A 2023 RSC finish!

 I finished my 'Button Up' 2023 RSC quilt! After finishing, it took awhile to get some photos as the weather here was not cooperating. The weather finally cleared enough to have a photo shoot. I headed out to a local park! It was still a bit chilly so there were not many kids around.

 The RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) is made over a year, following the color of the month announced over @So Scrappy blog hosted by Angela. I have been following along for many years choosing 1 or more blocks to make. 

This year I paired down to only one block (button), however, I made 4 each month in the monthly color. 

Angela announces 10 colors, January - October leaving November and December to finish up. I generally add 2 more colors to round out to 12 which makes for a 3x4 grid layout. 

The button block was inspired by some fabric in my stash that I inherited from my mom's stash. It is the perfect backing for a rainbow of buttons.

It is a bit hard to see but those tiny rainbow shapes are little buttons. So cute!

The button blocks were all made from scraps from my scrap bins.

This quilt was machine pieced and machine FMQ with rambling loopy loops. 

I had enough left of the backing fabric to also use for the binding.

Finished size is about 42.5" x 55.5"

So what's next? I need to decide what to make for next year's RSC! TBD -  I have some time to work on that!

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy, Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Linky Party @Patchwork & Quilts, Wednesday Wait Loss @The Inquiring Quilter, Design Wall Monday @Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
'Tis the season to be jolly...It is a busy time and besides decorating the house, baking and visiting the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree, I've been busy with some Christmas crafting. 

Beautiful barn quilt square found at the tree farm.

Skate and elf boot felt ornaments made from craftymonkies tutorial.

Gnome/Santa's made at our girlfriends craft day!

Gingerbread boy and girl made for the grands!

Ornament making has been a tradition in my family for many years! I love making and decorating our tree with homemade ornaments!

Last Hurrah for 2019!

I finally finished what will be my last quilt for 2019! 

(I still have some UFO's from 2019 projects)

This quilt is one of two from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2019! The block is called Waterfront Starburst from the book The Quilter's Paper Piecing Workbook. It will be a wedding gift for tomorrow's wedding! 

After sewing the blocks in a 3 x 4 array, I added large Kona white borders. This created large negative space for quilting. 

I FMQ in a rainbow, variegated thread mimicking the points of the starburst. I also straight line quilted around each starburst in the color of the star. 

It was such a warm, sunny day yesterday, I took advantage and went to the park for a photo shoot. It was almost too sunny!

The backing is pieced with fun stripes and brightly colored 

Day of the Dead fabric.

The quilt finished size is 60.5" x 74"

I'm linking up to Brag About Your Beauties over at From Bolt to Beauty, Can I get a Whoop, Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts, Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy.

And because I promised...2019 new ornaments!

My new ornament is the snowman, my daughter's is the reindeer, and the little 3D tree is her boyfriend/partner. It has been a tradition in our family to make handmade ornaments for many years (started my my sister years ago.) We no longer exchange ornaments, but now my kids have taken up the tradition! FUN!

The little tree is so amazing! It is 3D printed! The center 2-pieced trunk fits together at 90º to form a stand, then 5 stars in varying sizes are put on, biggest to smallest. The largest size has Merry Christmas printed on it! So cute!

What happened while MIA?

For just about the last quarter of 2017, I went MIA from my blog. I keep saying that I'll get better at posting to my blog but I can't seem to find a time that life isn't busy! School has been busier this year from the start. 

I was doing a pretty decent job of keeping up with challenges and QAL's until November, then I was fell behind on all of them. 

However, I did get some quilting and other projects done during this time!

I did finish my 15 minutes of play quilt which is now named 

Thank Your Lucky Stars. 

In my last post, I had started quilting around the 20 different colored blocks and star points. I finished that quilting and started the negative space quilting. 

I quilted a swirl inside each star block and a braid between the blocks. 

The backing is a multi-colored print I found at Joann's. 

The binding is scrappy. The finished size is 54.5" x 68".

This quilt will be gifted to someone special.

I also made a gift for our nephew's baby boy. This traveled to Norway and was well received!

The blanket is fleece with a crocheted edge and the bib is made from a recycled men's shirt. The bowtie used scraps from a previous quilt. The pattern is found here. 

I spent a week in Austin with my daughters and SIL for Thanksgiving. My hubby and our oldest daughter flew down on Wednesday. It was fun to all be together. 

My DD2 has been learning indigo dyeing. Together we did a batch of tea towels and napkins. This is a fun but bit complicated process. I'm thinking of trying to do some fabric dyeing come summer and warmer temperatures.

Here are the folds we used.

My napkins.

My daughter's tea towels.

It was night by the time we finished the dyeing.

Christmas was around the corner and I needed to make my ornaments for the year. Based on a log cabin kit we bought while in Vancouver, I made these from mini wooden logs I found at a thrift store. 

I also made some hoop quilts for 2 special sister friends in my life. 

 The pattern for the gnome was found here. I made a slight adjustment to eliminate the ears. Hand embroidered, God Jul! (Merry Christmas in Norwegian)

I shrunk the pattern and added the tree from here. 

Another quilt that I made and gifted to a good friend was Flight.

This is a wall hanging quilt. Size 13" x 20.5"

The pattern is found on Craftsy.

I quilted around the plane and then I added some night sky constellations.  

And finally, yesterday I worked on my little spools for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the last stars for the Milky Way QAL.

Blacks and browns!

All the little spools, neat and orderly...arranged by color. 

Acrux star in peach.

Deneb star in gold.

9 Milky Way stars!

I added a scrappy star with fabrics from some of the previous stars. 

I like this a lot however I ran out of the gray background fabric. I need to go and look/shop for a gray that will match. I don't remember if this was a Kona or...? 

I still have a few blocks to finish for Grandma's Kitchen.

Linking up to ScrapHappySaturday over at So Scrappy.

Thanks for reading to the end! I know it was heavy on the pictures and words but that what happens when you go MIA for a couple of months. 

In the next few days, I will be contemplating what projects, QALs, and challenges I will be doing in 2018! 

What will you be joining! I'd love to hear! 

Hope everyone will have a warm and prosperous 2018!

Last minute Christmas

It has been a tradition in my family for many years to make a home-made ornament to give to each family. I usually make more than one to try out which one will be my ornament of the year.

Here is this year's ornament.

I used wooden spools and buttons from my mom's collection. I wrapped the spools with colored paper, then overlaid it with musical note washi tape. The little snowy green bottle brush trees were decorated with red beads, a festival word and a star made from 2 sequins that I glued together. 

The button is on the bottom of the spool.

I also made this paper ornament from a pentagon shape. When you fold over the sides a star forms.

I then stamped a sweet little Christmas tree in gold. These are nice gift toppers that can be used as a ornament as well. 

I was so inspired by my creative blogger friend, Annie from Freeze Frame, by her beautiful money gift wrapping that I just needed to add some pizazz to my daughter's money gift. 

I used what I had in my craft room and hand cut the star and swirl. The letters are alphabet stickers and the Christmas saying was left from a photo collage kit. At times like this I wish I had a die cutter. 

It is by far the prettiest money gift wrapping I have done! 

Thanks for the inspiration Annie!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

December Post

Where did December go? Not one post! 
Well, I'll get one in on this last day of December!

With such a short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this year was extremely busy. The first 2 1/2 weeks I finished up my long term assignment.  Monday, December 16th and Tuesday, December 17th were transition days between the regular teacher and myself. Since I started the year with the kids, I did most of the teaching on Monday so she could learn the students names, the schedule and the routines that we have been doing. On Tuesday, she taught more of the day and I just assisted.  I came back on Wednesday afternoon to see the kids practice for their Holiday Sing. 

This is the ornament we made for the school Christmas tree! Here is where I found the inspiration. Turned out so cute and was easy enough for first grade!

So on Thursday, I started getting all the things ready for the holidays that didn't get done before including making several gifts including a knitted infinity scarf and a sewn one. Of coarse I didn't take pictures of them. 

I also made several fabric baskets that my sister taught me how to make while she was visiting over Thanksgiving. Here is one of them.

I made my Ornaments of the Year! Inspired by these. Great use of old yard sticks and scrabble tiles!

Here is part of the Christmas gift we sent to our kids in Texas. 

A snowball fight in a basket...

Texas style!

(inspiration found here)

It was so much fun watching them have a snowball fight Christmas morning! Thanks to Facetime!

After Christmas, we get away for a few days with our closest friends at the beautiful Osthoff. This is the most relaxing and fun time of the year! Now I really don't like the winter or the cold but the beauty of this place can surely change my mind for the days that we are there.

sunset from our rooms

our traditional breakfast at Otto's!

Many more pictures but just a few to share!

Today I wanted to try arm knitting! Have you heard of it? 

It's basically knitting using your arms as the needles. It makes very large and loose stitches and is great for chunky yarn. I had 2 skeins of this angel hair in my yarn stash so I made an infinity scarf...in maybe an hour...hour and a half...including learning how to arm knit.

I casted on and knitted 12 stitches for about 60 inches then formed it into a infinity scarf by sewing the ends together. 

It knits up pretty fast since the 'needles' are so big. 

Finished! Worn doubled...

worn with one loop tighter than the other. 

Pretty cute!

I'm still finishing up some challenges of 2013. At least I don't have too much to catch up on...I'll post again next year...