Busy Hands Are Happy Hands

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

TO-DO Tuesday #142

Joining Carol and friends at Quilt Schmilt - For the Love of Fabric this morning. We gather to share our victories and if necessary our almost victories. It's great to see the progress of others.

May 23-29

1. Trim and bind Precarious!✅ OMG, it's finally finished. Label and all! I had to wait for the sun to come up before taking it outside for a photo!

Hanging on the inside of our fence, cause I still had my jammy pants on! I was showing it with the pink at the top, but Miss B reminded me , “ it’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,violet, Gramma”! So red on top it is! 😍

This is a preprinted label that’s been in the drawer for years. If you look closely you’ll see needle and res thread. I’m stitching along some of the flower shading to help tack down the label. I’ve had them get wrinkly and loose in the past. This might help.

2. Evening stitching on Spring Stamps.✅ the stamps took a back seat late in the week, so I could stitch and stitch and stitch the binding and the label on Precarious! But a bit of stitching was done. You'll see I have started stamp #6. Early Bird.

3. Cut and assemble Houses #7 & #8

House 7 is done, though it’s not a favorite. There is not enough contrast in the porch cover over the door. The left point gets lost!

The grass looks wavy, it just needs a good press!

And eight is also done! I have number nine done too, I'll show it next week after I write a post for the QAL.

4. Make at least 2 more orange crumb blocks.✅

There were four extra blocks when I finished all the crumbs!

⭐️ Cut pieces for Sew Preeti’s Positivity QAL! ❌

Upcoming week:

May 30th - June 5th

1. Start on leaf blocks for Preeti's Positivity QAL

2. Decide on a OMG for June and post about it

3. Double check the RSC 23 color for June. And see what the associated UFO's are from my list.

4. Try to finish the December Year in the Garden Block, so I can begin to think about a quilt pattern to use.

5. Stitch on Spring Stamps

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Finished or Not Finished Friday!

I really wanted a finish for FONFF! But , alas all I have is a Not Finished. And the meme closes in 19 hours….so this is what you get. I’m linking to Finished or Not Finished Friday, hosted by Alycia Quilts!

Early morning light is not the best! It was 7:20 am!

A better look at the quilting on my DSM. Total time= 24.75 hours! Phew. That’s only the quilting!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

May 23 One Monthly Goal Finish

At the beginning of May, I had three of the 16 rows quilted!

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

And I finished it Wednesday the 16 th. So Monday, the 22nd, after my company went back to Colorado, I thought I would trim it a get a binding ready. I was too tired! Tuesday, though, dawned a new day. I trimmed it and got the binding attached. I settled on a dark purple check.

The binding is stitched down on the left side, and the top. So I’m half done. It’ll be done by the end of May!

My goal was only to get the quilting completed! So I’m satisfied. And I like it a lot! This one stay with me!

I'm linking up: Stories from the Sewing Room One Monthly Goal May Finish Link Up

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

ScrapHappy Saturday ~~Final Four Orange

I'm linking up this morning with Angela’ ScrapHappy Saturday. Last week I had two crumb blocks. This week as I sewed and cut and sewed and trimmed I ended up with 4 more. The final four for sure. I had to raid the Halloween basket to get the last one up to size.

Crumb blocks and string blocks are the only color specific blocks I am making for this year's challenge. I am trying to finish some UFO's that have lingered too long in my sewing room. I have assigned each UFO a color. When that color is announced I work on finishing that UFO. So far I have been sort of successful.

May's color was orange and my spreadsheet said get a backing and batting for En Provence and Long May She Wave and get them to the quilter. That puts me somewhat at the mercy of the quilter. I could not get these two to that stage. Long May She Wave will be delivered to Aggie on June 1st. And En Provence has a date with Marva, but when I sent her the photo, I notice a huge OOPS!

Do you see it? That top has been hanging in the closet for a few years. I pressed and trimmed thread earlier this year and even pressed it again last week, in preparation to go to the quilter! I didn't see it then either. So now I have to do a bid of surgery! And you can be sure I will peruse it once again to see if I can see anything else. Thank goodness it is on an edge. Not too difficult to fix. "Good Gravy". So that one won't be done either, for May! I will get it though, I've committed to the quilter.

On to the next color specific UFO. I see Angela announced Dark and Bright Blue. But I did those for January.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

May ~ ABC Table Scraps Challenge!

Here we are at the last weekend in May, so time for the ABC Table Scraps Challenge. Angela from So Scrappy chose orange as the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Joyful gave us two letter prompts (F and L) to comply with ABC Table Scraps Challenge.

Orange has been a color I'm coming up a bit short on lately. As I was working on 2 more crumb blogs to add to the 2 already on the design wall.....there was the start of 2 more. and then the trimmings started a 5th, which developed into almost a sixth. But I was short just one small scrap, to bring it up to the size of all the rest. 6.5" X 6.5". So what's a girl to do. I dug into the Halloween scraps. I found a Jack O'Lantern print that's been around for almost 20 years. Score!

As I was searching through the basket,, I found lots of odd fat quarters. These don’t fit the orange perimeters!

What will I do with a blue spider print and a multi colored spider print. Then I remembered the fat quarter friendly napkins that Diann at Little Penguin Quilts makes! She uses this tutorial!

So here they’re are, bot orange but FRIENDLY and definitely not LAZY! Look at all those webs. I think my littles might like them for Halloween month!

But I couldn’t stop there. Those littles have parents! So some 1 yard cuts were cut to FQ size and became these rectangles. Waiting patiently to be top stitched and folded.

Some FRIENDLY ghosts and mummies. Some LOUD black and orange checks! And these spiders are definitely LAZY! Not one web to be found!

Table scraps led to something useful from these ancient pieces in my Halloween bin! Win-win!

I’m linking up with The Joyful Quilter!

Come and visit all the Table Scrap participants!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

Thursday, May 25, 2023

I LIKE Thursday ~ Vacation?

All our favorite network shows have been having the Season Finales! One favorite, NCIS: Los Angeles had their final finale. That show will not return. It ran for 14 seasons.

I don’t have a summer replacement that I’m looking forward to. Maybe I’ll get some books read!
These are on my TBR list!

Bridges Out of Poverty by Ruby Payne

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo.

Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin and

The Life She Was Given by Ellen Wiseman.

Letters from the Sky by Jessica Brockmole

Keep Her Safe by Sophie Hannah

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

I was grateful that we were able to host our oldest granddaughter’s birthday celebration. We had a very good day!

The birthday girl in her tiara and her youngest, our Miss B. That’s her husband in the background trying to be invisible!

I made dark chocolate brownies and an amaretto-less cheesecake. It’s my sister’s fabulous recipe, but I left the Amaretto out because our daughter has a nut allergy! It was still awesome..

My Lily of the Valley are blooming! It makes me happy!

I changed out the Mother’s Day stuff on my buffet. Patriotic for Memorial Day!

The flowers are still left from Mother’s Day, I just changed out the container. A clear vase set in a patriotic woven bucket. Little bowl fillers I stitched last year and a chicken pincushion in red, white and blue.

LeeAnna’s prompt for this week is:

if you could go on vacation anywhere right now, where would it be? tell us why you chose that place... imagine how long you'd like to be there, and what you'd like to do there....

This one got me to thinking! When I think of vacations they require air travel mostly. And that won’t be happening again unless I go by myself. Mr Busy, refuses to fly anymore. I dream of a beach vacation! Sun and sand and Caribbean blue water. Sitting on a chair under an umbrella reading. Someone young and tan and male bringing me umbrella drinks! Like pina coladas, Mai tais, or a Yellow Bird! I’d stay at least a week, maybe two! Other than sitting on the beach or poolside, I’d eat great food, maybe take a moonlight/ sunset cruise!

That’s what sounds good to me!

I’m joining LeeAnna and friends to celebrate the good things in life!

**If there are multiple fonts as you read this post, I apologize. I tried, and tried to get them all the same. I'm throwing my hands in the air! I don't know how to fix it except maybe to start over. and it's too late for that. I know you all will understand.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!