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.

EDIT: I've sent off 2 quilts to Little Lambs Foundation this week!

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! ❤️