Finally a Finish! A Hands 2 Help donation!

Yesterday I met with some friends, 15 of us, to socialize and stitch on various projects. Some stitched on wool, some did regular embroidery, some Brazilian embroidery. Some of us bound a recent project. One friend is doing a kind of weaving, I think she called it huck weaving! She’s using Monk cloth and blue thread. 

 I stitched the binding on one of my Hands to Help donation quilts while I sat and visited.  I didn’t quite finish, there were lots of distractions, but did finish it at home. 

Happy Blocks all done for a gender neutral or at least not girly quilt.

And there is that smiley face fabric again!

And I also made house block #5 for the Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL. I’m think I’ll call this the Day Care Center.  The smiley face fabric is not gone yet!

Three more to go, because the Christmas House is finished, but I haven’t shown it yet. 🙂

I’m joining Alycia at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Finished Friday. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

I LIKE Thursday May the 4th be with you!

Happy “I LIKE Thursday” and May the 4th Be With You!



Joining up with others who find the good things in the everyday! Go check out LeeAnna’s blog for links to other bloggers “shares”.


LeeAnna’s prompt for this week:




do you like to sing for yourself?


I used to, but not any more. Even I don’t like my voice now!

For others?       Oh heck no! See above!

or has anyone said you're not a singer? do you sing to babies?


This makes me think of a favorite story. When our first grandchild was a baby, she and her mom lived with us for awhile. Sometimes when her mama was working, I got to put her to bed. She was maybe 7-8 months old. ( ps, she’ll celebrate her 38th birthday, the 21st of this month) I was rocking her and singing a lullaby. She reached up her hand, patted my check and said, “no,no, no!”. I think she just didn’t want to go to sleep, but Grandpa says, to this day, that she didn’t want me to sing! 😄😳🎵🎶



other suggestions: do you make up songs during the day? Are you more comfortable singing high or low…… if I sing at all, I sing low! As my dad used to say, “ Sing low, so low no one will hear you!” 😳




Entertainment:


The Diplomat with Keri Russell. It’s on Netflix and know that there is another drama with the same name, a British political series, airing on Alibi.

This is a really good one. Slightly political but in a fun sort of way! I scoffed and giggled more than once. And be warned, adult language and brief nudity are involved!

We watched the second episode of Rabbit Hole on Monday night! We again came away at the end saying, “What??” It’s a thriller alright.


Spring has finally, just maybe, sprung in Wyoming. Not all parts though…this video from the Montana Highway Department

 

The Beartooth Highway is actually US Hwy 212, that runs from Red Lodge MT, to the northeastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It’s a fabulous drive in the summer!


Other miscellany


I received some Happy Mail on Monday. For signing up for Hands 2Help at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. It’s called the Nest! I am excited to use it and it’s PURPLE!

I was so excited that I started to open the packaging before I remembered to take a picture. 

  

There is a large horizontal space/slot, maybe for a rotary cutter! 

I’m going to use it to park my phone! I’m always laying down and forgetting where!

And Saturday, Cathy K @ Crazy by Design announced that I won a PDF copy of Preeti Harris’s new pattern A Fishy Story. Have you seen it? It’s awesome. Tuesday , the pdf arrived by email! I am going to have to look for some awesome fabrics like Preeti and Cathy used. So gorgeous!


Not much else going on here this week, except an in home visit by, not one but two, health insurance agents. They saved us $$ though, so we are happy!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

TO-DO Tuesday #138

Linking with Carol @ Quilt Schmilt. Joining other list makers, goal setters and check off artists. Let’s do this! Here’s last week’s list of things to-do.  I’m pretty pleased!

April 25 - May 1


1. Write post for ABC Table Scraps Challenge ✅ 

2. Look for backing for Long May She Wave. ✅

Found in my stash…4 yds of red sailboats and 1.5 yds of blue and white stars! That will work

3. Quilt more on Precarious and write an OMG post! ✅

       I actually wrote this post as soon as Patty posted the linky party on the 24th. But I did do more quilting  on it Sunday and Monday. Now one of  the orange  panels is done 

and a purple one!

4. Start on December stitchery for A Year in the Garden ✅

Soon I’ll start on the poinsettia petals! 

5. Make one purple string block, at least.✅

As long as the string bag is out and the mess is all over the sewing room, why make 1 string block. There are 6 now to add to the box of mono colored string blocks plus 7 crumb blocks made with the little bits. 

 
6. House #4 for Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL ✅

Why is it , my photos always look they are leaning into a wind? Must be true what Mr. Busy says whenever we are trying to hang a picture or a shelf or anything. I’m always 1/2 a bubble off! LOL!

Next week’s plan

May 2nd - May 8th. 

1. Quilt more color sections on Precarious!

2.  Get binding attached to The Any Kid quilt.

3.  Keep stitching on DECEMBER 

4.  Make  House #5 for Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL

5.  SPRING STAMPS SAL….stamp #3. Birds and Bees

6. Get backing ready for Long May She Wave so she can go to the quilter.  And find batting 

Wish me luck, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

May One Monthly Goal Linkup

My One Monthly Goal continues from April. I want to continue quilting relatively straight lines across the color rows of this quilt. 

As of this morning, I have completed 1 each of red, pink, and orange. There are 16 rows, so that leaves 13 to be done. 

This close up helps show the stitching in the orange. Each row of colored blocks and the gray fabric at the edges of each color takes me one hour to do the quilting. I am not quick, there are basting stitches to remove along the way and wrestling this quilt takes a toll on my shoulders and back. I hope to do one color each day, with maybe nothing done on Thursdays, my Stitching Group day. Also, two granddaughter's have birthdays this month and our daughter will be home one of the weekends for a birthday celebration!   

My OMG is this: Get the quilting done on this old UFO !    Fingers crossed.

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal May Link-up

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

April’s Last ScrapHappy Saturday! Purple Crumbs and Purple Strings!

As I sewed my Rainbow Neighborhood houses, I made crumb blocks as Leaders and Enders. I promised Cathy K that I would make at least one purple string block! Well, as long as there is a mess in the sewing room and the string bags are handy, I might as well make more than just one!

Seven crumb blocks that are trimmed to 6 1/2” square. And 6 string blocks that are trimmed to 7 1/2” square because that’s the size all the rest I make are and the phone book pages are cut to that size.

That plus a 5th and secret 6th house block are what happened this week. My purple basket is a bit lighter, but not empty! Sigh! 

I’m linking up with Angela and Scrap Happy Saturday . 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

Finished or Not Finished Friday.

It's the last weekend in April. I may have something to show here. I have a small finish and then of course some "not finished"!  You know that is my middle name, right?  "Not Finished" I even have the tee shirt that says "Queen of Unfinished Projects"

I finished a single placemat and two napkins for this month ABC Table Scraps Challenge over at The Joyful Quilter.   I purchased a Go Big cutter from Accuquilt and took a little bit of time to try it out. I hope that it will be used more. So far, I only have one die. 

That's one!

There was finally this flimsy finish!  Nothing like taking forever. A backing will be constructed and batting purchased, then my friend will quilt it!

Mr. Busy had quite the time holding it for me on the back deck in the wonderful Wyoming wind!

And some house blocks were constructed. The first week in April a purple and yellow house. I have fixed the lawn. It now is the proper depth to make this block 16 1/2 " square. 

Then the second week, a blue house with occupants!  

The third week, a pink house was built.  It's a busy rose covered cottage?

And this last week, there was this orange/peach/rust fallish looking house. I found cloud fabric at a LQS, and had to cut two 5 " square cut at different diagonal for the left and right upper corners of the roof part, so the clouds would be right side up!

So I’ll quickly link this post a day late to Alycia Quilts and the Finished or Not Finished Friday event.

Now I’m on to Saturday and maybe some ( very little) yard work! 😀

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

ABC Table Scraps Challenge for April. Purple, Y and/or N

The Joyful Quilter hosts a challenge every month coordinating with So Scrappy's color of the month plus an added prompt or challenge.  This year she has been adding letters of the alphabet.  April's color is purple, and Joyful added the letters Y and N. 

So I put on my thinking cap and decided I could make a placemat in purples. I purchased a Go Big AccuQuilt cutter with some "windfall dollars" and it came with a die to make flying geese. Well, heaven knows I need help with flying geese!  I would have told you that my problems were probably with  accurate cutting.  Now, I'm more prone to believe it's accurate sewing!  Anyway. I cut purple and a floral purple for contrast and made geese with purple sky and some with floral sky. I used a pattern , sort of, provide by Accuquilt.  I fudged with the center square, because I ran out of the floral scraps that I was experimenting with. 

I backed it with a mini lavender and white gingham or is it called baby gingham check? I quilted it with some fankenbatting made at the Spring Sew last week and a tighter serpentine stitch, cause I liked how it looked. Then the binding was built by striping some cut off triangles into 1 3/4" strips. The strips were short, lots of joining seams, but luckily no seam landed on a corner! Whoo Hoo!

Now, what do I do about the "Y" and the "N"?  I have a placemat that is mostly purple, the floral has a yellowish background.  So......how about a set of YELLOW NAPKINS!!!  OK!  Judy!!   You can do that!  Diann at Little Penguin Quilts just talked about a double sided napkin tutorial a few days ago.  Yep, here it is. from Made with Moxie

Yellow side of the napkin on the left and the yellow with a bit of purple on the right! 

Linking up with The Joyful Quilter on the last weekend of the month! 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!