Bitter cold but a finish warms my heart

There is no doubt about it...IT IS COLD here in Chicagoland! 

This morning we woke to -22ºF temperature with windchills -50ºF. 

Schools are closed for the 2nd time this week  

and will be closed tomorrow also. 

(Monday for snow, Wednesday and Thursday for cold)

Tomorrow's temperatures are expected to be as cold or colder than today!

It does allow for some extra time to spend in my sewing room with projects. 

For me, 2019 began with 5 WIP left over from 2018. I'm happy to report that I completed my 3rd finish. All 3 were from my WIP pile! 

I do have 2019 WIP almost ready! Gotta get 2018 cleared out first!

This is one of my RSC quilts from 2018. You can see the other one here. I'm calling this quilt Heading North. 

Living in Chicagoland, we often are 'heading north' to WI for excursions, trips, vacations, & camping.

The backing is from my stash and the binding was left over from another project. Love using up stash!

I quilted in a chevron pattern following the outline of the geese. I also quilting the border in the ditch following the HST. 

The quilt finishes at 38.5" x 51"

Today, besides working a bit in my sewing room on my medallion quilt, I sandwiched this 2018 WIP.

I'm linking to Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabication, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and To Do Tuesday at Stitch All the Things.

This will be the 4th 2018 WIP. This churn dash has been finished and waiting some attention since September. The pattern is called churn link. I found it on pinterest.  Now to decide how to quilt it!

I whipped up this cute fabric ball for my new grandson. 

He looks so cute under his Foxy Baby quilt I made for him. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge finish

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and time with family and friends. We had a wonderful time and found time to rest and reflect on the Reason for the Season, the Birth of Jesus!

I also found some time to work in my sewing room completing my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt, Rainbow Geese. 

I added blocks of peach and gray to bring the total blocks to 12. In making these blocks, the small HST blocks become a bonus. They are 3/4" finished and work great in the border. I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday. This will be my last flimsy finish in 2018. 

I have also kept up with my Temperature quilt...only 7 blocks to go!  

I'm looking forward to new challenges in 2019! 

What challenges, quilt alongs, mystery quilts, etc. have you joined for 2019? 

Some sunshine finally!

Hello Mr. Sunshine! It has been a while since you have come out! 

I finally was able to take some pictures of My Little Blue Neighborhood quilt. Since it has been done, we has seen little sunshine and it also gets dark so early that by the time I get home from school, there isn't time to do a photo shoot. 

Last Saturday, I was able to go to the place that I wanted to do some photos only to find that it was too sunny. My quilt was washed out.

The shadows were coming quickly.

On the back I put the 3 houses that I found duplicates of and started a 'new subdivision' for my neighborhood. 

The colors and whites are a bit off due to too much sunlight but I really like the painted brick wall background so I went back again for another shoot.

The colors are much better! 

Just down from the 1st photo shoot, I found a string already strung across the bricks. How convenient! 

 All labeled! A finish!

I also started putting together my Flying Geese RSC quilt. I added two additional blocks, one gray and the other peach, to make 12 blocks. 

I also pulled out the small HSTs that resulted from making the flying geese blocks. I am planning on using them for a border as shown above. They are pretty small and will finish at about 3/4" , adding about 1 1/2" to the size of the quilt. It should finish at 37.5" x 49.5". 

I added another row to my temperature quilt...only 2 rows left for 2018!

Linking to Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River,  Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy.

Doing some catching up

It has been a while since I have update my temperature quilt! My summer plans were to start and complete a few quilts. In doing so, it was hard to sneak in time to do the regulars like my temperature blocks. I did, however, continue to log the highs and lows of every day!

I spent the last few days catching up on it...cutting all the block pieces and piecing them together, then the rows and finally adding them to the top! 

Here it is!

Look how warm our summer has been! I think we will have at least another row of those warm colors before the colors start to shift back to the cool yellow and greens AND before getting into the cold blues. 

Since we are in September already, the Rainbow Scrap Challenged announced a new color ~ dark blues. Plenty of those in my scrap bin! 

Here is my flying geese block.

I really like this block and will probably add more blocks to make the size of the quilt bigger! I will be limited by the amount of the crosshatch fabric I have left.

I also finished the Plus blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Only a few more months to go!

I'm linking up to Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts, Making Monday at Love Laugh Quilt, Moving It Forward at Em's Scrapbag, To Do Tuesday at Stitch All The Things, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy

Getting Ready

Today I had some time, so I got busy and sandwiched my Regatta quilt! I'm ready to start the quilting! I decided not to piece the back with the left over pieces from the front. (I think I will make a baby quilt with the scraps.) 

I found a piece of fabric that I think works well. 

No pictures yet. 

I'm quilting along with no pressure with Home Sewn By Us

March brings a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the color is.....

Light greens/Yellow greens!

I made 2 Plus blocks and the Flying Geese block. 

Head over to SoScrappy to see what everyone is doing in green this month!

Also with the start of March, I was able to finish the February blocks for my Temperature quilt. This is the start of the 4th row! 

All the green and yellow blocks means we have had a pretty warm February. 

No blue blocks! That's OK 👌🏻 with me!

I'm linking up to New Month New Color at So Scrappy, OhScrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and To Do Tuesday at Stitch All Things

Where Does the Time Go?

It has been a while since I have last posted. Life just doesn't seem to want to slow down. I have been spending some time in my sewing room which is always good! I have been putting off making the next baby quilt but will have to start on it sooner than later. I do have a bit of time yet.

So what have I been doing in my sewing room, you ask? Well, I have challenged myself into 1) sewing projects that I have purchased a bit ago and have been waiting on the back burner, and 2) using fabrics from my stash (much of which has been donated to me) and create. 

First, using a piece of fabric from my stash, I cut out as many 4" squares as I could (the pattern of flowers were in squares, so I cut them apart.)

After rearranging them on my design wall, I sewed them all back together. Then using this technique, I added the lattice on top. Thanks to Pat over at Life in the Scrapatch for the tutorial. 

The border is Kona Cotton Candy Blue, the binding and lattice is Kona Cotton White. The backing is a piece from my stash!

I also added a sleeve for hanging. 

The quilt finishes at 33.5" x 36"

I straight line quilted it along the lattice and in the border and FMQ a rose motif in the flowers.

A nice finish!

For the other part of my challenge, I dug out the fabrics that I purchased for a quilt that I saw in this magazine back in Feb/Mar 2011.

I fell in love with this retro feel fabric line called Early Bird by Cosmo Cricket. I went about purchasing some of the line and adding in other fabrics that I had that I felt coordinated nicely. 

I started on the split snowball blocks...80 blocks in total.

With every snowball block, you get 4 sets of 2 tiny triangles. I told myself that I wasn't going to save them this time. 

(I have several bunches of triangle cutoffs, ready to be sewn)

...But I couldn't help myself...

...they were just so cute...

SO...

I took some time off from the split snowball quilt to play with these...

Each HST is just 3/4" small. 

A mini flying geese...

Both the mini and the split snowball are ready to by sandwiched and quilted!

So that's what I've been up to, how about you?