Red stars and a basket too

 Hello everyone, and happy weekend! Yesterday, I finally parked in my new garage! It doesn't have any doors yet, and the walls still aren't drywalled, and the siding isn't here yet, but I parked in it nonetheless. Yay! For those of you keeping track, the timeline is too depressing to contemplate, but it should definitely absolutely be done before it snows. Or spring, either way.

This week I finally caught up on my RSC projects for September. Once again, I am thanking my lucky stars that I chose these super easy Ohio Stars for the RSC this year:

 

Dear Blogger, I am unhappy with your new image size controls. Why do you keep changing, and why are my pictures fuzzy? 

These stars are very easy and fun to make, and they go very fast, relatively speaking. This is a good thing right now, isn't it? I pulled out all of my stars and laid them out on the lawn, because it was quite nice and they looked nicer out there than on the design wall:

 

They look good, and nice and random, but somehow I managed to skip a color. I should have nine colors and I only have eight. I'm pretty sure that I skipped one of the blue months because I don't have much in the way of blue scraps. So, assuming next month is yellow for the RSC, what color should I use to make up the right number of stars? 

I also put the binding on the red scrap basket this week:

Yahoo! I made this basket quilt as you go with strings that I had leftover from another project, long ago. I was a bit overzealous cutting strings for that project, but they worked great for this basket. There is a lot of variety here, and it went really quick. Of course, even the binding is a scrap, and now I am left with very few red strings. 

Very few reds at all, in fact. I should probably do some shopping, don't you think?

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. I am going to be chained to my desk finishing my writing project, and when my brain can't take any more, I'll be relaxing outside with a nice beverage, contemplating my plywood garage walls. I think there might be some chocolate in the near future, too!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC2020.

A festive trio of blocks

 Hello everyone! Here we are at yet another week in 2020. I can't believe this year isn't over yet, and at the same time, September is racing by. Our temperatures dropped into the 40s overnight the last couple of nights, and the hubs finally broke down and let me turn on the heat. Hard to imagine, but true! 

I am trying to finish a big writing project right now, with a deadline of September 30, so while there has been stitching, there has not been blog writing. Life is like that sometimes. Today I just have three more Phoenix blocks to show off:

 

Aren't those pretty? I know some of you may be tired of seeing the geraniums, but I couldn't resist as they are blooming so nicely right now, and I fear they don't have long. The tomatoes are done, I think, which means that I should pick the green ones that remain and see if they ripen up. 

 

These blocks are so easy, with big pieces and easy construction. I did have to resort to labeling the rows, though, because I kept getting them mixed up. The hardest part really is the layout, though I do find trimming the hsts just a little tedious. I listened to The Martian (the movie) again while I was stitching these, which made it go a little better. Good book, pretty good movie, but I can't listen to recorded books. They put me right to sleep or else annoy the heck out of me.

 

I wasn't sure about this blue, which seemed pretty plain as yardage, but I think it turned out all right, don't you?

Those of you who have made this quilt will notice that I've departed from the pattern just a little and used random fabrics for the centers instead of what I was supposed to use. This means that I'll have some leftover hsts from the blocks, and I already came up with a nice idea for them. Sort of a "Phoenix lite" or something.

This week I also got a nice package in the mail:

 

An online friend sent me these lovely yellows and golds, and now I think I'm searching for a fun pattern to use the golds. I think they would look great all used in a quilt together, don't you? It has to be a super simple pattern, though, because right now my mental bandwidth is pretty narrow. 

 That's the state of my sewing life right now! Not that exciting, but all progress is good progress, right?  Hope you are all making progress, too. Have a good week, everyone, and cross your fingers for a finish for me later this week. I'm thisclose, but first I have to finish those darned footnotes. . .

Sharing at Midweek Makers.

Galaxy full of stars

 Hello everyone! How are you all doing? I've been okay, spending a lot more time than I want to on the computer, and not for fun stuff, either. But no one wants to hear about that, especially me! I did have a couple of fun things happen this past week-- they poured concrete for my new garage at last. Yahoo! How sad is it that I'm counting that as "fun?" Those of you who have had construction know what I mean. The contractors said two more weeks. Then it rained like crazy, so who knows what happens now? 

It has been a wild time for the last couple of weeks, and Zoom teaching is exhausting, but I do have a finish today! Take a look at this beauty:

 

 

The Galaxy Stars quilt is finished! Yay! I finished the top for this quilt almost exactly two years ago, in September of 2018. As a part of my quest to finish up all of the tops I have hanging in the closet, I finally sent this off to my longarm quilter friend Diane and she did a great job quilting it for me. 

 

This entire quilt is made from scraps, including some dark blues that I had gotten for a different project. I ended up not using them for the original project, and they sat around for a while, but they finally got used in this quilt. And now I don't have to feel guilty about them any more.

The backing is a Carrie Bloomston print that I got from Bernie's shop. Funny story: I had two star quilts and I got two different star backings for them, intending one for this quilt and one for the other quilt. Of course, by the time I got to having them quilted, I had forgotten which was which, and I used the backing I wanted for this quilt for the first one. (If that makes any sense at all. Maybe I'm rambling.) It worked out okay, though, because I actually love this backing with this quilt.

 

This quilt turned out to be so super-cozy that I really enjoyed having it on my lap as I was stitching the binding. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but now I think that it will live in our living room all this winter. We'll have to test it out on the hubs, but he claimed it was "too hot" to try it last night. And then it rained and rained, so it was too dark to get pictures yesterday. And even though they have poured the concrete, they left a heck of a mess! So much mud. . .

 

 

So, that's my finish! Yahoo! A second fun thing that happened this week is that Preeti came to my house! And she pretty much cleaned my sewing room, too. She gave me some "homework," as in "put those fabrics away," so I should definitely get to that. Don't tell her I'm behind, okay? It will be our secret.

Everyone have a good weekend! And if you're Zooming, remember that you only need real clothes from the waist up! And makeup is completely optional, too!

 

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Brag about your Beauties.

Going a little rogue

 Hi everyone, and happy September! Really, it's September. I usually really like September, but I feel like it should be May right now, so I'm all discombobulated. But school seems to be going well, thank heavens, and I'm kind of starting to relax about it. The students are awesome right now and are pretty much game for almost anything, although they hate that their cameras have to be on all the time. Hey, it's a rule, and if I have to be on camera, so do you. Seems fair, right?

So, it's been very busy, but I've gotten to steal a few moments to make these pretty blocks this week:

 

Pink hovering hawks! And just look at those lovely geraniums. They were pretty stressed from the heat for a while, but they've really rallied in the last week, so I had to get them in the pictures, too. 

Why did I make these blocks? I've been doing the color challenge at Patterns by Jen, but I really did not like the block for August. Sometimes things in a pattern just don't click for you, so you have to go a little off track and do your own thing. That's what I had to do here, and these blocks will be in whatever quilt is the end result of this project. The important thing is that they are very pretty and pink, and made from scraps. Which is the point, right?

 

The geraniums are giving me so much joy right now that I tried to get pictures of the blocks with them.  The fabric was not really cooperating with staying straight, but the color is pretty happy, don't you think? The blocks look complicated, but they're made mostly with simple hsts, so they were actually pretty relaxing. I keep meaning to take a picture of all the blocks for this project together so far, but I just haven't done that yet. Maybe next month, which is actually this month now. Oh, my. I really can't keep up!

 

I hope you all are having a good week and are surrounded by happy things,and that you're all still washing those hands and staying healthy. On a *completely* unrelated note, what kind of hand lotions are you using for those chapped hands? I may need a recommendation!

Sharing at Midweek Makers and Oh Scrap!