Slow stitching Sunday

Yesterday while Emily was riding I managed to prep a bunch of the orange hexagons with their pins for stitching. These got stitched last night and I just need to add a quilting stitch around each side before moving onto the next stack that are prepped and ready to stitch.

I'll be stitching the binding onto the nine patch quilt today. This one is my OMG for September so I have a few days left to get this one completed.

Linking up with the other slow stitchers over at Kathy's quilts.

 

2020 Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I'm a week late but I am joining the RSC again this year!
I was busy playing with green scraps last week but didn't link up. I was a wee bit busy (and tired) last Saturday as I was with 7 of the 9 girls in my girl scout troop for a 24 hour sleep in at the church hall where we meet. Friday 3PM to Saturday 3PM.

I did manage to finish off another 6 green and cream blocks to go with the 6 I had already made. This is a small top at 36x48. I hope to machine quilt this one this weekend.

While I had the bright scraps out.... I made a 16 patch block as those will be one of my weekly blocks to do this year.

The 16 patches are so versatile.... I am not sure if it will become a star quilt like these...

or maybe another version of a cube quilt this year?

We will see how things are looking in November! Until then I'll just make some 16 patches with 2.5 inch blocks.

Another week will be these nine patches with a grey middle. I'm using 2 inch scraps for this one. I was thinking of making 14 each month for a strip of color. Each block finishes at 4.5 inches so 10 months and 14 blocks each month would give me a 45x63 inch throw quilt.

I only have a few more scraps of the brights which are being sewn into a crumb block on the machine right now. You'll notice I had to be a little creative there on a few of these but it is using up those scraps!

Linking up with the RSC Challenge.

RSC in red.... week 2

Well, it doesn't seem like much but progress has been made with the red hexagon flowers. I have ten all completed - they are appliquéd down on to the black background. I need to cut some more squares out to finish off the rest this week. I have seven to go.

I also cut out some 2 inch squares to make 9 patches. Why I made sure there were FIVE in each pile.... for a nine patch..... I am not quite sure! I had to grab a few more strips from the bin and cut a few more for each of them. Little nines.... not sure what they will become... maybe set with white and black like Angela, little stars.... I'll just make some each month and see what they decide to become.

Linking up with the RSC Challenge.

Hubby's birthday was Friday. He took the day off work and relaxed. We went out to Yamata's for dinner with the kids then headed over to where the scoop shop is to see what older model cars were out for their monthly meet.

Aidan loves cars..... and Emily was enjoying seeing the clean engines and the different models. This one arrived right before we left and the couple said the kids could sit in the car! It had a rumble seat!

Today... Emily had a 1 hour lesson with a bunch of the other kids in the show next Saturday. She wants to work with them on what they will need to do. They were practicing circles with the horses on Tuesday so I assume that is one of the tasks.

The garden got weeded, tilled and parts replanted. I pulled the radishes (yummy) and replanted for you Mom. The scallions are up... we'll throw a few more in of those as well. Now if I remember to water them we might have progress this time with the beans, peas and beets. The swiss chard is little but hopefully regular watering will help it along. Aidan has squash and peppers planted as well. I need to grab some herbs and lettuce to add to the mix too.

Wednesday.... almost done!

I got this little nine patch pinned and walking foot quilted this morning. The binding was found, made and attached to the front. Now to finish putting that on by hand......
Sorry about the bad photo - my phone is not cooperating right now so this is from the computer.

A baby girl quilt from scraps.....

Well, its the last day of September and I have not done anything with the UFO project I had hoped to finish off. Instead.... I had these nine patches in pink sitting in a pile with some 6.5 inch cream squares. The last two days I worked on getting them into rows and then sewed the rows together yesterday. I also pulled a butterfly pink print to add as a border. This little top is 36 or 37 inches square and should be pretty easy to finish off. I have a need for a pink baby quilt next month and I think this will be perfect. I think it will be easy walking foot quilting in the nine patches and might get some hand quilted hearts in the open squares and machine quilted hearts in the border. 

Off to work for me today and the kids have a half day of school so Grandma is picking up and entertaining them this afternoon. Maybe I can get a few stitches in today at work? Either way we are cooking lunch on the big green egg. I have some chicken that needs to get cooked and will bring salad things to go with it. Have a great day.

Progress report....

All the hugs and kisses blocks were trimmed and laid out. Good thing I was paying attention and was thinking having the O's on the outer corners seemed wrong. Can you figure it out?

The bottom square of an X was framed in light instead of a color. I ripped it out and framed it with orange and all is right with the world now. These are ready to sew together before anyone comes home and messes it up!

I also got 12 of the nine patch pink blocks completed. I think these will work into a cute little baby girl quilt. I need to figure out size and then what I will do with them. Hopefully Erin will like what I come up with.

After trimming all those X and O's - I cut 148 corner triangles for the Kaleidoscope graduation quilt. I'll try and play with that tomorrow and come up with a layout so I can start sewing that one together next week. The aqua fabric is the 'solid' or background fabric.

Ok - back to the sewing room for me but I'm making great progress in there. Hopefully the going out to dinner will happen around here or Grandma's house so I don't have to drive to The Villages. It would take a good 30-45 minutes out of my sewing time =) Now to get those X and O blocks all sewn together......

Pretty in Pink....

I swapped work days with Greg so I could have some quality me time in the sewing room today to get some things moved forward and done. So far it has been almost two hours of pure fun!

I have to thank Moneik for sending me some wonderful pink fabrics to play with this month.

They have been put right to use today to make some churn dash blocks. I needed 6 of them for my 12 this month but was so cutting happy I have 7!

I guess it can go in the sampler. I have five blocks for the RSC Sampler completed in pink and it looks like there will be one more released sometime this week to finish up the pinks.

I also cut some 2.5 inch squares and made a 16 patch block...which will turn into a star block like last year. I loved how it came out and since it was gifted to Papa Andy I think I'll make another one this year. I also did a couple of nine patches using 2.5 inch strips.  I also have plans to squeeze one more new block in over the next few hours and a few more of the nine patches.

I'd love to have all my Kaleidoscope quilt cut out to play with on the floor to figure out how I want it to look for tomorrow. I need to cut 120 or 148 of my 45 degree angle triangles so I can do that. I have all the other shapes cut out and ready to play.

The plans are also to trim up all the Hugs and Kisses blocks and start putting that together. I think  I have enough peels for the border I am thinking of, so hopefully I'll have most of that together later tonight too. I'm thinking instead of cooking dinner (much needed sewing time) I'll head out to dinner with hubby tonight before picking up the kids from Grandma. Don't worry Mom - I'll have my sewing room turned into a guest room for March 3rd when you arrive!

Head on over to check out all the other scrappy pink projects being linked up today for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Saturday in green.....

It has been a week of no sewing for me but the good news is the sewing machine has been cleaned and the tension fixed. It is home and just waiting for me to get to work on sewing something.

I did get a few more of the grape peels done this month but I have a few more in the hand work bag to do. It's a good thing I have a few more days left in the month.

 That green nine patch and hourglass quilt got quilted and bound. I'm calling it a win. I'll finish the last side of the binding tonight.

This week my sister and my niece are down visiting. We met them at Sea World on Wednesday and a good time was had by all. Here is a picture of one of the turtles and a manatee.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other green projects have been worked on this month.

Slow Stitching Sunday....

After a short but busy day at work today I got to play with my Grammy's machine and put the binding onto my nine patch quilt. My 'normal' machine will be dropped off for service on Tuesday morning. I am unable to fix the tension on it and it could use a good cleaning anyway. Until then, I plan to do some hand work attaching this binding and a label onto this quilt.

Head on over to Kathy Quilts and see what other handwork is going on during this slow down Sunday.

Third Saturday in Green....

I finally got around to prepping some of my green grape peels this month. I had done about 6 of them earlier this year so have a head start on these.  I glued the first set down while waiting in the car line for Aidan on Friday and should have all of them appliqued down by next Saturday. They should piece up quickly in the evenings this next week while my sister and niece are down for a visit. I think I still need to cut out about 4 for a solid 20 peels this month.

I also made my 16 patch green square to go with my purple and orange one. I think I need to go back and make a pink one or the kids took it and it is somewhere in the play room waiting to be found.

As for quilting my green quilt..... it did not happen last Saturday. I did have that 'ah ha' moment while away earlier this week. I never changed the top thread and remembered I had King Tut in there and he always gives me trouble with quilting. I changed that to Masterpiece on Friday and was able to get this quilted up on Friday afternoon.

I still need to attach the binding but it was giving me fits again. I guess I will drop it off for cleaning in the next week. I just did straight line stitching with the walking foot in the nine patches.

I used the walking foot to make a gentle curve in the cream border.

Then I switched to my open toe foot and free motion quilted some stars and loops in the outer green border. That was practice for the QOV quilt I'll be quilting up next... when the machine comes back. Hopefully I can clean up the machine again later on Friday and attach the binding and label so I have some hand work to relax with on Sunday evening. I am working this weekend and with a big sale, it should be very busy during the day.

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday and see what others are working on in green this week.

Saturday in green.

This week I was able to make my two snails trail blocks in green. I love how these blocks are coming out so far. I went with an olive green one and a dark green this week. There are so many shades of green it was a tough choice. Lime really wanted to play too but I had more of these in scraps.

 All of my snails so far this year - pink, purple, orange and green.

I also got another green and black 64 patch block made this week.

Today after dropping the kids off to Grandma I am going to be busy quilting that 9 patch and hourglass quilt! I have the brown binding all set to go on after it is quilted. After that is done... I'll either go through the box of scraps and pull greens out so I can prep my grape peels for this month or prep the backing and pin the Quilt of Valor quilt so I can try and get that one quilted today too. I decided stars and loops for that one. If the flowers and loops work well on the 9 patch I'll try and get this one quilted today too. I just love the border fabric I found for this. Isn't it great? I am using that blue fireworks fabric for the backing and binding too. I just love 50% off coupons from Joanns Fabrics. It was not the fabrics I had in mind when I went shopping but I think it was an even better choice than what I was thinking originally. I love when that happens.

Head on over to SoScrappy's blog and see what other green projects are being worked on today. 

Prep Work.....

I have a backing made for the nine patch and hourglass quilt and the top and back are rolled onto the boards all set to get pinned. I plan to quilt this one up on Saturday. I just need to make the binding.

VtQuilter - Nine patch and Hourglass scrappy quilt.

I've also put this RWB quilt together up to the middle border. I think it needs one more border in blue. I have a solid blue in my stash but it keeps telling me it wants blue with white stars. I'll have to make a trip to the store to pick some up and a backing for this one. I'll try and get the same fabric I used to back Aidan's - his flag fabric. Any ideas on quilting this one? It is for a man so I can't do anything girly. I'm thinking of hand quilting stars in the 8 big white spots but other than that I am not sure how to machine quilt this one. It is 42x59 right now and I'll add a 5 inch blue border to make it a little bigger. Modeling in this picture is Buddy the dog and Strawberry the Cow. There will be another post on them later this week.

VtQuilter - Firecracker quilt for Matt

Then the kids woke up. Not bad for 1.5 hours of play time in my sewing room on Wednesday afternoon. I think we'll head to the farm stand and get some fresh corn on the cob for dinner.

Saturday in Orange....

This week was about finishing up a few things. I have a few UFO's on my sidebar that I took out and examined. It seems I needed 6 more blocks for two of them before I could start putting them together.

First, I made a 16 patch block to go with the purple one from last month. I  also made a few nine patches that will end up in this UFO.

Then I checked my birds in the air blocks from last year's RSC and made 6 more blocks. Two orange, two blue and two green.

They will end up at some point as a top with these blocks.

I also got some time on Wednesday and was able to finish off my Halloween wall hanging into a top this week. Hopefully this will get quilted and bound sometime before October.



Today is my 'kid free' day so I'll drop them to Grandma for the day and then head to my aunt's house for a paternal family reunion of my Dad's siblings. Then it will be off to meet the hubby for a date night dinner after he is done working. I guess I'll have to pick up one kid after that and the other will be having a sleepover with Grandma. Just another busy day at my house.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other orange projects are being worked on this week.

A UFO..... has come out to play

This nine patch quilt has been sitting patiently in a drawer waiting to come out and play. I think I started the nine patches a few years ago back in Vermont. Last year during the RSC green month I made a bunch of the hourglass blocks but needed 6 more of the nine patches. On Wednesday around sick kids and cleaning - I pulled some fabrics and made 5 more of the nine patches. The sixth one is all cut out and waiting to get sewn. Then I laid them out......I just need one more nine patch and then I can start putting this one together. I need to search and see if I have any more of this green and cream to make a finishing border. If not.... it will be time to get creative again!

Jacobs Ladder blocks...

Some progress has been made. I laid out the blocks a couple of ways and took pictures.

Excuse Miss Sophie who decided she had to test out the blocks.



I decided on this setting and started sewing the rows together. Then I noticed that I had two of the blocks turned wrong and had them wrong when I took the first pictures. Never do this after 9PM at night!



I was able to unpick those two last night and hope to get them sewn correctly on today. Heck... maybe I can get the rows pressed and sewn together too. Then a small cream inner border and a larger green border.

The borders will be using the same fabrics in these hourglass blocks that I was able to finish this week. I laid out the nine patches with the hourglass blocks and decided I need 6 more of the 9 patch blocks.

Now that I am caught up on the midgets I really need to pull out the next one and get working on that so I am set for next week.
So far... not enough sewing going on and no quilts pinned and ready for sewing. Maybe I can have Aidan help me during his afternoon quiet time on Thursday to get the pink one pinned. Baby steps.

For now, I've got to go into the store this afternoon to meet with the accountant and tomorrow we might go to a Tractor show in Leesburg for a couple of hours with Grammy and Papa. Then they'll head along their way for a week before they come back next Wednesday to kid sit for us while we go to a seminar in the evening.

At least we got the kids pictures taken yesterday so they will be ready for pickup next Friday, plenty of time to spare so things are all set to send up to Vermont with Grammy and Papa when they drive home at the end of the month. The kids did cooperate and we got some great pictures of them... just makes the decision part a lot harder when they all come out good!

A package in the mail.....

A big Thank you to Jill over at Ramblings of a quilt and yarn obsessor for this wonderful little gift in the mail yesterday! She had a question going every few weeks and if you answered them and then linked to her blog she included you in a drawing... and I won one of the months!
Isn't it so cute? This is a great bag for putting sewing things in and the little closure case has some cute little pockets, great for tucking little things in. Thanks Jill, I'm going to fill them as soon as the kids go to bed tonight!


I needed a break from crumbs and dug through a bucket and found some 9 patches I was working on back in May when I made the log cabin quilt. I had 20 of them... and made 5 more in the last few days for a total of 25. They will be about 6 inches finished..... so I could set them 5x5.... or make another set of blocks to go with them.... what do you think? It will be small if I set it like this with a border or two..... I was originally thinking of a specific block to frame them so they look on point...but can't think of the name right now.


I also did a few more star blocks and I have 2 more blocks in process (don't you hate it when you have to stop sewing because someone woke up from a nap?). I have 10 stars and 21 other blocks. I think I'll be needing to make a bunch more of these in the next week or two. I need to find where I put the other set of 30's prints... I know they made it here just need to find where I put them among the boxes.