A New Project

The Yorktown quilt shop, A Little Fabric Store, announced a new summer challenge. 

Edit: Anyone can enter. It costs $10 to join in, and you have until Labor Day to send Sarah a picture of your quilt. You can find an entry form here: https://www.alittlefabricstore.com/, and you can pay by PayPal or credit card.

She’s calling it “Summer Trips”. It’s the Scrappy Trips pattern, which I have made a few times. It looks like I will be making another one. I already signed up for the challenge. I bought a couple of jelly rolls last week when I was in Yorktown that I will be using. 

There’s not quite enough strips in the jelly rolls to make the quilt as big as I want it, so I will sub in some extra strips. I have some batiks that should work.

I did the challenge last year, and this was my result:

It’s still not quilted. 

I have been working on the tee shirt quilt. I think I am getting close to finishing. At least I hope so. 

To-Do-List Tuesday 5-28-24

Mixed results this week with quilt guild preparation and a holiday affecting my sewing time. No complaints, though. I mainly got done what needed to be done.

1) Charity quilt project for quilt guild. Yes. 

2) Finish some scissor cases. Yes. I topstitched, and then sewed on buttons and snaps until my fingers were sore. 

3) Sampler store projects. Yes. Apron and some dishcloths done. 

4) Cut out Sahara quilt. No. 

5) Make some appliqués for cup towels. No. 

Now for a new week. I have two weeks until I leave for a vacation, so I need to make the most of my time. One of my items is to cut the Sahara quilt which I am planning to take to work during my cruise. It's another quilting cruise where we sew on our own projects. Kind of a quilting retreat at sea.

1) Cut Sahara quilt.

2) Finish the darn tee shirt quilt.

3) Put together a customer consignment quilt.

4) Cut some strips for a Scrappy Trips quilt--this is my other cruise project.

I think I am forgetting something.....I may think of it later and edit this post to include whatever it is. 

I am linking this to quilt schmilt. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Weekend Wrap Up

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

It’s been a good weekend. I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to do, but that’s okay. I made it to the farmers market Saturday morning,

and bought tomatoes, corn, and a loaf of sour dough bread. Needless to say, I had a tomato sandwich for lunch.

So good! 

I worked on tee shirt quilts all day Saturday. They’re a lot of work, but people seem to love them. I would love to finish at least one this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’m leaving for a cruise in June, and I’ll be gone a week, so I need to get caught up. 

Speaking of cruises, I told myself I wasn’t going to buy any clothes for this one as I have plenty of stuff I can wear, but Sunday afternoon I went to the mall. There were some Memorial Day sales, and I ended up buying a couple of pairs of shorts, a pair of capris, and several tops that will mix and match with the bottoms. That means I need to go through my closet and get rid of some of the older stuff. 

Sewing Fun

I worked on some more RSC blocks yesterday.

I don’t necessarily like having only three of the pink , but I think I am through with these until next month, and a new color gets announced. I’m linking this one to https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/.

I remembered to take a picture of the top I pieced at the guild sew day Thursday.

Closeup of the fabric:

My goal with this one was to find a fabric suitable for older boys—preteen or teen age. Here’s my disclaimer: it’s not supposed to have that skinny red strip in the middle; when I cut it out, I accidentally cut the fold. I still wanted to use it, so I added the skinny strips to bring it to the right size. I think it looks okay, but I wish it wouldn’t have happened. Of course, I didn’t have extra fabric with me, but there was a tub of fabric there someone had donated, and I pulled out a strip of red that’s a pretty close match.

While I was digging through the tub of donated fabric, I found a couple of aprons.

There were also some orphan quilt blocks in there, and I challenged myself to do something with them. This is what I came up with

I turned the orphan blocks into pockets! I’m still trying to figure out if I want to embellish the plain white pockets in the middle. Any suggestions? This apron will go in our sampler store. I haven’t decided yet what to do with the second apron. 

I’m going to try and get over to the farmers market this morning. The tomatoes should be ripe by now. We’ve had plenty of rain, and the temps are in the low nineties now. I stayed up a little too late looking for deals on a Gatlinburg trip in September. I am hoping to take a 3-4 day vacation in September with two friends and my mom. 

Guild Sew Day

We had a great sew day at our guild meeting yesterday! Our regular business meeting was followed by a salad luncheon. I made a pasta salad and ham salad. 

I didn’t take a picture of the ham salad, but it was good. 

After lunch, we worked on charity projects. We had ladies cutting

ironing 

And of course, most of us were sewing.

Some quilt tops got finished 

I finished mine, but I had pre-cut the fabrics the day before. I didn’t get a picture of mine, but I’ll try to take one tomorrow. 

To-Do-List Tuesday 5-21-24

Hello Tuesday friends. I hope everyone had a good week and got a lot done. I did okay; there is always more to do, but progress was made. 

1. May block of the month. Yes. 
   
   
   
2. Finish scissor cases. I finished five. I have quite a few more to do. 
   
   
   
3. April and May RSC blocks. Yes, I got a few done. 
   
   
   
4. Start a tee shirt quilt. Yes, I started. I have been cutting shirts and fusing the interfacing to them. 
5. Dish cloths or potholders. Yes, a few are done. 
   
   
   
   I am trying to figure out what needs to go on this week’s list. Maybe more of the same. I have sewing at the church today, and we have quilt guild this week. It’s a sewing day to work on charity quilts. I still haven’t figured out what I will work on, but I have plenty of options. I think I’ll put that on my list.
   
   
   1) Charity quilt project for quilt guild.
   2) Finish some scissor cases.
   3) Sampler store projects.
   4) Cut out Sahara quilt.
   5) Make some appliqués for cup towels.
   
   
   I am linking this to quilt schmilt…..maybe. I never found a place to link my post last week, and it looks like this week is going to be the same. I’m not sure what to do about it or what other options there are. I know I need to record my weekly goals to keep myself accountable, so we’ll see what happens. 
   
   

Weekend Wrap Up

It was a good weekend. I got the grass mowed, and I got the floors vacuumed and mopped. About the grass: there is one section of the yard that is too wet to mow. I thought it was from the rain, but it hasn’t dried up. When I was trying to mow around the wet section, I noticed the water seems to be coming from my neighbors back yard. I am going to have to go over and tell them it needs to be fixed. I don’t understand how they couldn’t have noticed it. 

So here’s the jelly rolls I bought when I was in Yorktown.

These are the ones the shop owner said would work great for the summer challenge. She won’t publish the pattern until Memorial Day, but that’s coming up pretty soon. I also bought some tea towels that I can put an appliqué on. 

I already had some red and some blue ones, so I was looking for some different colors.

I finally made myself sit down and spew snaps and buttons on some of the scissor cases. 

I like the way they are turning out. I got lucky on the snaps. Walmart had the large snaps on clearance.

The tag says $1.50, but they were actually $1.00, and there are four snaps on each card. They had 13 cards, and I bought them all. They are a little large, but for the price, I can’t really be too picky about the size. I only got five done before I ran out of steam. I have five more that need buttons and snaps, and four more that need to be top stitched, and found or five more that need to be sewn together. By the time I get them all done, I will be ready to move on to something else. 

I also found some Utz chips at Walmart. 

They are my favorite, and I never find them here. The hot honey ones are really good, but they are pretty hot.

Scrappy Saturday

I’ve been catching up on some smaller projects. It has been raining for the last couple of days, so the weather was perfect for staying inside and sewing. Betty and I braved the rain yesterday and made a road trip to Yorktown. We visited the quilt shop there and then drove to Cuero for lunch. When we got back to Victoria, we went by the quilt shop here, so it was a mini shop hop for us. I bought a couple of things in Yorktown, but I haven’t gotten the bag out of the car yet. I’ll get a picture once I bring it inside. The only think I bought in Victoria was a yo-yo maker and a creative grids ruler.

I finished Diane’s quilt Thursday.

It’s a baby quilt with cuddle fabric on the back.

I pulled out some scraps and made a couple of potholders.

I plan to make a couple of tea towels to go with them. I have a strip of the chicken fabric left—hopefully enough to embellish two towels.

I’m still working on my RSC blocks; I’m working on May (pink) and still trying to get caught up on April (yellow). 

I sewed some more half-square triangles last night, so I should be able to crank out about six more blocks this week. 

What else? I finished my May block of the month Thursday night.

We’re almost halfway through the year, and I haven’t fizzled out yet. I really want to complete the year and get the blocks put into a top.

Today I need to clean house. The dogs have tracked up the floors with their wet paws. I need to sweep and mop and hopefully clean bathrooms if I have the energy. 

A Little Work and a Little Play

I haven’t been working much this week, but I get a few hours in here and there. Here’s a picture of the one I finished Monday: 

This was from a block swap done in 1999. It’s not mine—it belongs to a customer, but the blocks are signed and dated, so it’s not hard to figure out when they were done. It’s kind of ironic to me how we’re all trying to finish up quilts from swaps we did in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. That’s where this one of mine came from:

It was a block swap from sometime around 2001 or 2002, and I finally got around to quilting it last month. Are we all realizing our mortality, or are we finally getting caught up on all the UFO’s? Either way, things are getting done. 

I was going to get started on the next t-shirt quilt yesterday, but I managed to put it off. I really can’t get in the mood to work on it, and I have another one to do after I get that one done. I did get a baby quilt done, and I will trim it this morning and get a picture before she picks it up.

I started working on the flower beds, and my neighbor asked if he could finish it for me. I said yes, but now I’m regretting it. He pulled up all my gerbera daisies and my lantana. I think the lantana may come back, but we’ll see. At this point, I’m pretty well resigned to the fact that I will have to do it myself going forward. In the meantime, I spent my “spare” time playing ball with the dogs, and then I cut out my May BOM.

I think I’ll make some cookies tonight. The ones I took to the WELCA meeting all got eaten, and although I don’t usually eat many sweets, I was wishing I had some last night. It won’t take long to make a small batch.

To-Do-List Tuesday 5-14-24

I haven't written a blog post since last Tuesday so I should have plenty to report. LOL. That's not really the case. I've been busy with other non-sewing things, and I've been somewhat unmotivated to work on any of my projects. I did, however, keep referring back to my last post to see what I needed to be focusing on and ended up finishing the week on a pretty good note.

1. Quilt three customer quilts. Yes. 
   
   
   
   
   The first one had a pieced back, which I thought was pretty cool
   
   The third quilt is quilted, but not trimmed. I'll share a photo tomorrow.
2. Put binding on commission quilt. Yes. 
   
   I like it! I used light blue of the back, and I think Sue will really be happy with it.
   
   
   
3. Make some more scissor cases, or maybe some potholders, depending on what I feel like doing. Yes, I got several scissor cases sewn and am in the process of sewing on snaps and buttons. 
4. April and May RSC blocks. No. I cut out enough for a couple of yellow ones and a couple of pink ones, but I still need to sew them together.
5. May Block of the Month. No.
6. Crochet some dish cloths. Yes, some red ones.
   
   
   

I know I have some things I need to work on this week, and of course customer quilts to do. I need to keep things moving along with some kind of progress. 

1. May block of the month.
2. Finish scissor cases.
3. April and May RSC blocks.
4. Start a tee shirt quilt.
5. Dish cloths or potholders.

Today I have a WELCA meeting which will include a luncheon. I'm not having time to cook anything for the luncheon, so I got a jar of picante sauce and a bag of tortilla chips. I also made some cookies, so those can go too.

And, here's a recent picture of the baby kitty.

He is so cute! 

I am linking this post to Quilt Schmilt. Have a great week wherever you are reading this!

To-Do-List Tuesday 5-7-24

Ha! What a week! I managed to stay somewhat focused until Friday afternoon, when I decided I was done with everything and everybody. My grumpy mood affected my productivity, at least on the quilting stuff. That's all behind me, and I am back on the hamster wheel. 

1) A Quilting Life BOM. Yes. Finally.

2) Work on April RSC blocks--yellow. No.

3) Finish two customer quilts. Yes. 

The bottom one still needs to be bound so it's technically not finished, but the quilting and trimming is done.

4) Order batting. Yes, and I think the FedEx driver hates me. He did not have a happy look on his face. 😒

And now it's a new week, and time for a new list. 

1. Quilt three customer quilts.
2. Put binding on commission quilt.
3. Make some more scissor cases, or maybe some potholders, depending on what I feel like doing.
4. April and May RSC blocks.
5. May Block of the Month.
6. Crochet some dish cloths.

That's probably enough for now. I still need to get some yard work done in the evenings, and that will tire me out. Any little bit that gets done is a good thing, though, whether it’s in the yard or at the sewing machine. I am linking this post to Quilt Schmilt. Have a great week wherever you are reading this!