I spy something cuddly

Hi all! This has been a very busy week for me, how about you?  I did get a lot done, but somehow I still have more to do.  How does that happen?  It's like the scrap basket--the more you take out, the more there seems to be left.  Do you know what I mean?  On the upside, the heat broke for a bit, so I have been unable to fry eggs on the driveway for a few days. (Has anyone ever actually tried this?)  It's been lovely and pleasant, which is a nice change.

This week I did finish up this little lovely:

I quilted up the I Spy quilt!  When I went to take pictures of this little quilt, I planned to go to a very pretty park a little ways away from us.  Lots of shade and it's well watered so it's still really green.  On the way there it started to sprinkle, so I stopped at a different park that was closer to take pictures before the rain showed up in force.  I took some pictures on the playground equipment, and they turned out pretty well.  There were no children there because of the rain, and if there had been I probably wouldn't have done it, but it was great for a children's quilt.

To keep this little quilt cuddly, all I did was stitch in the ditch (or near the ditch) of all the blocks, including the diagonals.  It was quick and easy and felt like I made a lot of progress really fast.

In the setting triangles, I free-motioned some words! I hope they show up okay in the pictures. These are a few of the things found in the quilt, like cows, frogs, cats, etc.

I chalked in the first three words just to get started, but then I just "wrote" the words in each triangle as I went.  It was pretty easy and I was actually kind of sad when it was over.  But now my favorite tiny human will not only have a cuddly little quilt but also some of my "handwriting." I will definitely try this again on another quilt, too.  Maybe a stripe so I can keep the words straight.

I used a stripe for the binding and some cute owls on the backing.  The quilt was a little too wide for one width of fabric, so I added a strip of polka dots to fill it out.  The binding is Susie's Magic Binding, which is still awesome.  I messed up somewhere, though, in either the binding or the setting triangles, because I ended up losing most of the points on the edges.  I'm thinking that I trimmed the edges a little too closely on the sides.  Live and learn.

So that's my happy little finish, done just in time for taking to our tiny grandson.  I'm not sure he actually needs another quilt, especially at the height of summer, but what's a grandma to do?  I guess I could hang on to it for a while, but it's much too cute. I wouldn't want him to be deprived!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!  I am seriously looking forward to packing up and getting away from the construction zone that is the house for a little while.  I'll also be looking for some ways to eat all of these:

These are my tomatoes and a small zucchini, which is what I've gotten so far from the two plants that I have. (Those are fingerprints on the rim, not dirt!)  I'm amazed by the tomatoes, which taste like fresh air and sunshine.  I've never grown this many this early.  Hope my neighbors like tomatoes!  I've been pinching back the zucchini, too, so I hope not to get too many of them, but the first one is always great!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and crazymomquilts.

Like a wave out on the ocean

Hi everyone!  Hot enough for you?  I know, it's not funny, but it was 100 degrees today with about 95 percent humidity, so my brain may be a bit foggy. These are the days when all there is to do is stay inside and have a bunch of nice cool drinks, and maybe do something non-stressful. So you don't get all sweaty, you know?

Seems like a good time for some cool blues!  This week I finished off the Ocean Waves quilt top, which I am super-happy about:

It did kind of go all limp and wrinkly when I took it out in the humidity!  I started this quilt top back in 2014, and pulled it out again recently.  To be honest, it was in a ziplock bag and I forgot all about it.  All the parts and pieces were already made,  and I already had 8 of the blocks assembled and put together into quilt sections.  I had enough pieces for a much larger quilt, but I didn't use all of them and made this smaller one instead. 

This turned out to be 46 by 66 inches, which is a nice cuddle size.  Unless the hubs falls in love with it (or one of my kids claims it) this little quilt is destined for charity after it gets quilted.  I'm amassing quite a pile of things to be quilted, so there may be a bit of a quilting marathon coming on sometime soon.

I like the way this quilt looks, but I wouldn't say that making it was fun.  There's definitely a reason why it became a UFO! There has to be a good way to make an Ocean Waves quilt, but this is not it.  Don't look too closely because there are a *lot* of missing points.  The central parts, which are made of the smaller triangles, kept stretching out and becoming distorted, especially when I pressed them, so I used a ton of Magic Sizing on them.  I used so much that I think I may want to gently hand wash this top before I quilt it because some parts of it are as stiff as paper.

Even though it wasn't especially fun, I'm glad I finished off this quilt top! One more thing out of the closet and turned into something useful.  And it is pretty, isn't it?  I have a lot of pieces left over, but I don't know what I'm going to do with all those yet.  It's possible that I'll get another small quilt out of the leftover pieces, but it won't be another one like this.

Hope everyone is staying cool!  It's a little odd to be making quilts when it's 100 degrees, isn't it?  Must be all that air conditioning going to our heads.  And where better to be when it's so hot than in a cool, happy sewing room?

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, crazymomquilts, and Oh Scrap!

Work progresses

Hi everyone!  How's it going with you? Is it super hot and really humid where you are, so hot and humid that it's delaying important contracting work on your house?  Because that's how we are here.  When I was a kid and it was hot and steamy like this we used to try to go to the movies because that was the only place that had air conditioning, which is why I saw so many movies.  Now we all have AC and we just stay inside and stream movies to the sofa.  It's not even close to the same.

Anyway, here's one thing that loves the weather--

The tomatoes!  I think I'll be having a very tasty salad by the end of the week, don't you?

Speaking of red things, this week I'm working on updating my temperature quilt.  It's been a few weeks since I did this, so I'm a bit behind.  The rows in the quilt are 18 days each, and there are no breaks between the months.  Look at which colors I'm using almost exclusively for this row:

Yep, all the reds that are for the 85 to 100 degree range.  And so far I've used one of the browns for 100 plus degrees, too.  I was hoping to avoid that one, but there isn't a cool blue in sight right now.

That's because all of the cool blues are in a different quilt.  I have only 8 blocks to go for the Ocean Waves quilt. This will give me a quilt about 40 by 60, plus the borders.  Since I'll have a bunch of hsts left over, I was thinking of a border something like this:

Yeah, I don't know if I like it either.  It's a little small for the size of the quilt.  So maybe I'll just use some of the chunks of blue fabrics that were also in the bag with the other pieces.  I guess I'll have to see how it goes.

So that's a small update from here!  I'm hoping to get a small finish this week, one of the many, many that are in progress.  I guess we'll see which one makes it to the finish line first!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social.

Bag full of blues

Hi everyone!  Man, am I tired of remodeling.  Really, really tired.  The end is in sight, but that means that they'll be doing the floors, and that means that there is now furniture in my sewing room.  Big furniture, things that don't belong in a sewing room.  I know it's temporary, but it's it's in the way!

I know Fridays are for finishes, but I have no finishes right now.  I haven't had a lot of time to sew this week because of the work on the house, (they built my pantry this week!)  but I did do a few things.  I got to move the old cabinet from the kitchen to the sewing room for a cutting table and I loooove it.  I also dug out this bag full of blue pieces and such:

This is a 1-gallon zip bag and it held a *ton* of stuff:

Yes, that's my new cutting table!  Isn't it great?

Triangles, hsts, some big chunks, and some large triangles made from blue 9-patches and white squares.  Some of the hsts are not pressed, but there are plenty of others that are.  There are also plenty of single blue and white triangles, though a lot more blue ones than white ones.

For a clue as to what all these pieces are for, there was this all scrunched up in the bottom of the bag:

I pressed it before I hung this on the wall because it had a *lot* of wrinkles.  This is the beginning of an Ocean Waves quilt that I started back in 2014.  2014!  This is from a pattern by Joan Ford from her book Scraps Plus One.  It's so very pretty, but I put it away a long time ago without ever finishing it.  It looks like I made a dozen blocks and had all the parts ready for at least 30 more.  That's almost enough for the remainder of the quilt, which turns out to be a good size.  I think I may have decided to make fewer blocks to make a smaller quilt.

All the pieces are there--even if they need some more pressing-- so why not jump in and make the rest of the blocks?  Okay, here we go:

And that's when I remembered why this is a UFO.  It's so pretty, but there are a lot of bias edges and I think the blocks are meant to be oversized and trimmed down because they don't come out to be the right size.  It would help if I looked it up in the book, but there is a sofa and a dining table in front of my shelving unit right now.  (I know!)  I think what I'll do is make up enough blocks to make a small child-size quilt, and then do something else with the other pieces.  Maybe they'll make a nice border or something.  Or another small quilt all together.

So that's what I did with my limited stitching time this week!  It's not much, but it's something, and it kept me sane, what with all the hammering and pounding and whatnot going on around here.  But soon I'll have a pantry, and a fun small quilt on top of that!

Hope you all had a great week, and a wonderful weekend.  We are expecting some "get all the animals to the ark" rain, but that's okay because I have plans to stock some shelves! 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, soscrappy, and Oh Scrap!