Monday Meanderings - 3 - 27 - 2023

Here we are at the last few days of March.  I've kept busy but not sure how much of it was quilting related. But I did succeed at least partly on my goals. Let's see what I did get done. '

3/20/2023

✅Finish pink and ✅start green RSC blocks - Still working on both colors.

Design UFO Challenge #11, ✅rough cut shirts - Shirts measured and deboned, still working on design. Probably will use all on the front - nixed the two sided idea.

✅Baste baby quilt and start quilting - Half quilted.

✅Cut out another quilt - one of three fabrics cut.

Not bad. It would have been better to complete a design for the Tee Shirt quilt but I have lots of time to work on it. 

I'm really pleased with how the quilting is coming along on the baby quilt. Let me show one of the 5 motifs I'm stitching on it. (Remember the long arm is out for repairs so this is being done with my walking foot on my Bernina.) I first did a bunch of stitch in the ditch. Then I am working on the motifs. I think I have 2 left. I'm going to do parallel lines in the border. Hopefully that will be enough stitching to hold the quilt together. If not, I may have to do something in the white triangles. The goal is to have it completed by Friday so that I can show I finished something in March! 

Here's what I plan to work on this week.

3/27/2023

Make more green RSC blocks, finish the pink blocks

Finish Arkansas Traveler Block 

Finish quilting baby quilt; bind it

Finish cutting out quilt

Design Tee Shirt quilt

It's a longer list and I'll be tied up nearly all day at rehearsal on Saturday. We'll see how much I get done of this list.  

Oops, a squirrel ran across my view and.... 

This is Arkansas Traveler block.  I've owned the AccuQuilt die for 3 or so years without ever using it.  My local guild is having a block drive so I thought it would be good to make any 12" block dies I have.  Sorry, I didn't get far on the sewing but I wanted to share it.  Only the two bottom diamonds are sewn together.  It was easy to sew them together, I just ran out of time. I wish I had more of all of these fabrics so I could make a quilt but, nope, I sure don't.  I'll be making more 12" blocks over the next couple of weeks so I can turn them in to the guild. 

Another off list thing I did was plant some pansies.  I have a view to a little garden out of the French doors in the basement studio.  I "thought" I would enjoy seeing some flowers. Um, no, pansies are too short. I would need taller plants. But they do look good from the enclosed porch. 

I can see the pig and the bird feeder. The birds are fun to watch as they squabble over who gets to eat from the feeder. We have a lot of smaller birds who can clean out the feeder in less than a day. 

That's it for today. Please take some time to surf the web starting with these Linky Parties. 

Oh Scrap  

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

To Do Tuesday

Since everyone seemed to like the previous flowering trees picture I shared I thought I'd share this one.  This is a group of cherry trees at the beginning of our neighborhood. Enjoy another view of spring here in central Virginia. 

Happy Quilting All - Bonnie 

 

More Quilts to Share

Yep, I'm still on a roll.  I finished a small quilt (31" square.) I really fell in love with this quilt and the fabrics I used.  I very seldom make quilts for girls but this is all girly! 

Pattern: Jacquelynne Steves Silver Lining Sew Along 

Quilting Design: Curley E2E by My Creative Stitches. 

Thread: Top - YLI Variations Thread in Tulip; Bottom - Superior Threads So Fine #418 It's A Girl!

Many thanks to my excellent quilt holder, Pat.  We're showing off the beautiful azaleas in our side yard. The sad part is we have no view of these unless we walk around to the side yard.  Aren't they grand this year? 

I used a grey solid for the backing and a white with grey polka dots for the binding.  The pink alternate fabric also has polka dots.  

And one last look with the dogwood tree in bloom. 

All of these photos should enlarge if you click on them.  The garden is beautiful this spring and the weather has been unusually mild for the last couple of weeks.  It was great to walk around the house checking for the best photo spots! 

The sad situation this week is Sharon and I canceled her trip to visit.  With the gas shortages I couldn't guarantee she could fill up her tank for her return trip.  She'll be up next week.  No pressing engagements and probably a lot more gas available.  Her town ran out of gas the day before we made the decision.  Virginia was showing 50% of stations out of gas.  We both decided it was the right move. 

Here's a peek at the next quilt I am working on.  My daughter Jenny made this with input from her daughter Natalie. It's a real generational quilt!  (SHshshsh! Don't tell anyone.  It's a teacher present!) It's been such fun to quilt this. Natalie picked the fabrics, the block placements, and the quilting design.  I'll show more of it at some point.  

I've only got one more row to do.  Pretty soon I'll be back to piecing a UFO.  Except, I need to decide what size top to make.  I sure hope I can use up all of the blocks so I don't have a bunch left over to become another UFO! 

Today I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties for the end of the week: Mid Week Makers, Needle and Thread Thursday, Finished or not Friday, Whoop!, Whoop! Friday, and Beauties Pageant.  I think I'm going to sit on the deck and do a bit of surfing. How about you? Enjoy all the eye candy. 

Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

June OMG - Completed

I'm done with everything for my June One Monthly Goal You can see the first two finishes here. 

This is pinwheel #3. You can see the pieced backing here. I bound it in the same  polka dots as the backing and binding on #4. 

And, #4.  I had run out of any possible fabric to use on the back of this one.  It's 44 x 56" or so.  With a 60% off coupon from JoAnn Fabrics in my hand, I went to see what I could find.  I haven't been shopping all that much at JoAnns recently because I'm trying to use up fabric rather than purchase new fabric.(Well, that and that giant addition of fabric I made in May!)   Let me tell you I was shocked to see the prices on the "calico" wall.  You know what I mean -- the wall that has 3 or so long shelves with less impressive fabric?  Not so many old fashioned calicos were there.  More up-to-date looking fabric but it was all priced at either $7.99 a yard or $9.99 a yard.  YIKES.  In the end my 3 yards of fabrics cost me just under $13.  I liked the cute polka dot on the mottled blue and it = looked good with the top.  

I used a new quilting design that I love!  It is called Malachite.  I had seen it on someone else's blog so went to look at it on Urban Elements' page.  I bought it although it is bigger than I normally use.  I was very happy with how this turned out.  In fact, up close you can't really see the rows. 

I really wanted to get all four of these finished this month but the last week or so I've been goofing off more than sewing.  Today I made an all out effort to bind both quilts.  And, yep, I used up nearly all of the cute polka dots getting these two finished.  It was late in the day so the bottom photo isn't as bright as it should be.

All four pinwheel quilts hanging on the long arm. One thing I need to let you know.  Most of these blocks were already done.  I think I made 2 for the child quilt.  The saddest part is I haven't used all up all of the blocks.  I'll wait a while and do another couple to try to clear these out of my UFO list. 

Today I'll be sharing with Elm Street Quilt and Needle and Thread Thursday. 

Here's some of the day lilies that have begun blooming in the yard.  When we had the landscaping done last winter I really wanted to have different colors of lilies instead of the standard orange.  We've got a lovely mix of colors.  It will be wonderful to see them in a couple of years when they fill out more. 

This red one would probably make a great natural dye. My fingers came away red when I plucked off a dying flower.  And it didn't wash out.

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Surprise, Surprise

Have you ever forgotten all about a project?  As in not in personal memory, not in a UFO list, not in a box marked prominently as to what it is?  If so, you must know exactly how I felt when I was moving stuff around in hopes of getting a few more things packed up for the move to the new studio.  

This is mystery #12 from Mysteries for Relay from Marge Gordon. For a $5 donation to the American Cancer Society, Marge creates mysteries on her Yahoo group of the same name. I have been doing her mysteries on and off for years and have to share -- she writes a great mystery.  And, I've finished almost every one I've started. 

I have a feeling this might have been the last mystery I did before moving from PA to Va.  Or it is the first one I did here in Va.  It was the bottom quilt of various PHDs, that is projects half done, stored in a plastic box.  All this one needs are borders and then in to the line to be quilted.  There were some other miscellaneous blocks and the beginning of another quilt in there.  Hum, I need to get some things finished one of these days! And, I think all the fabrics came from stash.  Or nearly all, that green and the background fabric were definitely from the stash.  At least I had written a list of what was in the box but this quilt was listed in small letters on the other side of the card I had in there.  Sigh.  

Here's what else I've been doing recently.

This was yesterday's garden bounty.  We are over run with tomatoes.  We only have three plants - a cherry tomato plant, a roma and a better boy.  And we can't keep up.  We're having tomatoes morning, noon and night. The beans are coming in too and the plants are overshadowed by the tomatoes.  Pat blanches them and freezes them for later eating. 

I decided to make some marinara sauce as it called for fresh Romas rather than canned tomatoes.  



I had to remove the skins on three pounds of tomatoes before I could make the sauce.  With a little internet help I realized all I needed to do is pop them in boiling water for less than a minute. Plunge them in ice water and peel.  The skins came right off! 

  

And here's the Marinara sauce ready to be put into containers to go into the freezer.  The question now is what to do with all of the little tomatoes?  We pop them like candy all day long and still have lots left.  And the bushes are still producing. 

Do you have any tomato recipes you want to share?  This coming week I'm making a quiche with ham and tomatoes.  I'm open to other ideas.  Maybe it's time for tomato pie again. 

Happy quilting all! 

Mail Call!

Here's the quilt I received from the latest Doll Quilt Swap I participated in:

 You can't really see the wonderful embroidery Sandy did on this... try clicking on it to see if it will enlarge.  Sandy lives on a cattle station in NSW, Australia.  We had several emails going back and forth to get to know each other better.  It was a lot of fun to learn about each other's life.  Of course, the biggest job for me was to figure out where she lives.  It is a really small town and far from the beaten path, so to speak. 




She also sent a couple of stuffed animals representative of the animals in the area.  And, really neat fabric that shows many of the animals native to Australia.  Way too cool! You can see a bit of the fabric behind the animals.


You can visit Sandy's blog ShiraleeStitches.




Just in case you think I am not multi-dimensional -- Here's my patio tomato plant with a tomato nearly ready to pick. I was afraid we'd only have these few tomatoes but figured out there are several little ones just starting out.  Yum!  I love tomatoes.  

Today I hope to finish the spring quilt I showed last post.  Heck, it's the end of the month and I only have one doll quilt as a finish. So if I can get that quilt done at least it will give me a little more of a finish.  (Hum, seems like I bought a bit of fabric this month too....) 

I'm off for a long walk with the dog.  It's not too hot out yet and I'd like to get some exercise without going over to the Y today.  Poor Raggs will come back panting but he'll sleep the rest of the day!  Happy Quilting All! 

Gardening

We received this lovely hydrangea from my brother and sister-in-law. (Don't let that fool you, sil did it, if they are anything like us!)

Hydrangea's need shade with some light and certainly not the full sun our backyard gets. So it definitely needed to be put in the front yard around the house. Except, the front yard is nicely landscaped already. So we checked out all the areas and decided a rose bush that hadn't been pruned in years needed to go. Pat cut off all the branches (and believe me there were a lot more besides these.) My job was to cut them in small pieces so they would fit in the trash can.

His job was to dig out the root ball. Except, we had a shovel malfunction. What? Yep, it snapped in two. Luckily no one was hurt by flying debris.

We had to take a break to acquire soil amendments and more mulch. (And, lunch, groceries, a new watch battery -- you get the picture.) I came back exhausted and overheated. But, Pat went at it again getting it planted and watered with our new curling hose. Just as he came in the clouds covered up the sun and it poured rain with thunder and lightening. Yikes. I had such a headache I collapsed on the couch. (Well, that's my story & I'm sticking to it!) The power was out. Not a problem for me I was sleeping! We were happy to see it come on just in time for a late dinner.

Here's a quick photo of my cutting table in the studio. Marge at Mysteries for Relay held another one Saturday. I had to get the table cleared enough so I could cut bigger pieces of fabric than the scraps I had been cutting. I was somewhat successful. Things are getting better but there is no doubt in my mind that I have way TOO much stuff. I'm trying hard to use it up. I am hoping to have several finishes this month although I guess I should get off my duff and actually get quilts ready to quilt on Ruthie. She's waiting patiently!

Today's plan:

• make 14 more blocks for the mystery quilt and sew all of them into a top.

• work on the Million Pieces quilt -- ready to sew the last two pieces on to the block. Then sew into a top.

•start on Quilts for Kids kit.

That is a ridiculous list for only a day. It will probably take me the rest of theday to sew the mystery quilt blocks and put it together. At least this list will help me focus on what I really want to get done... maybe!

Hope all of you are having a happy quilt day!