Block finishes

September brought a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ ORANGE!

I was able to get busy this week and make a few mini orange spool blocks.

Only a few months to go before we put this scrappy quilt together! I will link up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at SoScrappy!

The other monthly QAL that I'm participating this year is the Milky Way QAL. I have been using this same color (for the most part) in this QAL as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So this month's star is Betelgeuse and here it is in orange!This QAL is by Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts.

There are 3 more stars in this QAL before we put it together!

Finally, I'm been doing the Sew Along with Pat Sloan, Grandma's Kitchen. This challenge is weekly so it is a bit more of a challenge to keep up. Here are the last 2 weeks blocks.

This is Recipe Box. For this block, several alternate layouts were suggested. I chose this layout because it reminded me more of a recipe box. My dark fabric forms the box around the mint green fabric which actually has recipes written on it. This is from the fabric line Domestic Diva by Riley Blake. Link up here.

The 11th block is a appliqué block Peppermint Swirls. 

Pat adds stories of her grandmas in each pattern. It is fun to reminisce about my grandma! My grandma didn't have peppermint swirls but she did have candy! Reeses peanut butter cups were her favorites and she always had plenty to share with her grandchildren and great grandchildren! Link up here.

Are you caught up with your QALs?

New Goals

We had a nice Labor Day weekend camping and hiking in Devil's Lake State Park but now it is time to set some goals for September!

After completing my scrappy star top, I set it aside and started the quilting on my Sail Away! quilt that I completed the top for in 2016.  

Sandwiched and with the quilting started, 

my goal for September is to finish the quilting and bind this quilt!

I'm quilting little sail boats in the blocks and waves will be in the borders. I'm following the tutorials by Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt.

Also, the color for September is ORANGE! I will work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks making little spools in orange. This challenge is sponsored by SoScrappy.

I will also make the monthly star, Betelgeuse, for the Milky Way QAL over at Blossom Heart Quilts. 

And I will catch up and continue the weekly sew along over at Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen. 

I will link up to OMG September goals at Elm Street Quilts. 

Go on over and read other goals and give some encouragement!

Do you set monthly goals?

August Finish

It's that time again when we share our monthly goal finish. My goal was to make something out of the 15 minutes of play blocks that were uncovered in my sewing room. In my last post I showed a pattern that I decided to use. I rewrote the block to fit the size of my blocks. I also needed a few more 15 minutes of play block to make a good sized quilt. 

The pattern for Fat Quarter Shop

I'm happy to share that I was able to finish my goal and now have a flimsy waiting its turn to get sandwiched and quilted!

I really like the scrappy secondary stars that are formed!

My other goals are always to keep up with my monthly QALs. 

My little spools for the Rainbow Scrap challenge in neutrals.

Polaris for the Milky Way QAL. 

And blocks 7 - 9 of the Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along!

Linking to Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen.

 Linking up to OMG August Finish Link Up at Elm Street Quilts. 

It has been a good month for quilting!

It's all Natural!

August brought a new no color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ low volume! My little spools look great in low volume but I've been using the same color for The Milky Way QAL and low volume doesn't speak well with night sky stars! Here are the cute little spools in low volume prints ranging from whites to dark creams. Looks like threads I would have in my sewing room!

Here are all the little spools so far!

 For most of the months, I made 5 spools but I originally was going to alternate the layout from 5 spools to 4 spools. Not sure what it will be in the end. I may need to make one more purple and one more red. They are just too cute!

I'll play with the layout when we get closer to the end of this year's challenge! I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at SoScrappy.

So I had this dilemma that I mentioned above...low volume doesn't work well for night sky stars so I needed to pick another color for The Milky Way QAL. Way back in January, the color of the month was purple. The purple I used for my star was a very pinkish purple. 

So I decided I would make another purple star using deep purples. 

Here is Polaris!

The patterns and designs are available from Blossom Heart Quilts. 

The 6th block in Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along is Wash Day! I love this block and how it reminds me of the agitators on my grandma's and my mom's wringer washer.

I linked up to Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along over at Pat Sloan's blog.

Do you remember my 15 Minutes of Play blocks? This is what I decided to do with them. 

Using this pattern I uncovered in my sewing room, I resized it to fit my 'Play' blocks (which are 6" and the pattern called for 4"). I still used 2 1/2" strips to border the  'Play' blocks and make the star points which will result in the center of the secondary stars to be 4". I felt that there would already be plenty of negative space without making the strips larger. My blocks finish at 14". 

Stay tuned to see how my August goal turns out!

Time to set those August goals

It is amazing that it is already August! 

School here starts very soon, August 17th for the students in my district. I'm not ready for summer vacation to be over!

However, it is time to set some goals! 

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are having our kitchen renovated. The contractors are now finished (Monday was their last day) so now it is up to us to finish the little things we didn't contract out. Thankful that my hubby is very handy...it saves a bit of money! It will be my job to put everything back into the cabinets (we have been living out of boxes and the dining room table full of odd sized things since the end of June)..more organized and slimmed down than before! Hehe!

Here are a few picture so far (my kitchen isn't very big so it is hard to get good photos.)

Across from stove

As for my quilting goals, I mentioned that I was organizing my sewing room a bit and uncovered a bunch of 'made-fabrics'. My LQS had Victoria Findlay Wolfe come for a lecture and workshop. I wasn't able to attend the workshop but I did go to the lecture and trunk show! She is quite amazing! If you ever have a chance to see or hear her ~ GO! The lecture was based on her 15 minutes of Play book (before her QuiltCon win and her incredible work on double wedding ring quilts!) 

I made these blocks after I was impressed by her story and work!

So my goal for August is to make something out of these blocks. A month to play with scraps!

I will most likely make more blocks as there are only 8 rainbow colored blocks. I did find one partially completed low volume block and 3 more orphaned low volume blocks (foundation pieced) that my daughter made when she made this quilt. Not sure if I will use them. 

As always, I will keep up with the RSC, the Milky Way QAL, and the Grandma's Kitchen challenge blocks. 

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal for August over at Elm Street Quilts. 

What are your goals!

Check in

It is time to check in and post my goal finishes for July. 

My goal for July was to move my Go Cubs Go! quilt forward and I'm happy to say that it is done! I completed the quilting and binding and just last night added the label. Hopefully we will be able to use it in October this year!

I posted about the details here if you are interested.

 For the label I found a picture of a baseball online and used it as the background. Cute, right? 

I also previously posted about the Rainbow Scrap Challenge block and the Milky Way QAL block for July here. Goal accomplished!

In the beginning of July I mentioned that I joined Pat Sloan's Sew Along. So far there have been 5 blocks released. I'm using some Domestic Diva by Riley Blake that I had in my stash but I needed to get a bit of yardage (I found some online and also bought 2 coordinating prints).

I made this block out of order (it was the 2nd block released) since I was waiting for the brown yardage. You can see the 1st and 3rd blocks here.

The 4th block released. 

The first 4 blocks altogether. 

And today's block...

Proud to say that I'm all caught up! 

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal ~ July finish over at Elm Street Quilts.

and Let's Be Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

I'll be back soon with my August goals. 

Plenty to do....

There is always plenty to do and since I have been home with workers coming and going 

(kitchen renovation in progress), 

I have had some time to spend in my sewing room. I decided that I needed to do some organization in-between projects. Since my dining room table is loaded with the odd and end contents of my kitchen cabinets 

(most things are in boxes throughout my house but some things don't fit well in boxes), 

I can't prefer not to (table verses floor) sandwich the last quilt top in my UFO's. But...

I did finally finished my Go Cubs Go! quilt that I made in honor of my life long favorite baseball team's incredible win of the World Series last year (2016) after 108 years!

I had the Cubs, baseball, and the pinstripe fabrics in my stash for quite a while just waiting for a time to make a quilt! This was the perfect time!

I used the economy block, alternating the Cubs and baseball fabrics with Kona red and blue. The sashing is Kona white. The border is a print that reminds me of hearts that I found at my now closed 😥 LQS! 

I 💙 the Chicago Cubs!

The backing is a vintage baseball print that I found online. This quilt finishes at 51" x 60.5" a perfect size for a throw or picnic. 

It is Nellie approved!

Back to a little organizing....

I found uncovered this mini quilt kit that I purchased at the International Quilt Festival this past spring. It is called Citrus Delight (one color way of many from the Friendship Pineapples series by Fabrications by Doris). 

It is a fun mini paper pieced block. 

Also, my neighborhood of Little Blue Houses had another population explosion!

There are now 56 houses in the neighborhood! All made out of different blue fabrics from my scraps. It was taking up a good portion of my design wall so the neighborhood came down (to make room for other projects). I am not done with it (or my blue fabrics 😝) yet! I'm still having fun!

What have your been doing?