Saturday in blue....

It is blue over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month. I have not had too much time to dig into my bins to find blue but I have been playing along with the sew along and have six blocks completed. You can find information on this here.

I'm also showing some progress on my quilters scrapbook - I got the sashing rows attached despite the 'help' from the cats. I hope to get some good sewing time in later this evening and tomorrow to get all my outer rows made and attached. I do love working with blue and that dark blue has such a nice feel. I got it from Connecting threads - antique cream and indigo blue. The light was from the stash. All those little squares were from my scrap bins. A true scrap quilt. Joanne has wonderful instructions and the patter should be on sale very soon. I've provided a link to her website above to check out her's. Poke around there as she has some beautiful quilts to show.

First thing this morning the kids wanted to make their 'calming jars' that I had shown them on facebook a few days ago. Not sure how 'calming' they will be but it sure did entertain me yesterday at work! I made the purple one there and kept going out to the floor of the store to shake it and watch the glitter move. Lessons learned - use warm water so the glitter glue will work into the water better. Don't add too many drops of food coloring (5 red and 5 blue is way too much for purple - lots of dilution went on!) I used two drops for the kids and it was much better. Em had red and Aidan green. It looks better when the glitter is a different color from the dye. The instructions can be found here.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other wonderful scrap projects are being worked on this week. I'll warn you - you are going to want to make a bunch of them =). As for us - we are headed to a 1st birthday party at the park. It is a chilly 50 degrees - I think some hot cocoa when we get home will be the perfect thing.

A quick quilt......

It seems Miss Emily told her teacher we were making a quilt for her daughters first birthday party on Saturday. She informed me of this after school on Monday. Well, I had picked up some cream fabric with lots of colored dots on it a while ago from my LQS (local quilt shop - for Mom). I pulled a yard of two different pinks and let her select one. She wanted Jordan to have a quilt like her white and purple one... only a little bit bigger. This purple quilt was a gift from her grandfather's neighbor when she was born. Thank goodness it was an easy pattern. I just cut some strips at 4.5 inches. Sewed them together and sub cut. Sewed the four patches together and then made my rows. Added a border Thursday, found the backing in the stash (purple was requested by Miss Em) and did some stitching with the walking foot. A quick binding made and machine stitched to the front..... just some hand stitching to the back to go.

It has been another busy couple of days. I had promised we could go to the trail head (forest of trails for walking, biking and horse trails) for a walk on Wednesday and we did. They have been working on it over the last few months and there were big mountains of dirt on the sides of the horse trails. The kids loved walking on them.

Yesterday I had promised them bowling - so once they had lanes and all other things were done we headed out late afternoon. The kids each bowled a game and I need to go get their feet measured and new shoes. Yikes - they are growing. Aidan beat Emily by a pin - 82 to 81 with bumpers up but no ramp. They did pretty good.

I would show a picture of my Quilters Scrapbook but someone (a black and white four leg creature who will remain nameless) had been in there and it looks similar to this. All the sashing rows are attached to each row.... and then I ran out of bobbin. Hopefully I can get that all attached later tonight and make some progress tomorrow morning. For today.... hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go.

Progress....

It is Wednesday. Oops... I missed a Tiny Tuesday post. I've been concentrating on the Quilters Scrapbook quilt so will catch up next week when it is done!
Monday I finished the last two blocks and cut out the frames for them. Tuesday I decided light blue as my accent color and cut and sewed up the paper pieced parts.
Wednesday - I sewed the sashing together and put the paper pieced parts together. Now I can see where this quilt is going. This is how it will look........  the light blue is a little washed out in the photo but looks better in person.

now to finish off the sashing and sew this part together. The outside border with dark blue and cream is really going to set this quilt off.

Somehow Monday Miss Emily informed me that she told her teacher we were making a quilt for Jordan for her first birthday party on Saturday. Ummmm. We are? We decided on a quick pattern - 4.5 inch blocks in two colors. She picked the pink to go with a nice cream with dots. Just need to quickly sew some rows together and pop the border on. This will just be a quick quilt through the squares and then pop the binding on. Hopefully I can get it done by the party on Saturday afternoon. I plan to hand sew that binding down at work on Friday.... shhh, don't tell the boss. Oh right, I am the boss =) The advantage of owning your own business! I am swapping work days with hubby so I can take the kids to the birthday party on Saturday and he can have kid time on Friday.

 Back to the sewing room for me. Let's see what I can get done in an hour before I have to pick up a kiddo from school. Then lunch and lots of HIPPY lessons before picking up second kiddo from school. Emmy and I will pull the papers off while waiting in the car line. No speech today since her teacher has a doctor appointment. I believe I promised we could go to the trailhead for a nature walk this afternoon, which will tie in nice with one of the HIPPY lessons. Then we'll have to use up some apples so an apple crisp will get made this afternoon as well. Yesterday the kids helped to make meatballs to go with our spaghetti sauce. Everyone had seconds so I guess it was a hit. Then it will be two days off school for the boy while his sister has classes in the morning. Think I can talk him into helping me sew tomorrow morning? Hmmmmm. Off to sew.

Monday, Monday....

I've been busy trying to get my green, blue and brown little squares all sewn into their 100 patch units. I need twelve of them...  yes, that means I did cut out 1200 squares to make these blocks.  The good news...... all the fabrics came out of my fabric scrap bins with a few parts pulled from the closet of fabrics. At this point I have 10 of them done... which I think is enough to figure out which two colors I will use for my borders. I am pulling a cream and an indigo blue from another project..... but the decision needs to be made for my other color. Do I use light blue, green, or brown....... decisions, decisions. I have all my paper piece parts cut out and marked... I just need to make the final decision and start cutting so I can get this together. Lets see how much I can get done in my free 2.5 hours of kid free time over the next few days......
So far the instructions are very clear and well written. Fingers crossed that it sews up nice and easy. This is the original pattern and quilt over at Canuck Quilter. A beautiful quilt... I can't wait to see mine finished! She will have the pattern for sale very soon...... this truly is a great scrappy quilt.

Weekend wrap up...

It is the second Saturday in blue for the rainbow scrap challenge and I have not done very much sewing. Oh well, there is still time in the month to get the blue scraps used up a bit more. I am just trying to get back into a school routine and it has been a little strange this week. Greg was home with me until Thursday when he went back to work. It is not normal to have him home for getting the kids ready for school and doing the drop off and pick ups. I had doctor appointments Monday and Tuesday he got to drive me to and then we headed to a conference in Orlando for Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was my day to finally get back to my normal kid routine and errand running.  I got my month end finished this week for work and dropped it to the accountant Friday and had a nice chat with her. Saturday was Greg's Birthday and Sunday was our family cake and ice cream gathering. Too busy to sew =(.

I did manage to make a sampler block or two Angela posted this week. They used up some blue scraps in the bin. I also made a couple more hexie flowers which I hand pieced. I think I like hand piecing them better than doing the English paper piecing method. I need to pull some more blues and prep a few more - these are taking me about 30 minutes to put one flower together. I know this because I did one Monday waiting for 30 minutes at the doctors and the second on Tuesday waiting for the doctor. =).

My ongoing hand applique project is these little orange peels. I've decided to frame the X blocks with color and the O blocks with creams. I am working on the peels that will go around the border for this quilt. I love how it is coming out and my little baggie of peels lives in my purse so I have them wherever I go.

I'm hooking up with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday. Go check them out and see what great projects are being worked on out in blog land.

Tiny Tuesday for 2014

It is a new year and after having a couple of months off from the midget blocks, I really miss having a regular 'Tuesday' post. I've been looking through my quilting library and decided to work through the Civil War Love Letters book by Rosemary Young.

This contains letters from soldiers with blocks that seem to fit the letter. Each block in the book will finish at 6 inches. There are no patterns in this book - just a picture of the finished block. I figure it is time for me to start working on drafting things in preparation for a Dear Jane sometime in the far off future. Some blocks I will piece by machine and some by hand. The goal is to work on one or two a week all year and see if I can get all 121 blocks done by December 31, 2014. Anyone want to join me?

This should be a nice use of 2.5 inch strips.... of which I have a nice Jelly Roll to use. I purchased this and a 10 inch stack from Connecting Threads sometime in the last year or two of the line called American Celebration. I hope I have enough to work through these 121 blocks but if not I'm sure I can find something in the stash that will work as a fill in. I noticed there are a few of the mottled solids and star collection prints in there so I can always fill in with those. I'm planning this as a red,cream and blue quilt that when finished will probably be donated to QOV. So nice to have a plan ahead of time for a quilt - although life does tend to throw some curve balls in and things sometimes change.

My first block is called Enthusiasm. I found it so helpful to use my flying geese ruler to cut my HST units to make my 2.5 inch HST units in this block. Add five 2.5 inch squares and block one is completed.

Slow Stitch Sunday 2014

Today I've picked up an oldie but a goodie. The fireworks quilt has come out to play again and this year he will get finished. There, I've said it. I had it out the other day and while I was looking at this block and trying to figure out what other quilting to put in there (while Miss Emily was trying to get under it since it is 'comfy' - a 40x40 quilt in a hoop, mind you!) I saw my tervis water glass. Yes, inspiration does strike in the most strange ways. Those white blocks will be hand quilted circles in there. I just drew around it with a pencil and hopefully it will erase or wash out ok. I'll be smart and use the quilt marking pencils for the next one. That should help me get through the five blocks like this. Then it will be back to square one for the other four - but I think I have some notes written down somewhere on ideas for those blocks. Multiple color thread and fireworks seem to ring a bell.

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other lovely projects are being worked on. I do have to thank her - since she was my inspiration to try hand quilting and hand work and I have been so lucky to love it. It is so nice to use that 'wasted' time and create some beautiful things.