Friday!

Oh gosh, another week is coming to an end. How do they pass so fast? I am still not very energetic, but I did get a quilt top of mine quilted and bound. 

It may look familiar; it’s something I made when I was stuck at home during the January freeze. It was a way to use up some of my large collection of 5” squares!

This is the top. 

It’s always amazing to me how much better they look once they are quilted. This quilt is big enough to meet the size requirement for the foster kids graduation program. It’s 63” x 72”, and the minimum size is 50” x 70”, so I have it labeled and added to my stack of donation quilts. 

Last night I went downtown to DeLeon Plaza for a street dance. There were vendors and food trucks starting at 5:00. 

I met five or six of my friends there. The Spasmatics started playing at 7:00.

I like their music—they play 80’s music, which is my era. There was a pretty good crowd there. 

They played until 10:00, but I didn’t stay that long. I just didn’t feel up to it. I’m glad I went, though. 

By the way, yesterday’s post was super late, so you can go back and read it if you happened to miss it! I’m blaming it on the sinus medicine!

Under the Weather

I believe I have caught a cold. I woke up yesterday with a very sore throat and as the day progressed, I started getting congested. In all seriousness, it could be allergies, but either way, I have no energy right now. I made myself get up and get some things done, but I came home around 4:00 and took some mucinex and went to bed. I got up long enough to eat and feed the dogs and went back to bed.

I did manage to put binding on two quilts. They are both Texas A&M fabrics with Shannon cuddle on the backs. 

This one is a printed panel, even though it looks pieced. She did add the two borders. 

I cut the binding for these on the bias. That is my preferred way to make binding, but lately I have gotten into the habit of cutting it on the straight grain. It is easier to do that way and easier to calculate how much is needed, but the binding never looks as well as it does when it is on the bias. I need to get back to doing it this way!

Scrappy Saturday

I was able to get some Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks done. I finally moved on to orange, and I’m enjoying working on these bright, colorful blocks.

I got two of these finished. 

And, two of these sixteen patch stars.

In my head, I call them the “biggie stars”. The blocks are 16”, so they look really big to me. I should be able to make a good sized quilt with them. Oh, I have a problem; I am going to run out of the background fabric soon. I have looked for more, including online, and can’t seem to find any. There is nothing written on the selvedge so that is no help. This is a closeup:

If anyone has any, I would be happy to purchase it! 

I only got one of these done:

It’s a little uneven on the edges. Not sure how I managed to do that! It’s such a pretty fabric, and I only had a partial strip, but it was just enough to do a block. I will work on more of these smaller blocks next week. I need more of them than anything else. 

I walked to the side of the house yesterday to see what still needs to be done on that flowerbed. My gardenia is blooming like crazy this year!

It always blooms this time of year, but not as many flowers at one time. Look at all these buds!

I can’t remember if I fertilized it or not, but I must have. I don’t go on that side of my house too often.

What I’ve Been Working On

I sat down and got this post written at the last minute. I’ve been working on a few things; most of them aren’t quilt related. I’m trying to get the yard in shape, well mostly the flower beds. We got the good rain last week, and the weeds really took off! 

I got some quilts finished and spent some extra time making binding. 

I did two Texas A&M quilts for a customer, and the maroon binding will go on those. The navy is for one or two donation quilts. I decided I would make some solid colors of binding and keep it on hand for the donation quilts I make. Fabric is getting so expensive, and as much as I like nice fabric, I think I can use the cheaper stuff for the binding, and it will be okay. Walmart has the precut packages of solids for around $6 for a two-yard cut. I bought the navy, also some red, green, black, orange, and turquoise. I prefer the binding cut on the bias—it seems to lay better on the quilt—and I can get enough for several quilts from a two-yard package. Anyway, that is just how my brain works, and it will be nice to have some made up and ready to go. 

When I got tired of dealing with binding, I worked on some potholders. I had seen a tutorial on YouTube for a No-bind Potholder, and I wanted to try it. The first one I made was a little poofy in the middle. 

It’s still cute though. On the second one, I was a little more careful with the center piece, and I think it was a better. 

Like anything, it will get better as I make more. It’s a few layers of fabric plus Insulbrite plus a layer of cotton batting, so plenty thick. I may try some without the Insulbrite and maybe two pieces of batting and see how that works out. 

Last night I worked on some orange RSC blocks. More on that tomorrow.

Scrappy Saturday

Oh my gosh, I have let myself get so far behind! This is the point where I typically get overwhelmed and give up after starting the year with a lot of motivation! My last RSC post was March, and I had done a few red blocks. I found some red hst’s that I hadn’t finished, so I did that first. 

I used the rest of the red squares to make a few of the nine patch blocks. 

Since I didn’t do a collage of the reds in March, I did one last night. Here it is:

I often pick my grandson from school, and they had early dismissal yesterday. The weather was getting bad with rain and hail was forecast, and I wanted to get home and get my car in the garage before the hail started. That gave me an opportunity to work on my pink blocks.

I already had everything cut out and a couple of them were completed, so it went pretty fast. Here are all of the pinks together. 

I think I am ready to move on to the orange scraps, and I will work on that this week—in my spare time! 

Free Pattern Friday

I don’t know if anyone remembers, but I posted a picture of this quilt about a month ago.

The lady that made it said it was a free pattern she’d found “somewhere” and she would look for it when she got home and let me know where to find it. It’s called HoneyBell, and here is a link to the pattern. 

The pattern sample is done in four fabrics plus a white sashing, and the big blocks are cut 9-1/2” square. 

Of course I’m always trying to find different patterns to use my large collection of precuts, so I dug through the boxes and came up with this layer cake. 

The quilt finishes at 61” x 61”, and I wanted mine to be longer. Adding an extra row will make it about 76” long so I decided to do that. That means i need 20 blocks instead of 16. I had to cut a few of the smaller squares from my stash, but I found some blenders that would work.

I think I cut about twelve extra 4-1/2” squares. I’m using black for the sashing. Here are the ones I’ve gotten done so far. 

No sashing between the blocks yet, but you get the idea. I think I’m going to like it! Let me know what you think if you decide to try it. 

Back to Work

Let me just say, I have had trouble getting back into the swing of things. I did nothing Monday except unpack and wash clothes and sit around thinking about a lot of things. I generally stay so busy I don’t have time to think, so this was an unusual day for me. But, it was a good change. Oh, my church hosted bunco Monday night, so I did play Bunco. We provide the meal, but I didn’t feel like fixing anything complex, so I picked up strawberries, grapes, and blackberries, and washed everything and put it on a plate. Easy and good! 

I got a couple of quilts done on Tuesday, and I got the binding done on one of them yesterday. 

The photos don’t really do it justice; the colors are so pretty and vibrant. The back is pretty too! She picked it up yesterday and was happy with it. 

I have to get the binding finished on the other one I quilted. Maybe it will happen today. I spent some time yesterday just driving around and saw this:

I actually felt bad about that quilt. There used to be a department store here that sold quilts that were mass produced in China. They were hand quilted, but still mass produced. I’m hoping this one was one of the Chinese ones. Well, I can’t save them all. My house is already full.

The dogs are happy to be home. I picked Ruthie up on Sunday evening, and she came home and passed out in her bed. Look at that sweet little face!

 I couldn’t get Reba and Ryder until Monday, but they are all here now. 

I need to get back to sewing soon. I have some strips cut for my RSC and will get busy with it soon. I have the time now but not much motivation.