PROGRESS!

Last Tuesday I showed you my spool quilt sandwiched and ready to be quilted. I also mentioned that I had finished the quilting on my 2 color bear claw quilt.

Here it is...now called Beary Sweet!

I worked backwards on this quilt, starting with and building the quilt around the backing fabric I had in my stash 

(probably inherited from my mom's stash.)

and using the book two-color Quilts my daughter gave me many years ago.

(This is the second quilt I have made using a pattern from it.)

This is my first finish of 2018! It finishes at 40" x 56" and will be donated as a charity quilt. 

My spool quilt is finished! 

This completes my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2017. The scrappy little spools are all stacked in an organized manner on a shelf! 

The backing is another piece of fabric I inherited from my mom's stash. This is called Mumms the Word by Debbie Mumm. It has all kinds of sewing notions and   sewing needs scattered across the fabric. I also had a extra block I pieced in. I FMQ 'thread' in the color of each spool and woodgrain in the borders. This is my 2nd finish of 2018 and measures 36" x 43".  

I took some time to start piecing my Regatta Quilt (before I sandwich my next flimsy). I am following the QAL over at Home Sewn By Us. I had finally cut all my colored strips and some of my white strips and squares to get started piecing. I was so excited to get started! 

Section A complete!

These are the darkest of my colors and will actually be the first rows 

(not columns but I'm just temporarily saving room on my design wall.)

I also got my delivery (or at least most of it...one backordered 😞) for my Temperature Quilt which I'm following over at NeedledMom. 

Again, I couldn't wait to get started to see what my quilt will look like. One Square in a Square per day. I had made a spreadsheet to keep organized while waiting on my order but I think that I will continue to record daily the temperature high and lows. 

This will actually be the 1st row of the quilt with the darkest (top) square being on the left. January started very cold here, then a bit of a warm up with cooler temperatures following. This will be a fun quilt to track through the year! Head over to Needled Mom to see how different Mary's looks!

 One final update....I finally got around to building (with my hubby's help) a new design wall! It is slightly bigger than my old one. The blocks 'hang on' so much better! We followed this tutorial over at SewKatieDid. 

Here it is being put to good use!

I'm linking up to To Do Tuesday over at Stitch All The Things, FreeMotion by the River for Linky Tuesday, and Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

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!

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?

Rainbow Scrap Challenge for March

March's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is green red. Not the expected color for March! Angela did a random choice of colors from her crayon box. 

So this month we play with reds! 

My red scrap bucket is overflowing Ü

My mini spools do not use many scraps...but they sure are cute!

I'm linking up at So Scrappy. Join me over there to see all the amazing red projects this month.

I'm also using the RSC color of the month to make my Milky Way QAL block. This month the star block is Alpha Centauri.

Here it is with Sirius. The first star in the series.

This QAL is hosted by Blossom Heart Quilts.

New over at Blossom Heart is mini blocks of these stars. 

Maybe a few minis will be in my future.

April is just around the corner...what will April's color be?

Progress Made

I just wanted to give a little update as to what I have been doing since the beginning of February (which seems to be flying by).

I mentioned that the color for February for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at So Scrappy is Sea Green, anything from teal to aqua....I made 5 mini spools using various blue greens.

These are fun mini blocks to make but sad to say they don't use up too many scraps. Last summer I found this giant spool that I thought I may paint and use in the garden. Kinda fun for this photo shoot. 

I'm also participating in the Milky Way QAL over at Blossom Heart Quilts and using the same color selection as RSC. 

The second star in the Milky Way is Canopus.

And finally one of my OMG for February was to make a wallhanging for my daughter out of one of the UFO Halloween blocks from the Wicked blog hop.

I added the word EEK! to the spiderweb and a dowel pocket for hanging, then sandwiched and quilted it.

Out of season but we will be visiting in March and will take it to her.

Now to get busy with the Project Quilting Challenge for this week!

Linking up to SoScrappy and Oh Scrap!