Five Shadows

This week I continued to follow along with Helen Godden’s Flower Power Quilt-A-Long. Here are the blocks.

Cone Flower, Block 5

Fuchsia, Block 6

Chocolate Lily, Block 7

Iris, Block 8

And the final block, Sunflower, Block 9. I plan on attaching them by the Quilt-As-You-Go method using Pauline Roger’s book.

I did a few more blocks on the Curve It Up quilt. Here is a sneak peek.

I’ve got to keep moving on this quilt. My One Monthly Goal for April is to finish quilting the blocks!

Hubs and I have been watching 2 Great Horned Owlets in a park near us. My son & DIL spotted 2 adult owls back in March. We all got curious and started looking for a nest. Hubs spotted a dead tree that would make a great place for an owl to nest. He was right!

Here you see one of the owlets in the nest.

Last week the 2 Great Horned Owlets flew up into a tree above their nest! One parent was in a near by tree! Photos taken with my cell phone through a spotting scope. So, not the best. But I’m super excited to share these with you!

Last To-Do List:

1. Quilt Curve It Up – this was my goal for April. I better get going on it! ✔️
2. Keep up with Helen Godden’s Flower Power Quilt-a-long. ✔️

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Finish quilting blocks on Curve It Up quilt
2. Figure out how to stitch together Flower Power blocks quilt-as-you-go style

Linking to To-Do Tuesday with Home Made by Us.

Last week, with Easter just around the corner, I switched from mask making to Bunny and Chick bag making for my two grands.

Here is the fabric I used, and a free online pattern I found.

Pink will be for a bunny, and the yellow will be a chick.

Bags constructed, but not filled with candy. I decided to line the bags. I used a Pigma marker to draw the chick eyes & beak and bunny eyes, nose & mouth.

Filled with candy, aren’t they cute!?

Now I’m hopping down another rabbit trail. Helen Godden announced a free quilt-a-long on her Facebook page. I’m following along on her Flower Power free motion quilt-a-long. She will be demonstrating FMQ on 9 different flower motifs.

Tulip. I’m using hand dyed fabric from Vicki Welsh. I think Helen is showing a different flower motif ever 2 days.

And, I actually sat down and stitched 2 more blocks on the Curve It Up quilt! I’ll show pictures later. I do have to go back and do background, which I think I’ll do once I have the pieced blocks quilted.

How is your week going?

Last To-Do List:

1. Finish treat bags for Easter  ✔️ finished and delivered!
2. Quilt Curve It Up – a few blocks  ✔️ 2 blocks!
3. Still have organizing to do in the sewing room!  ✗  And still do!

1. Quilt Curve It Up – a few more blocks
2. Follow along with Helen Godden’s Flower Power Quilt-a-long

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us. Go take a look at what everyone is doing!

A friend made her first ever quilt and asked if I would quilt it for her. She bought glow in the dark Northcott Solar System fabric. She asked for glow in the dark thread, but I just could not find any dark threads to matched her quilt. I bought one spool of Superior Threads NiteLite Extraglow thread in white and used it in the panel of orbiting planets.

I never actually took the quilt into a dark room to see how the fabric and thread glowed. My loss, I’m sure.

After stitching the orbits, I stitched circles in various sizes in the rest of the panel. Then did straight line diamond quilting in the first border.

And then went back to more circle quilting. In the next border I did squiggles and circles.

Here’s the back of the quilt, showing the circles.

I gathered dishes from my kitchen and traced them for the circles using a Sewline white ceramic lead pencil.

I didn’t get a picture of the outer border, but I continued the same circle quilting in a meandering line. My friend is happy! I’m happy!

Next up I worked on my Happy Little Things BOM. I’m attempting to use a Fat Eighth pack of Carolyn Friedlander’s fabric for the BOM.

Doing so, I don’t have enough of any one fabric to complete the sashing on all the blocks as I would like. So it’s getting very scrappy.

Close up of blocks -

The centers are hand embroidery stitched on white prints, which were the only fabrics not in the Carolyn Friendlander line. Next will be a blue border. Then I won’t have enough fabric for the larger border, so I’ll put my thinking cap on for how to change up the pattern and finish this quilt top. Maybe I’ll even buy Carolyn Friedlander yardage? But I’d really like to challenge myself to use just the Fat Eight Pack for the top.

My husband got an early birthday gift!

More Melissa and Doug wooden train pieces! Something he can enjoy with the grandkids!

One last thing

This pretty Africa Violet is blooming again!

Last To-Do List:

1. Keep working on Bat Moon Rising ✗  Thursday quilt day was canceled b/c of weather. I just didn’t get to the bats this week.
2. Get going on Happy Little Things ✔️ Small progress, but progress was made.
3. I have not been listing customer quilts, but I have one to finish quilting. I was hoping to finish it last week. But sometimes family comes first. ✔️ Finished quilting friend’s solar system quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday. Go take a look at what other quilters are working on this week!

This past week I spent very little time in my sewing room. Even so, I did manage to complete the little vintage truck wall hanging for my son and daughter-in-law. They went away for the weekend to celebrate their wedding anniversary, so I didn’t see them to give the little gift. I’ll see them later this week. It finished at 15″ x 10 3/4″ pattern by Buttermilk Basin.

I’ll report back later their reactions!

Happy stitching, All!

Last To Do List:

1. Finish up Vintage Truck for son & DIL for their 1st wedding anniversary on the 19th. ✔️ Finished!
2. Back to Bat Moon Rising quilt.  ✗ Nope, didn’t get to this. Other family needs took precedence.

To Do List:

1. Bat Moon Rising  - get back to piecing!
2. Maybe play along with Project Quilting 11:2.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday.

Last week I did get the tea cozy made for my daughter-in-law. But totally changed all my fabric & design plans. I came across a quilting challenge I could not resist, so changed my plans to meet the rules of the Project Quilting 11:1 Challenge – Notably Numeric. Read all about what I came up with for the challenge here.

We opened our home to a dinner party given by our son & DIL in honor of her 30th birthday. We had 22 happy people in our home!  DIL loves to cook for family and friends so she prepared and served the meal at our house. Son & DIL are currently refinishing the oak floors in their home, so could not host their own party. Their floors are lovely, BTW! And so is their newly remodeled kitchen with beautiful Amish built cabinets.

I made a tea cozy and apron from a vintage table cloth. If you followed the link above you’ll see I’m reposting photos -

Both the tea cozy and apron were gifted to my DIL along with great grandmother’s tea set.

Flip side of tea cozy. Simple wavy lines quilted on my Featherweight. It was my first time to quilt on the FW and it worked like a dream! I used fusible batting, Aurifil thread.

I’m so tickled I had time to make the apron.  Upon opening the apron, she put it on and kept it on for a while. I think she liked it (wink wink) along with the other gifts.

Last To Do List:

1. Make Tea Cozy by Friday night to gift to my DIL. ✔️ Done!
2. Maybe work on an apron? ✔️ and done!

To Do List:

1. Finish up Vintage Truck for son & DIL for their 1st wedding anniversary on the 19th.
2. Back to Bat Moon Rising quilt

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

How is it that Project Quilting has escaped my notice for the past 10 seasons? I stumbled upon the Project Quilting Challenge earlier this week and decided to join in. Thank you for accepting me as a new member!

I had already decided before discovering this challenge that I would be making an apron and a tea cozy for my daughter-in-law for her 30th birthday which is tomorrow, Friday, January 10th. Hmmm, could I figure out a way to make the tea cozy fit the challenge?

After changing my mind several times on numbers, such as morse code or the use of numerals, I decided to use 30 squares to represent each of Alicia’s 30 years.

Here’s the tea cozy with three rows of ten 1″ squares for Alicia’s 30th Birthday.

I used a vintage table cloth to construct the apron, so continued with it for a matching tea cozy. I used 10 fabrics for the squares to coordinate with the table cloth.

Tab on top and binding are also from the table cloth. Cozy is 10″ wide and 11″ tall at the top of dome.

The reason the whole apron and tea cozy idea as birthday gifts came about was when my son mentioned that Alicia would love to inherit Great Grandmother’s tea set. I’m very happy to pass it on to her!

The set includes the tea pot, sugar & creamer, 4 luncheon plates, and 3 tea cups. Sadly one tea cup came broken when the set was passed down to me. Alicia will be the 4th generation to own this set. I’ve enjoyed using the tea pot, but never used the rest of the set. It is a small pot for the size tea cozy I made, but Alicia owns other larger pots that will fit snuggly into the cozy.

And the Apron

Linking to Project Quilting 11.1 Challenge

We went directly into birthday season with our family. January 3rd and 7th are our two grandchildren’s birthdays, our second son’s 2 kiddos. And the 10th will be our daughter-in-law’s birthday, wife to our first son. We had a party here on the 3rd for our granddaughter, and we went to our son’s home for an ice-cream party tonight for our grandson. Friday we will be opening our home for another birthday dinner. Our DIL loves to cook for her family & friends on her birthday, and right now we are the ones with room to hold the number of people invited.

After talking with my son, it was decided gifting my DIL a family tea set would be perfect for her.

There are also 4 saucers and 3 tea cups I haven’t dug out of the cabinet yet. Sadly one tea cup came broken to me 20 years ago. This set now goes to the fourth generation!

I had thought last week I’d make an apron for my DIL. And I still hope to do so. I’m kind of bumping making an apron to making a tea cozy.

Here are the fabrics I’ve pulled for making the tea cozy.

Hopefully I’ll get both the cozy and apron made!

Here is what I’ve done on the vintage truck wallhanging for my son & DIL’s first wedding anniversary.

I’ve machine blanket stitched around the truck, hearts, basket, etc. I’ll probably add some more embellishments, but I’ll set this aside to work on the tea cozy. Their anniversary is on the 19th of this month, so I have time to finish it.

Last To Do List:

1. Finish wall hanging for DIL & son. ✗ worked on, not finished.
2. Make apron for my DIL.  ✗ pulled fabric, have not cut into it yet.

To Do List:

1. Make Tea Cozy by Friday night to gift to my DIL.
2. Maybe work on an apron?

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Merry Christmas All!

This past week had some twists and turns. One lovely happening was my grand daughter came home from her last day of school for the year to pack her backpack and say she was going to Bamma’s (I’m Bamma) for a sleep over. Hubs and I thought the was a good idea.

I had planned to get together with grand daughter to take her shopping so she could select little gifts for her parents and brother. That changed from taking her shopping to helping her make gifts.

We made 2 felt ornaments, one each for her Mommy and Daddy.

I might have helped with the French Knots, but she picked out the floss colors.

She did some coloring for her other set of grandparents. Oops, forgot to take a photo before she wrapped them up.

And we made a treat for her to share with her family Christmas day.

Everything is wrapped and ready for Christmas Day!

Papa got in on the fun and the two of them built a Lego Blue Jay.

Her Daddy had given Papa a set of 3 Lego birds 2 Christmases ago. Grand daughter and I built the Hummingbird earlier this year. There is still a Cardinal to build.

I’ve kept up with Helen Godden’s Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-Long.

Just need to quilt the 4 corners and attach binding. This may happen later today.

I still have a few gifts to wrap, soup to make, and Christmas Eve service to attend later tonight. Keep Christ in Christmas!

Merry Christmas, All!

Last To Do List:

1. Host quilting group Thursday. ✔️
2. Start on Christmas stockings.  ✔️

To Do List:

1. Finish quilting and bind Christmas Countdown quilt.
2. Enjoy Christmas with family!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by US.

Thanksgiving Day our town holds the Galloping Gobbler 4 mile race. This is my second year to participate with my kids and their spouses.

We didn’t have any full out runners from our family this year. Usually my eldest is in the top 200 finishers of the almost 2000 people participating. This year he and his wife decided to power walk together as she had back surgery and was just not up to running. Our fastest time was Nathan (middle of the photo in black hat) at 9 minutes 39 seconds per mile. My DIL and I walked in at 19 minutes 16 seconds per mile – 2 minutes slower than last year. There is always next year to make improvements.

Here’s the snowman mug rug I put together and mailed to my SIL.

This was a kit from a LQS. The pattern is by Quilt Doodle Designs. Finishes at 7 1/2″ x 10 1/2″

I am playing along with Helen Godden and her Christmas Countdown Quilt-A-Long.

Each day we will add a little FMQ to the design.

Last To Do List:

1. Thanksgiving baking, cooking! ✔️
2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with family and friends. ✔️
3. Make and mail a little snowman mug rug for my SIL. ✔️ Mailed yesterday!
4. Any quilting or piecing I might find time for this Thanksgiving week ✔️ Prepped for Helen Godden’s quilt-a-long

To-Do List:

1. Continue stitching up Bat Moon Rising
2. Make a few quilted gifts for my quilting friends.
3. Keep up with Helen’s quilt-a-long

Linking to To-Do-Tuesday.

This week filled up with lots of doing, but not much quilting. Here are just a few things I did get to this week.

First, I had to tackle my messing sewing room since I couldn’t get to the cutting mat to continue with Bat Moon Rising!

I did get the mat cleared off, but not the rest of the counter top to the right of the mat.

Anyway, that gave me room enough to cut out more Bat Moon Rising pieces.

I only got a little bit of piecing completed.

Sunday was a day spent with family. Birthday celebration and a Train Show. Our granddaughter thought the Hodges Hand Cars was the best part of the Train Show. Here she is riding a Hand Car.

You turn that wheel round and round to go around the track. She thought it was great fun. Husband thought it was great exercise and a fun way for kiddos to run off some of their energy! LOL

Our grandson, not yet big enough for the Hand Car, sure enjoyed watching the bigger kids!

He stood there going “whoo whoo!” He loves anything with wheels and loves to imitate the sounds too.

Woot! I finished stitching Dropcloth Sampler last night.

I’ll figure out how to frame it, most likely an embroidery hoop, after Thanksgiving. I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for a hoop while shopping this weekend.

Next up – Thanksgiving baking! Remember those Pumpkin Dinner Rolls I posted last Tuesday? I’m making them today, and putting together the dressing. The turkey is defrosting in the fridge.

I hope you are all enjoying gearing up for the Holidays!

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue with Curve it Up quilting ✗
2. Keep piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️
3. Piecing block 4 of Happy Little Things ✗
4. Finish Satin Stitch in the Dropcloth Sampler ✔️

To Do List:

1. Thanksgiving baking, cooking!
2. Enjoying Thanksgiving with family and friends.
3. Make and mail a little snowman mug rug for my SIL.
4. Any quilting or piecing I might find time for this Thanksgiving week

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.