A “Finished” and an “or Not”

My first little finish is another scrap basket. I’ve had slab/crumb block in my UFO box for a couple of years. I always wanted to do these cute baskets. So this summer is the time!

Light or bright green this time.

Here it is next to it's darker cousin. Now neither one is overflowing.


I have participated in CiL’s block drive at Kat and Cat Quilts since January 2018. Currently Kat is taking a break. She’s catching up with all the Blocks from the previous drives. Though she didn’t say, I would assume her “Day Job” is taking it’s toll also. She is in the medical arena. So I made a little baby quilt to donate to Jack’s Basket.

Last week I posted the 5 pieced blocks ( are they chunky churn dash?) and two hour glass blocks asking for advice. I just looked back at my blog and these blocks were first made by Sylvia at Treadlestitches. She calls them Nine Patches and Rails. See her finish here!

Alycia suggested setting the hour glass blocks to frame the block. I think this is what she had in mind. I love it.

On my design wall with the top and bottom borders just stuck in place. You can see my original post with all the blocks here.  Lots of these scrappy blocks. More boy like in colors and fabrics. So I will be looking for setting fabric for them.

It wasn’t big enough for Jack's Basket so I added a cream 1 inch border then a 3 inch pink border. It’s just right now.  I wonder if I can quilt it myself ? I’m reluctant to try. I can do wavy lines, stitch in the ditch or some outline quilting. But I’d really like some  flowers or swirls or something more graceful. When I get the backing pieced...I think I’ll call my long arm quilter and see if she has an opening.

This is better, borders are done.  I am so pleased with the almost finish.





I'll link up with Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday.
And maybe because I am done before Friday, I'll link up with Can I Get A Whoop Whoop with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy!  And more importantly Stay Healthy!

Green Blocks and other signs of Spring

This week I was able to finally a geese migration block completed. And also 6 hollow 9 patches.

And it wasn’t without a struggle. All the geese pieces were laying on a portable design board. All cut according to directions using BH essential triangle tool. I didn’t take photos,  but there was some use of the seam ripper. As you can see above, the rows of 2 1/2” squares are attached to the left of the geese row,  that is an important step to remember! LOL

Cynthia’s Geese Migration pattern calls for 25 blocks. If I make 2 blocks for each color of the month that will give me 20 blocks. Angela usually selects colors for 10 months and the last two months are for finishing the quilt. So then I will lay out the blocks and see what other colors could be incorporated. I don’t have a lot of solids...by then I may be able to actually shop in a real store. I’m trying hard not to buy more fabric! 

This week we are having rain in Wyoming. A few tulips are blooming and the trees are starting to leaf out. There are robins and mourning doves all over my neighborhood. One bird that I don’t see in NE Wyoming is the Western Tanager. My brother lives in the a Black Hills of South Dakota and they have tanagers. 

At a feeder, of which there are several

My brother looking a little quarantine scruffy. He had been doing some woodworking, hence the safety glasses and the dust mask.

My sister-in-law is good with the camera.  

I'm linking up with ScrapHappy Saturday. at Angela's blog. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Stay Healthy

Finished or Not Friday - Flimsy Finish

I'm finishing flimsies/quilt tops. One of these days I'll be able to deliver some to my long arm quilters. My hold up is batting. My long armers are fairly new at the business and so they require that the quilter supply the batting. I have some pieces that I need to fuse together for some of my smaller finishes.

Tiny Tuesday is complete. I had to use scrappy white on white backgrounds and even a different white on white for the 2" outside border. It looks ok to me though. I promised Dianne at Little Penguin Quilts that I would leave my wonky fan block and my not so perfect owl and pig blocks. So they are included. I had to make one correction as I was webbing the blocks. One side of a block strip was cut at 1.5" not 1.75" as directed.  OOPS!  I don't know how I missed it when I made it, but I found it when I was sewing blocks together!  I had an extra red block that used the same fabric, so I took that one apart. It worked out fine.

I'm not fond of tiny, but these blocks gave me something to focus on that did not require large blocks of time last year when my sister was under going chemo for lung cancer and I couldn't be with her. One day at a time our mother used to say, and this helped me focus one Tuesday, one block at a time.


I didn't have enough blocks to set the colors in rows. And I wanted to be done, so I did not make extra. I used Angela's example of setting the colors in blocks of color. Angela set hers alternating straight sets with diagonal sets. I deviated from the directions and set some of my individual blocks differently. It did not cause a problem though. It may not be a organised, but it's for me. Now I have to decide on a backing.

I have another little quilt that I need your help with. The pieced blocks in the middle and the corners have a girly vibe. I want to send it to Jack's Basket.

 I have been holding on to the pink with tiny yellow dots, waiting to find a pale yellow to make hour glass blocks to go with it. This quarantine has made that kind of hard. I found a mottled cream,with pink and green in my stash. I thought it would work. I made one set of hour-glass blocks. Now I don't know if I like it. Do you like the hour-glass blocks or just the pink blocks?

Or maybe just the cream blocks?  It's so scrappy and busy, I am just not sure.  It will need a border to be 36 X 36 for the donation requirements.
Anyway, I'll consider all options. Thanks for your input.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Stay Healthy

    I'm linking up with Alycia's party Finished or Not Friday.

A Crumb-y Little Finish

My week went fast too!  But then it felt slow. How is that possible?  Our community is antsy to get back to normal.  I feel there will not be "back to normal"  but it will be a different "normal".

Here is what was finished this week:

This pile of crumb/slab blocks is from RSC18, I think!  I decided to finally make a scrap bag. This was always my intention when I started these blocks. I did get sidetracked in 2019. And used some of the "Made" fabric for this little quilt.

But that's another story!

I followed Angela's tutorial and this is what resulted.

It's about 10" by 8" and 8" deep.  Angela suggested a piece cardboard or foam board cut for a solid bottom. In looking through my stash of such material I found a thin cheap place mat. It was even the shades of green in the bag!

It worked perfectly. 

 The lining is leftovers from an old queen size sheet. Pale green, but still green.

Looks like I need to make another green one. This is overflowing. I am going to try to catch up with the RSC20 colors and get these crumb/slab blocks made into something useful. 

I'm linking up with Alycia's party - Finished or Not Friday

and Angela's party at ScrapHappy Saturday!  

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy

Goal Setting May OMG

I’m in a bit of a quandary. I need to set a goal, I want to set a goal..but which?  Do I go small and doable? Leave room for a squirrel or two if one catches my fancy. Do I go big in order to get another finish?

The small project is crumb blocks left over from 2018. These are the dark green, May 2020's color for RSC20. I need to make them into a scrap basket using Angela's tutorial. 

 The bigger project is 2019 Tiny Tuesday blocks. They kept me sane while worrying about my sister during her cancer treatments last year. Some of them on my design wall last May. I'm not even sure how many blocks I have. I know some are not finished with their setting strips or triangles. So that is the bigger project.

 I need to finish them both!


Soooooooo!

I am setting my One Monthly Goal for May 2020:   to get the Tiny Tuesday blocks finished and put together into a quilt top! I've looked at Diann's, and Angela's and Mari's.  So I have some lofty goals to try to meet! They are all so beautiful!

If I get the scrap basket done too, well so much the better.


I'll be linking this post to Patty's OMG for May.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Stay Healthy!

No blue sewing!

The closest I got to blue this week is “feelings”, some blue wool strips, and a couple of blue totes!

I’m not really sad,  just melancholy! So I decided to clean out the storage space underneath the stairs. That particular place is the “behind closed doors” part of the sewing room. It’s been awhile since I moved everything. And let’s face it! I’ll never really get into scrapbooking, or crocheting wool strips into a rug!

My mother left this project. It's 1/2" strips of wool. Gray, red, blue, and a plaid. They are gathered on a long needle then crocheted together with rug warp string. Interesting, pretty and soft. But I'll never finish it.

This is the envelope the needles were in. There are two.

Then there was a box of wool skirts that had been taken apart and washed. Conceivably mean to be stripped into more rug making supplies. All will go in the trash. 

I found a blue tote of photos!  I am sorting these into Photo Boxes from Joann's. One for each kid and grandkid. 

Kids don't keep photos anymore, do they?  Certainly not my grandchildren, in their late 20's and early 30's. I mean they have pictures of their own families, but they don't want pictures of their mom's 6th birthday party!  Or the Christmas morning snapshots when they were 10!

And then there is the blue tote of scrap booking supplies. Colored paper, a scrapbook, sheetprotectors and even more paper memorabilia. Look at that caricature of me in 2000. 

It was drawn by a visiting artist at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Zion, Illinois, the day before my mastectomy! I should probably keep that. But the rest....???   I'm such a saver, thus my fabric stash, the stash of bias tape I have not even used up. The tee shirts waiting to be made into a quilt........it goes on and on. 

See ,I told you I was blue....

So forward!!!!! 

Linking to Angela's So Scrappy Saturday post.  And by next Saturday we will have a new color to think about, a new goal to set, and I will have my sewing room back to usable. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy

OMG April Finish Hometown Christmas and FONF

It's April 24th and it feels like April has been soooo loooong!

So my goal for April was to get all the embroidered blocks and the sashings together into a top. No borders because I need to purchase fabric. My local quilt shop is closed. JoAnn's is closed. Online stores are not shipping currently.  Buying border fabric online is iffy for me. I need to see it up close and personal. Touch it and look at it with the top.

Now I am not sure if it really needs 4 3/4" borders. The pattern said the finished quilt was 68X54.
I was thinking large wall hanging!  It is really too big for most wall space that I have. I don't really want it to be a lap quilt with all the embroidery and applique. So I may opt for a smaller border.  I will have to wait and see. I still have some Christmas fabric left, but I don't think there is enough of any of them for a border. 

Here it is. Done to this point. I will still stay stitch the edges to keep them from coming apart as it waits for border fabric.

And a bit closer

I'll link up to Patty's Finish post for OMG after the party goes live near the 25th.

And since it is Friday now that I am publishing this, I'll link to Finished or Not Friday also.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy