OMG for October

I've been on retreat!  We, of course, had a great time. There were 13 of us in a not very large convention room. We were coxy!   I took no pictures except of this range of the Big Horn Mountains on my way home.  Yup, that is snow! We had lovely driving weather to the retreat and great weather coming home. While we were there, the temperature dropped, we had intermittent snow flurries and some freezing rain. But we just sewed and sewed!  No problem.

My OMG for October was to get my RSC 19 Bow tie blocks together into a flimsy/quilt top!

Mr Busy donned his Carhart jacket and gloves to hold this against our back fence for pictures. It is cold today, 27 degrees with a windchill to feel like 18 degrees.
But it is done. I haven't picked a backing yet...I looking for something dark, as it will be a car quilt. I titled it "We Switched to Chevy".  My new Chevy Equinox is black.  Chevy grill symbol is called a bowtie.  Get it???

We have snow at home too!


So my goal was accomplished

I did get some other things done at retreat. I'll save those for another post.


I'll link up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - October Finish Link-up



Stay Busy and Stay Happy

ScrapHappy Saturday October Dark

October color is dark: browns, blacks, greys

I already made black Bow Tie blocks for my "We Switched to Chevy" quilt! There are 8 black blocks here.

And the first Tiny Tuesday block:

When you cut for tiny blocks, sometimes you can't include all the fabric= (Cho)colate!

Then I did one more purple sprout block, because all the pieces were already cut and ready to go.

I wasn't sure I wanted to make brown/black/gray scrappy sprout blocks....but I have a large basket of brown fabric. Some yardage, some fat quarters, some scraps. So I dove in, cut 2.5" squares, 2.5" strips of light and dark to make HST and some neutral 2.5" squares. Two done and they aren't too bad!

My first week of brown is in the books. Not sure about more brown/gray/black sprouts, but I can always do some string blocks.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I'll link this post to Angela's ScrapHappy Saturday link up party as soon as she posts in the morning. It's 8PM in Wyoming and it's raining. No snow yet, so that's a plus. Tomorrow is our local NEW (North East Wyoming) Quilt Show. I entered 2 small quilts. I'll try to remember to take photos of the spectacular ones and post them next week.

Finished or Not Friday - 10-4-19

I'm linking this post at Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts.

Not a lot accomplished in the finished department this week. I got my One Monthly Goal on the design wall, decided on a layout, made the 3 necessary blocks to complete that.

This project is going with me to Retreat on the 22nd. So I marked all the rows and webbed the first two columns together. Then stacked columns 3,4,5,and 6 in order top to bottom.

I also did a bit of sewing that wasn't a quilt. In my stash, and I save most everything, I still had a piece of black and white gingham left over from a gathered skirt that I made when I was 15. My  paternal grandfather embroidered trees in white on the bottom of the skirt. Border fabric was very popular then and he and my grandmother "made" border fabric. My sister's skirt was lavender and white gingham. Oh, I wish I had a photo!

When my own daughter was about 4, I made her a dress out of the fabric. ( there is a lot of fabric in a full gathered skirt.) Now, her granddaughter, my oldest great granddaughter is 3 and that leftover small chunk of fabric needed to be used. I purchased a black t-shirt at Walmart. I followed  a tutorial
from https://www.coralandco.com/blog/2018/04/easy-t-shirt-dress-tutorial.html.  I would have liked to have enough fabric to make a really full skirt, but sometime you work with what you have.

I found a half a package of covered button blanks and there was just enough fabric from squaring up the skirt rectangle to cover two 1/2" buttons. I sewed them to the neckline, vertically. I haven't tried it on Miss B yet, but I took her measurements last week so I am sure it's pretty close. I will finish the final hem, after she tries it on.


I'm cutting brown, dark scraps for Scrappy Sprouts. Not sure if brown sprout blocks are going to work, but I will make one to check and see.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

One Monthly Goal for October- Bow Tie Quilt (flimsy)

I’ve been making bow tie blocks as part of RSC19 at so scrappy. I wasn’t sure of the layout I was going to use, but I knew it was going to be a throw for my new (then) car. It’s a black Equinox, the Chevy logo is referred to as a Bowtie, so I knew I wanted to include black bow tie blocks.

My OMG goal is to get this flimsy put together.  You can see that I need one more pink and one more yellow block. In the 6th column!

OOPS!  This can happen when your use directional fabrics and you don't know what your layout is going to be. I cannot live with this, even though it will be folded up in my cargo area, or secured in a bag, it's not right. So I will make one more yellow bowtie block.

 So I made 1 pink and 2 yellow. I’ll use the “wrong way” yellow one as a label. I will take this to my October retreat on the 22nd. That may be cutting it close, but I will make it my first project of the time there.

We woke up to this:

It will be a good day to stay in and get projects ready for retreat. I am sure we will have a few good days to put the deck furniture and the baby pool away!  At least I hope so.

I am linking up this post with Patty's October link up:


Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal October Link-up.



Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Scrap Happy Saturday September Purple

It's the last Saturday in September. It's raining and COLD! It's 44 with "a feels like" of 35 degrees.  There is a 6-8 year olds Football Game on the schedule this morning!  BRRR and Yuk!  Luckily they only play about 45 minutes.

The week was pretty productive in the scrap department.

I finished the last purple Tiny Tuesday block - Bright Hopes. And I sewed the necessary 3 more  black Bow tie blocks.  I am close to being ready to get the Bow Tie block quilt to a completed top ( flimsy) stage so I can decide on backing and get it off to the quilter.

Though that could be a problem. I have 2 favorite local long arm quilter friends. Lynn just got her machine back from the "hospital" after 5 weeks, so she is backed up. And Marva fell and broke her ankle 2 weeks ago. Plus they both are planning to snow bird this winter, so they will be unavailable for several months. I am going to have to find someone else, I'm afraid.

I completed a 3rd Scrappy Sprout  Here are all three. In the project box they go! I have no plan for them, so have no idea how many I may need. It's a WIP!

I finished the binding and the big stitch quilting on my October Retreat Challenge.  Here is a sneak peak.

I finished my QOV for presentation in November.  And finished 8 blocks for the current CiL block drive. See that post here.



Ill be linking up to Angela's Scrap Happy Saturday and Cynthia's .Oh Scrap!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Finished or Not Friday 9-27-19

I'm posting in Alycia's linky party this week.


The QOV is done, except for the label. I washed and dried it with 4 color catchers. They picked up lots of red, from the backing I think.

I have made contact with my veteran recipient and she is tickled. I have known her since she was a little girl, we are friends with her dad.  I know she served in the Air Force, several tours I think. Now she is a police officer in our small city. I need to get few more details about her.  Our presentation will be in November.


The other “finish “ this week, was a finish of 8 blocks for Covered in Loves September-October block drive. I have been sending 8 blocks every two months for the last 2 years.  These are 12.5" unfinished and based on a Split 9 Patch tutorial posted here. The sizes are posted on Kat's Covered in Love tab on her blog. There is plenty of time to join in, just check it out!

 I did spend some time cutting fabric for projects to take to a retreat the 3rd week in October. There will be a post about that later in October.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

September Finish for OMG (One Monthly Goal)

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - September Finish Link-up

My goal was to get the binding on Wiggle Time.

That's a pretty good corner!  "happy face"

 All rolled up.  I even washed it and dried it so it would be all soft and crinkly for baby L.

And now it is in the mail to little Miss L.


I also had another goal for September.  To get the quilting and the binding on my October Retreat Challenge project.  The machine quilting is done, the binding is on.  I wrote about this challenge here.

I just did some straight line, sort of channel stitching in some parts and the long wiggle line in the polka dot sashing. I have a spool of orange,brown, gold variegated thread that I am trying to use up!

On the floor in my family room. It's very scrappy but I kind of like it. Orphan blocks, challenge provided charm squares and a purchased black and white dotted fabric to tie it all together. I, also,  tried a new binding technique, I'll blog about it soon.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

ps: of course, I'm linking up with Patty's One Monthly Goal September finish link up