A Little of This and That

 I've been working on my final quilt for the Hands2Help2021 challenge. I will be donating 2 quilts to the Little Lambs Foundation and another quilt as my Hometown Hero. More on that in a later post. I put the final stitches in the binding of       Spring Fever yesterday! 

This is a bright baby quilt.

 

I pulled fabrics from my stash to match the piece, also from my stash, that I would use for the back. I drew a simple quilt pattern on graph paper. 

The rotating pink squares bring movement to the simple design.

The backing has little rose buds in blue, pink, and yellow with green stems. I needed to piece the back to make it big enough. 

The Little Lambs Foundation suggests 36" x 42" for the size of a baby quilt. 

Spring Fever is 36" x 44" ~perfect!. 

I FMQ petals in the yellow blocks, leaves in the green blocks, and a offset circle shape in the pink/white blocks. 

The binding is a striped fabric with a mix of colors that I felt would go nicely. 

It was nice to stitch this quilt completely from my stash!

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict and 

Link Party @ Quilting Patchwork Applique.

I haven't updated you on my Thankful Slow Stitching in awhile. It has been a little slow lately as I have doing some additional hand stitching. Almost all the green stems are finished!

Slowly I have worked on some scrappy blue tumbler blocks. Here is all the colors I've completed so far.

Linking to Slow Sunday Stitching @Kathy'sQuilts and ScrapHappySaturday @SoScrappy.

I forgot all about sharing my March journal calendar and it is almost the end of April. I'm more accountable to keep it up when I share it so here it is! 

A New Finish!

 I am excited to show you my newest finish! I have been working on it in bits since late January. I bought the Fresh as a Daisy pattern from Lindsey @penandpaperpatterns a while back because it was so cute, but I had other things going on so it was put aside until I saw this quilt! I loved the colors and I had the perfect fabric in my stash for it! Years ago, several yards of this green dotted fabric was given to me. I used some of it in other quilts (most recently here) but I knew I needed to make a daisy quilt with it. There was plenty left!

The daisies are made with Kona white and a Kona yellow from my stash.  I really enjoyed the method of construction in this pattern. The pattern is well written and easy to understand with illustrations to help. It was fun to make!

The backing piece from my mom's stash (that I inherited) was another perfect match. 

I quilted in the ditch around each daisy and I FMQ a spiral in the centers and loopy meanders in the background.

The binding is the same Kona cotton yellow as the daisy. 

This quilt finished at 43.5" x 53" after making some adjustments to the layout from the original baby quilt. Lindsey's pattern is arranged in a 4 x 4 square measuring 48" sq. I still made 16 daisies but altered the position of the daisies similar to the throw size lay out. I prefer rectangular quilts over square... 

Photos were taken in one of our local parks with lots of green and spring flowers!

This quilt was made to be donated for #hands2help2021. I'm not going to lie, this one will be hard to give up. I guess I need to make another!

I'm linking to Can I get a Whoop, Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, Link Party @Quilting Patchwork Applique, Friday Foto Fun @PoweredbyQuilting

Playing with Blue Scraps

 It has been a very busy time in my family but April started a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I managed to squeeze in some time to play with my blue scrap bin and make 10 wonky shoo fly blocks! 

I also made 10 Joy Luck blocks!

Here are all 4 colors together!

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @So Scrappy.

So why have I been so busy? 

As you may know, last May my daughter's family moved in with us. My SIL was to go back to school for nursing (a new career). Due to COVID-19, it was harder than expected to fulfil hours needed and school was postponed until this Fall. He did finish the required CNA program and is working as an aid. After almost a year with us, they bought a house close by and are trying to get it renovated before moving in. The house was previously owned by an older couple that haven't been living in the house for a year. It needed a lot of cleaning and updating. It isn't easy to find time when you have a 2 year old and jobs but thankfully they can stay with us until it is ready. 

Our grandson!

On top of the new house, our oldest daughter and her boyfriend got engaged 1 week before the close. 

Since they had been together for several years, they decided that they were going to get married on 4-3-21. They had a private wedding ceremony and then we met as a family at the Chicago Botanical Gardens for an small gathering! There will be more celebrating as it becomes safe to do it. 

We are so excited for them! What a beautiful day they had! ❤️

SAHRR reveal

 Today is the reveal and parade of all the SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin) quilts over at Quilting Gail! Back in January we were to choose a center block and on January 11 there was a linking party to see everyones start. Each week following, a round theme was released. We had 1 week to link up your round.

Round 1 was hosted by Chris @chrisknitssews and she choose piano keys. 

Round 2 was hosted by Emily @Darling Dogwood and she choose plus signs.

Round 3 was hosted by Anja @AnjaQuilts. She choose flying geese.

Round 4 was checkerboard which was hosted by Roseanne @HomeSewnByUs.

Round 5 was stars hosted by Wendy @Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life.

Round 6 was hosted by Susan @QuiltFabrication. She chose log cabins.

and Round 7 was pinwheels hosted by Gail @Quilting Gail. 

Here is my finished quilt!

I used the Frolic fabric line by Sandy Gervais which I bought 2 charm packs and some yardage years ago. I hoped that I had enough fabric to do the rounds!

I did need to add a bit of coordinating fabrics from my stash. When all was said and done, I had several charm squares left over so I decided to add a small border (Kona Lime) and then add the scrappy charm squares as a final round. 

I named this quilt Going Around Again!

The backing was a piece of cotton shirting fabric I had in my stash. 

I quilted each round on an individual basis. Some straight line quilting, some FMQ. 

I used Aurifil 40wt thread in off white.

This quilt is quite bright and not my usual style but I think it would make a nice summer picnic quilt! Its finished size is approximately 54" square.

Here is my attempt at a swirl!

I'm linking up to @QuiltingGail for the SAHRR quilt parade.  Hop on over to see how amazing and different they all turned out!

Morewood Mystery Quilt

 I finally was able to get around to quilting my Morewood Mystery Quilt! I really enjoy quilting along with Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs. This is the second QAL that I participated in and love both of the designs! You can see the first one here.

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This quilt was made mostly from my stash. The only fabrics I purchased was the coordinating blue in the quilt and the binding. The floral and the rose color and the backing fabrics I have had for many years. The background is Kona white (which is a staple in my stash) and the yellow is a Kona light yellow (can't remember the name).

It was a beautiful day to go out for a photo shoot at the park!

This quilt is all machine pieced and quilted in diagonal lines to follow the pattern of the design. 

I really enjoy binding a quilt! 

Here is a close up of the simple diagonal quilting.

Thank you Cheryl for another wonderful Mystery QAL!

I'm linking to the Morewood Mystery Link Party and Favorite Finish Link Party.

Playing with Green Scraps

 I was able to do some playing with my green scraps! 

I made 10 Wonky Shoo Fly blocks in green!

Here are the 30 blocks from the first 3 months, pink, yellow and green...very Spring like. 

I also made 10 Joy Luck blocks.

I didn't take a picture of all the colors together. Maybe I'll remember next month.

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @So Scrappy.

 

I did sign up for the H2H charity quilt drive again this year. I read through the charities and they are all of need but have different requirements. One difference this year is Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict is asking everyone to consider donating a quilt to a local first responder or front line worker. This is for our Hometown Heros. She is leaving it up to each person but asks us to write about the recipient's story. I need to think about this for a bit but I have an idea!

How can it be March already?

I finally put the last 2 rounds of the SAHRR quilt together! 

Round 6 really got me second guessing. The round was hosted by Susan at Quilt Fabrication and she choose log cabin. As I was reading through the host's posts and what they did, I noticed that many of them were waiting for the next round to add them to their quilt. That made me start thinking "What do they all know that I don't know?" "Will I have enough fabric to complete 2 rounds?" "I don't enjoy mystery quilts and this feels like a mystery quilt along. Did I make a mistake doing this?"

I really have enjoyed all the rounds until I got stuck in Round 6. Funny thing is that I do like the log cabin block! So I waited until Round 7. Quilting Gail announced pinwheels as the final round. I had a long week of work and babysitting so I wasn't able to start working on the rounds until yesterday. I surveyed the amount of fabric I had remaining that would work in the blocks and drew up a round combining log cabins and pinwheels. Here is what I came up with.

I added quarter log cabin blocks at the corners and 2 in the middle of each side. I then made 3 pinwheel blocks for each corner. Since I had only 2 charm packs and a little bit of yardage, I had trouble having enough of the prints from the fabric line with the same background color to complete the round without adding some coordinating fabric from my stash. I do have quite a few charm squares left over that I may use as either another round or pieced for the back. Overall, I'm pleased with this!

I'm linking to Quilting Gail linking party and the link party at Patchwork and Quilts.

I am also making a bit of progress on my slow stitching! I have finished the flowers on half of the hoop and I just finished the text. Yay!

I'm linking to Slow Stitching Sunday over at Kathy's Quilts and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

I finished my February calendar! I've been keeping up recording one or two things each day...a simple way to journal! 

This week I hope to play with my green scraps for So Scrappy, take a look at the Hands2Help charities, and work on a few other projects!