Lit up from within

 Hello everyone! How's it going? I am very slowly getting better and I'm sure that the end of the semester will help a lot. Also helps that the trees have finally fully leafed out and there is shade and green everywhere. Also a ton of rain, but that's another story.

I have a finish to show today! What? Yeah, I sent this one out to Alycia and she did a great job with it, then I've spent the last three weeks putting the binding on. Baby steps. But it turned out so great! Take a look:

It glows, does it not? One of my neighbors stopped when I had it hanging up to take pictures and told me how much he liked it. That never happens! Note to self: finally get around to building that arbor in the back yard. . .

If you recall (and who can blame you if you don't?) I made this last year and it's just 3 inch finished squares arranged in various gradients. I actually started with a split 9-patch design, then added some more squares to one side and started twisting and turning things. I thought it would be a mess, but it absolutely isn't.

After all that fun on the front, I chose a pretty plain print from Connecting Threads (I think) for the back. It's not quite as humdrum as it looks, and when the quilt is tossed on a chair it actually looks quite nice. The binding is a blue and black floral that's been hanging around here far too long. It works for this quilt. I did a hand binding so that I could stitch a few inches at a time when I felt like it. I forgot how great a hand binding looks. I might have to find myself some more hand sewing. You know, to fill all that extra time I have.

 

Alycia quilted this with a check and chase style panto and I love how it turned out. So much texture! I was worried about the white thread on the dark blue, but it really doesn't look bad. I'm usually okay with a little light thread on dark, but I really dislike dark thread on light fabrics. Is that a weird thing? How about you?

So there we are, another fun finished quilt! I'm fairly impressed with myself because I've been absolutely exhausted and I still managed to bind this thing. I am feeling better a little at a time but it's still hard to get through a whole day. Mostly I've come home and collapsed every day. But at least I know now that I will get through it, however long it takes.

Ah, well! Have a lovely weekend, enjoy the spring flowers, and a Happy Mother's Day to all US moms, grandmas, and mom-like people. I hope you get unburned pancakes with your breakfast in bed!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique, too.

Some yellow, some purple

 Hello all! How have you been? I don't know how it is where you are, but wow the pollen has been amazingly bad this year. Everyone I know has itchy, watery eyes. And the cars turn green. And the sneezing, and. . . yeah, you get it. It is zero fun on top of everything else.

I have made a little tiny bit of progress on my RSC projects. Hurray! It's been hard but rewarding to work on the stitchy stuff, even if it's a little bit at a time. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a couple of nice quilts at the end, no matter how slow it is.  Since it's the yellow month for the RSC, first up are my yellow blocks:

                     

Oh, very cheerful! And will you look at those happy trees in the background? Even if they're shedding a bunch of pollen, it's like seeing old friends.

If you recall, I'm making Preeti's Granny Long Legs one color at a time. It's a really easy pattern, and would be even easier if I strip pieced it and made it like she wrote the pattern. Oh, well! Here are the purple blocks:

Purple and green always look so good together, don't you think? The whole quilt would look great in purple with a green background. An idea for later!

And of course, the blocks so far all together:

Yep, it's going to be a cute quilt! I skipped the red, but only because I didn't have the energy to sort through the red bin. I'll do those next and then whatever color comes after. I think it will really come alive with a few more colors. 

That's it for me for now. We are heading into final exams and my energy level is at an all-time low, except for maybe when I had newborns. I know I haven't answered the lovely comments you all have left, and I feel bad about that, but I just have no bandwidth right now. Please forgive me, and know that I appreciate every one. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and try to stay away from that pollen!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC24.

Last of the stars

 Hi all! How have you been? I have been very, very busy. I know, who could've guessed, what with the end of the year (or at least the semester) in sight? I did manage to finish off my niece's quilt, which turned out great, but I think she should see it first, don't you? Oh, and did you realize that Thanksgiving is next week? Yikes!

Before all the panic-cooking sets in, here are the final four stars for my RSC quilt this year. I'm a little behind, but my intentions are good, and the stars are pretty. Have a look:

 

As you can see, there are more leaves. I've decided to just let them be. It's a losing battle, and they'll break down. But let's talk about these stars! Aren't they cute?

I had cut the fabrics for the last two aqua stars, so I stitched those up and I'm pretty pleased with them. I *love* the aqua one in the picture above. I also added another yellow star because I like yellow and it adds a little more sparkle. The yellow is yet another Ohio Star variation, but it's different from all the others.

My one disappointment with the stars project is that I didn't make a true Lemoyne Star. The two above are kind of approximations of a Lemoyne Star. I don't really know what happened there. I tried one way back at the beginning but totally messed it up, and then I'm pretty sure I messed up the paper pieced version, too. Maybe I'll give it one more go and replace one of the stars I don't like. They're not all winners, after all.

For the sashing, I decided on this Riley Blake fabric called Blossom, which I still have just enough of. I've used it a couple of times and I really wish I had more of it. It makes such nice backgrounds and sashing, and I'm pretty sure it's going to make a great complement to all the colors in the stars.

That's pretty much all I accomplished after I finished my niece's gift. I also made some flannel blankets for her and a bunch of other stuff. I made sure to get some beauty shots, though, so once she gets her gift I will show it off to you all. It was an adventure!

So, happy weekend, everyone. I hope you get some rest and relaxation before the big holiday. I'll leave you with what might be the best nature picture I've ever taken. My son came to visit from Maine, and I took this while waiting for him in the cell phone lot (of all places!):

Finally-- Cathy, if you're reading this, we are all thinking of you! Best wishes!

 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23

Blue and yellow sunburst

 Hi everyone! So here we are in November, all of a sudden. Wasn't it just September? I can't keep track, except that it's definitely cooled off and we even had a freeze the other night. And it really is dark when I get home, so we must be slouching towards winter. As long as the snow holds off for a bit more, I think we'll be okay.

So, it isn't Friday, but I do have a finish. I know, it's like I'm breaking a rule! But I finally got pictures taken yesterday so why wait? Have a look:

Okay, that is a very bright quilt top! Maybe we shouldn't look at it head on. I don't know if you can see it on your monitor (or phone) but there are some of the diagonals in the corners are a pale yellow. It's really kind of pretty.

I started this as a wedding quilt for a friend, but we all know I wasn't going to make it in time for the wedding, right? And then we had family drama and trauma, so I ended up giving the happy couple a different quilt, which they totally loved. That left me with a half-finished quilt top, which I have now finished off.

Somebody is going to have to rake up all those leaves! This quilt top is about 60 by 72, a really nice size for a couch quilt. I did strip piece much of it, though it was complicated by the half square triangles. I managed, and I do think the triangles add a lot to it. I actually started with split 9 patches as a beginning design point before I ended up twisting and turning things around.

I'm pretty proud of the yellow gradations in this quilt. Have you ever tried a yellow gradation? It is not easy, but I managed it. It was actually fun to play around with, and now I have some more yellows on the shelves. And more yellow scraps, which is always nice! I'm happy to say, too, that those dark blues are all used up. Thank goodness!

This lovely is headed for the closet to age properly while I search for a backing and figure out how to get it quilted up. In the meantime, you can see what my outdoor job to burn off stress is going to be!

I'll end this up with a picture of the hill behind our house, which was in all kinds of fall glory. The sun shining through was just wonderful. Hope you all have a great weekend! I'm having lunch with some friends, then maybe tackling those leaves. And sleeping in for an extra hour Sunday-- fabulous! Just what I need!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique

Gold star

Hey there everyone, and happy weekend! It's been a very busy and very weird week. It was in the 80s this week, which was very weird, and very sweaty. Get those students in a room with no AC and it gets funky fast. They also have started a bunch of road projects, which I do not appreciate in October, and on top of everything, I got a flat and it couldn't be patched. I had to buy two new tires! Apparently, you can never buy just one. Don't we think that we should have solved this problem by now?

Anyway. . .I finished up one of the last of the star blocks for the RSC star quilt. One block! Here she is:

A gold and yellow star! No RSC star quilt would be complete without one of Angela's Twinkle Stars, would it? This gold and yellow star turned out nicely, though the contrast is a little strong. If I'd had enough of the lighter yellow I would have switched the colors, but I'm trying to use up scrap pieces. But who doesn't need a gold star?

So now I have 31 blocks. I must have skipped a couple along the way, because I should have 35. Maybe there weren't enough scraps for some colors?

 

 

Let's hear it for a design floor! I have two more (lighter) aqua blocks cut out but not stitched, and I could make another yellow, which would still leave me needing one more block. What color do you think that should be?

I may not have made much progress this week, but it feels good to make some progress. At least I know where I am. And speaking of making progress. . .

A while ago, when I couldn't sew but I wanted to touch fabric, I put all my books and notions into the closet and pulled all the fabric out where I could see it. When Preeti came over last week she couldn't take the fact that it was all jumbled up together, so she sorted it all out by color. Didn't she do great? It feels pretty wonderful and comforting, and why did I have the fabric where I couldn't see it anyway? Thanks Preeti!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We are awaiting a big weather change and a big event for our family coming this week. It's a pretty lousy event, but it does mean that some things will be settled and we can all move on, at least for a while. So I hope you all get some serious relaxing done this weekend!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

A small splash of sunshine

 Hello all! How is your day going? I'm just working through some stuff, trying to get some grades done and maybe find a few minutes to throw in some laundry. Long ago I read a column or something about the "eternal three--" kitchens, bathrooms, and laundry. No matter how much you work on them, they always need more work. That author was not wrong.

Thankfully, I also found a few minutes to make two lovely yellow blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. I have a bunch of yellow, mostly in smaller pieces, but it worked out this time. Here are the blocks:

I definitely like them! I love yellow, but it can be such a difficult color to work with, especially when you are trying to showcase it. It's hard to get gradations, and a lot of yellow fabrics slip into orange or have a tint of green or something. I think I chose wisely enough for these blocks.

This block is called Golden Samovar (what a name!) and it came from one of my Judy Hopkins quilt books. I have the BlockBase software, but I find that books give more realistic cutting directions and sizes and you generally end up with a better block. The software can be helpful, but no one has updated it for how we sew today and often the cutting directions are not suited to piecing with modern methods. I think no one has updated them since hand piecing days, really.

This block is called Double Aster and just looking at it makes me happy. All that sunny yellow goodness just shining out! It's also a good illustration of what I mean about the difference between the block books and the software. See those light yellow hsts? You'd piece them from squares in some way, right? The book tells you what size squares to cut to get the hsts you need. The software has you cutting a square in half twice to get four halves of an hst. Also, if you look at the medium triangles that are pieced to a yellow triangle and then pieced to the larger dark yellow triangles, all of those triangles should obviously come from squares cut in half twice to make four pieces, right? The software has directions for cutting single triangles with various degrees of angle. Better to just look it up in the book!

I could go on about this all day, but I won't! Time to throw some laundry in and get some more grading going. Those essays won't read themselves! Enjoy these happy yellows, and I hope to see you again later this week. Maybe I'll have some clean shirts by then, too!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23

Sunny yellow weekend

 Hi all! We are back from our vacation, which was so, so nice. We got to see our friends and relax a lot. I even read five books in a week. It was heavenly. I didn't take a computer with me, so I got a chance to (mostly) unplug. I highly recommend it! And if you are looking for a good vacation spot to do this, I also highly recommend the Great Lakes. Nice cool water, lovely views, lots to do in town, light late into the evening, and nature all around. You cannot beat it. Did I mention how relaxing it was?

Anyway, we've only been home a couple of days, so I have not had a lot of sewing room time. I'm okay with this! Still feeling that relaxation vibe. The only thing I've done is make the yellow Peace and Plenty blocks:

 

Are those not bright and happy? The flowers flourished in our absence, though the tomato plant looks a bit worse for the wear. Good thing there are plenty of farm stands right now.

I also threw together two 6-inch yellow blocks:

You can see that a little yellow leaf sneaked in there, too. Falling from the heat, I think, not from the change of season yet! These were super fast to make, and I just had a great time working with the yellows. Might be my favorite color. There are some other colors in contention, but it's a tough choice.

That's it for me this week! Still doing mountains of laundry and getting ready to start school in a couple of weeks. I'll leave you with this photo of the lake from the patio of our rental house:

Have a great weekend, all!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

Puzzle on the front, party on the back

 Hi all! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. Ours was good, but every time we tried to go outside for a while it rained. And so we went inside, and the sun came out. And of course that meant we went back out, and that meant a short but loud thunderstorm. It was a wild weather weekend, and very warm. But it's July, so you have to expect that, really.

Have you ever had a quilt that you wanted to name "This Took Forever?" That is the quilt I'm showing today, though it does include a fun surprise. Have a look:

Almost all green, finished, quilted, and bound! Hurray! I started calling this the puzzle quilt, which is way better than what I had called it before ("stupid green thing" just doesn't have a good ring to it) and I'm so happy it's all done, even if it took a whole year. Things have to marinate, you know? 

Is the surprise that I finished it almost exactly a year after it was pieced? Nope, it's this:

Definitely a party on the back! I couldn't resist these fun sunflowers. They're a nice contrast to all the dark greens, plus they give it a nice shot of color. And you can use it as a mood indicator, too-- sunflowers up means "let's chat," while green side up means "leave me alone." It's a multi-talented quilt!

If you recall, I made this quilt from a picture in a quilting magazine I saw in the library, using every bit of dark green I could come up with, plus a few blues and blacks thrown in for variation. It just about cleaned out that scrap bin, which is all I can ask for from a scrap quilt. 

 

 

What about "this took forever?" Well, I decided not to take it to the quilt shop and use a panto on the rented longarm and instead used a walking foot to follow all the zigzags in the quilt. It took forever, and was seriously boring, but it worked! The border is a set of straight lines, which also was boring but it got the job done.

I used a dark olive thread on the green parts, which blended with almost everything, and white on the text print parts, and then bound it in yet another dark green. The backing thread is a muslin color-- I think Aurifil actually calls it 'muslin'-- and it blended okay. I wish I'd used one shade darker, but what's done is done. I'm happy enough with it.

So there we are-- another finished quilt! I think I may send this to Quilty Hugs. Can't you see someone being cheered by this? And the 'mood' part could come in handy, too. Here's one last picture, with the tree that is about to come down. It's old and hollow, and it might fall any time, so time for it to go:

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We are seeing the grandchildren this weekend! Hurray! Gee, you have one little life-threatening incident and suddenly everyone wants to show up. . .but I'll definitely take it!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique, and Oh Scrap!

The end of summer

 Hi everyone. I hope you are all doing well. I kind of fell off the grid a bit, didn't I? We have been having a family crisis, so I haven't had much time to stitch lately, especially on top of classes starting, but I did want to pop in and show off the last of the quilts I finished this summer. I have been able to escape from the drama just a bit and stitch a few things, and I finally finished the binding on this cutie:

 

 

Well, I'm pretty down right now, but seeing this quilt finished is definitely cheery!  All along while I was quilting it and finishing it, I thought of it as "the end of summer quilt," but its real name is Synergy, a pattern from our friend Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts.It's a fun and easy pattern, and you can get it right HERE.

I quilted this on my quilty "playdate" with a Baltimore friend, and I used a panto called Seamless from Urban Elementz to finish it off. This panto is really easy and a lot of fun to quilt. It's very swoopy and swirly. I love the texture that it makes, and the exercise I got while quilting it. It's a real arm workout!

For the backing, I used a nice quiet gray with white polka dots. The front has so much color that I couldn't see using something bright on the back as well. The binding was done by machine and is the same fabric as the pink background. I think it looks good! If you have sharp eyes, you'll also notice that I added a small border all around the quilt, mainly to keep all the seams from popping. It helped a lot when quilting it.

If you look at the background of the pictures, you'll see a bunch of fallen leaves already on the ground. Yikes! I think it's been such a hot and wet summer that the trees around here are stressed and losing their leaves already. There isn't a bunch of color yet, but a lot of the trees are starting to turn. Doesn't that seem pretty early to you? I could do with some cooler weather, but all these leaves are falling waaaay too early for me.

So, there is another cheerful quilt to wind up the summer. It's Labor Day weekend here in the US, so everybody take some time to hug your family and maybe have a barbecue or something, okay? I will be doing the same!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique.

Bold choices for the Synergy Blog Hop

 Hi everyone! How has your week been? I've had a very busy, action-packed week. Okay, the action was really just a bunch of grading and reading and stuff, but it felt like action in my head. I also managed to sneak in a few stitches and finish up something pretty and bold and not really like my usual at all. I hope you are in the mood for some color today, because I have something really colorful to show off. 

Are you ready? Here she is:

 

I told you it was not my usual thing at all! This is a quilt top made for my friend Preeti's Synergy Blog Hop. If you recall, back in January, Preeti showed off her Synergy quilt, which she published in Make Modern magazine. Well, Synergy is now a stand alone pattern, and you can get it in her Etsy shop right HERE. Bonus-- it is 25% off until April 27th!

When Preeti asked me to join the blog hop, I thought I would make a rainbow quilt, but then I was looking at her blog post about Synergy and I saw her quilt in teals with a yellow background. What if I didn't make a rainbow quilt, but used a bold print as a background instead? As you can see, it was a short hop to the lively pink print, with blues and golds to complement the flowers and leaves in the print.

This quilt was super-easy to make and went really fast. The pattern is easy to understand, and everything is really well explained. I followed the pattern exactly-- which you know I never do, but I needed to do it to test the pattern-- and everything came together really quickly. Even I could not mess it up. The great color graphics helped. Really, the hardest part for me was choosing the colors from my scrap stash. Even the cutting went really fast.

I actually considered making this quilt in just two colors, the pink and a pale green. I was making this for the blog hop, though, so I abandoned that idea, but there isn't a colorway that wouldn't look good in the pattern. Imagine it in green and white, or gray and yellow, or maybe red, white, and blue . . .

So there is my take on the Synergy pattern! I would absolutely make this quilt again, and I'm not really "modern." Bigger pieces, easy piecing, minimal seam matching, and it looks great in any color. What's not to love about it?

As I said above, this is a blog hop, and here is the schedule for the hop:

 Mari of Academic Quilter - Thursday, April 21, 2022-- YOU ARE HERE!

Alycia of Alycia Quilts - Friday, April 22, 2022

Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts - Saturday, April 23, 2022

Bonnie of Institches with Bonnie - Sunday, April 24, 2022

Roseanne of Home Sewn By Us - Monday, April 25, 2022

 

Since this is a hop for the pattern release, you have the opportunity to win a Synergy pattern of your very own. Leave a comment on this post, and just for fun, let us all know what colors you might use for the quilt. Pop over to Preeti's post today if you need some more inspiration, and be sure to visit everyone in the hop, because we all have a pattern to give away. I'll pull the winner using a random number magic thingy on Tuesday, April 26th. IMPORTANT: If you are no-reply, remember to leave your email address so that I have a way to contact you!

This giveaway is now closed! Congratulations to Rochelle, and thanks to all for reading along!

Of course, if you just can't wait, hop over to Preeti's shop to get the pattern and get started on a fabulous quilt of your own right away!

Thanks for stopping by, and everyone have a grand weekend!

For the birds

 Hi everyone, and happy (soon to be) Opening Day! This is a true sign of spring and is a big day in our household. It happens that our favorite team is opening here in Baltimore, so guess what we'll be doing next week? I hope we can find parking!

It has been a very busy week here, so all I got done was making some birds for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. They are super cute, though, so they have been hanging out here and cheering me up. Here's the whole flock of pink and yellow birds:

 

Aren't they cute? It's hard to get them all in one picture because there are so many, and I'm not tall enough to reach higher to get them closer in the tree. But look-- the leaves are beginning!

Here's a closer look at the pink birds:

I had a great time making this group, and I remembered to make some facing in each direction. And since I was making pink birds, I had to make the most famous of the pink birds, a flamingo:

 

 

Yes, she knows she's gorgeous. She could use a better pressing, but she still turned out great. The legs took a bunch of trial and error, but I think I came close to making those resemble a flamingo's stick legs.

 

And now for the yellow birds:

More fun color combinations! The yellow with turquoise markings on the left is the last of that fabric I had left, and it worked great for this happy bird. The bench they're on came from our daughter, who got a new bench rather than paint this one. It may have a few dings, but it made a great backdrop.

I'm so glad I chose this as one of my RSC projects this year. Half the fun of the birds is picking out all the different color and fabric combinations. All of these birds are made from little bits of stuff that I saved, so they are all truly scrappy. And all different!

 

These birds are not paper pieced and are made using a tutorial by Lynne, which you can get right HERE. It's totally worth it, because these little guys are addictive and you'll find yourself making a ton of them. And they bring such happiness!

 

Here's another little bit of happiness from in front of one of my neighbor's houses:

 

 

Bright pink hyacinths! I don't think I've seen that color in hyacinths before, but it certainly is cheerful.  

Have a good weekend, everyone, and happy spring!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC22