Nine Patch sew along....

I was on facebook yesterday and someone in the Celebrate Hand Quilting group mentioned there was a nine patch sew along - the idea being that you sew a nine patch a day in 2020! Do I need another sew along? Nope..... will I join in? Probably!

There is an RSC Challenge project that I started ages ago... and it has not made much progress. I think this is the year.... and this challenge might help me get it moving along and completed this year.
That is the hope anyway.....

I was making friendship stars using 2.5 inch squares. I seemed to have done purple and red. Another year I had the idea of adding a scrappy nine patch and was thinking of making a 12 inch block using 2 of each - 2 friendship and 2 nine patches. I found 8 light blue ones....... and I do believe the boo boo one did get fixed.  Hopefully this year I might make some progress by adding one (I'm going to count that friendship star as a nine patch... cause I can!) a day and see if maybe by the end of the year I'll have another scrappy quilt completed?

If you would like to join in - search in facebook for One Nine Patch a Day. I believe the group started over in Northern Europe. Over 100 people were added since the post on CHQ yesterday! Lots of great ideas being shared as well..... and so the squirrel projects begin! Now, technically is it a squirrel project if I incorporate a new idea into an existing UFO? Now to figure out where the heck those blocks are in the sewing room! I pulled in these photo's from previous blog posts =)

EMD Tuesday...

Month 4 - the first one of the set got completed this weekend. I decided to back baste this one and it went along pretty well. I managed to prep 2 more of that set on Sunday and have most of one block done. Progress comes in baby steps, one stitch at a time!

I do have lots of car pick up lines this week so I should be able to finish off this second one (There is a circle part with 4 applique hearts that is then appliqued down to the center) and start on the 3rd applique block - leaves and circles. I hope to cut out the 4th block for hand piecing tonight. The 5th month of blocks is released tomorrow! Lets hope I can get caught up and keep up with the one per week again in the coming week.
The patterns can be found over at SentimentalStitches and she has a facebook group for this sew along as well.

Sunday.....

There will be a little slow stitching today to do the last 5 squares in the lower left hand corner before I get to roll the quilt on the frame! I have 3 squares of each of this row left to do on that roll.... then I get to see what the last set of colors are on this quilt!

Looks like blue, pink and dark green is next! The sage, yellow and maroon were the first row I quilted. Each 'block' is 30 inches.

I have been working on this EMD block this week in the car line and yesterday while doing guinea pig supervision as his cage got cleaned. I did back basting and then needle turn applique. I left off the middle square.... I didn't feel like walking into the sewing room to cut it out last night....and I like the look as is. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! I need to prep the other 3 blocks from last month.... yikes the next set is released in 3 days!

Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

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.

Log cabins.....

Did you know if you actually go into the sewing room and sew you accomplish something? I went in there Monday afternoon after work and again Tuesday between kid pick up's from school and again after dinner and a walk with Aidan. I got the 6 log cabin blocks done to add to the original 6. I'm calling it done for blocks. It will be set 3x4 for a 36x48 little quilt.

I set them down like this at first.

The kids didn't like it..... so I moved things around and came up with this. They liked this better.

I didn't take another photo... but the cats went in and decided they didn't like it and rearranged it to their liking! You can use your imagination on that one!.... Ok, I took a photo this morning of the cat's version!

30 degrees this morning at 7:10 when I was taking Emily to school. She got to scrape the windshield 2 days in a row!

Tuesday....... will be EMD update day in 2020!

There. That should get me back to making one per week! EMD is short for Ella Maria Deacon - quilt along over at Sentimental Stitches. I am a wee bit behind but have the first 3 sets completed now. The borderie perse block was finished off in 2 car lines today. (Did you hear the yippee of JOY as the kids were dropped off to school today?) I really don't care for this block... I might make the future ones into an applique of some kind instead but I tried it once!

Slow Sunday...

Today is a recovery day for me and there will be slow stitching and relaxing today!

I managed to get the orange section quilted last week on the trip quilt and started in on the teal. I'll plan to finish the teal section today and work on the purple this week. That will get me to a roll on the frame and just a couple of blocks left of each color to stitch before starting on the last 3 colors!

I'll also stitch the borderie perse on the 12th block of the Ella Maria Deacon Quilt (Yup, behind again!) and then will prep a couple of the 4th set of blocks for hand work in the car line... the kids FINALLY go back to school on Tuesday! It has been a long break and we are ALL ready for the normal routine to hit again.

Some crochet or knitting might happen as well depending on how I feel. I should pop onto work for a short time and just prep for an install tomorrow as well but that will be quick.

Linking up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers. I did finish off my Happy Little Things wall hanging on New Years day - I machine stitched it and hand stitched the binding for my first finish of the year. This finished off at 32 inches.

The reason I need the recovery day....... I had my troop do a sleep in at the church we meet at Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. The junior girls earned their simple meals badge and 2 parts of a journey. My brownies finished a journey and did another one. They also had lots of play time and bonded and made some great memories. One went home sick around 5AM..... so hopefully no one else comes down with a stomach bug. Me.... I am feeling a sinus headache coming on so Advil and lots of liquids for me today since I know I did not drink enough water the last 2 days. Friday morning kinda threw everything off - I was trying to work and when I came out to feed the guinea pigs while getting myself some water.... only one moved! Sadly, Flower the guinea pig (Emily's) passed on. Looking back - he was drinking a lot of water the last week so something must have failed. He was just a few months shy of 4 years old. Jimmy Jr (Aidan's guinea pig) will needs lots more petting and attention now as they are a sociable animal. Good thing he doesn't mind being picked up and cuddled.

Emily years ago with Flower and Sophie the cat.

Jimmy Jr is black and brown and Flower is the brown and white.