids had last week) I am well enough to play in the sewing room today. I have been working on my Easy Street mystery since Andrea issued me a challenge to get it done. I have 2 more b blocks to sew and then all the A blocks need to get sewn. Unfortunately, I told the boy I would quilt his quilt this weekend so this is on my living room floor and needs to get ironed and pinned for quilting.

 I hope to quilt it tomorrow during Em's nap. Daddy is taking the boy to a birthday party during that time. I should be able to get it done in a couple of hours.

Since it is the end of the month, I get to show my orange peel blocks! They are so fun to do and now that the light bulb went on and I started using some glue to hold them in place it is working much better. These are just using standard needle turn applique. I have been marking around the template with the chalk pencils and then fold the square in half and position on the line. I hope to do about 30 a month (lots more in July when I will be away for 3 weeks without a machine!) and that should give me a decent size since these little guys finish at 3 inches. I think I have 8 more in the hand work bag and those will be finished up over the next few days.

For all my pink this month - I got my pink scrappy X quilt completed that I started a couple of years ago with this challenge. The pattern is from Bonnie Hunter but I did an oops when putting it together and they did not form the X. Oh well, it is still cute.

I also made some snails trail blocks.

and some crumbs.

The reason I get to sew today is that today is Double Kid Saturday at Grandma's house. She will tire them out moving all this mulch into her yard. BIG Thanks to my MIL for taking the kids every Saturday so G or I get some hours to ourselves.

My lunch break is over - back to the sewing room. Linking up to SoScrappy today. Head on over and see what others are working on in pink.