A small squirrel and small finish

A squirrel has crossed my path, and of course I had to chase it.  

It's a small squirrel . . . but could get kind of messy.  It involves lots of small cut-outs, and was traced onto fusible before ironing it onto the pink fabric. 

There was a small finish - actually more than one - that I'll show off today.  The 4-patch doll quilt is all done.  The pink squirrel above was sitting on this little doll quilt and you can see I used some of the leftover cat backing I have.  The quilting is just simple diagonals through each of the 4-patch units.

This doll quilt is 24" square, and is the 6th one I've finished so far this year.  I've challenged myself to make at least one per month using up orphan blocks and leftovers.  There were still 5 of those 4-patch units in the bag.  Since they are just 2.5" squares, I zipped my seam ripper through them, and dropped those squares into my bin holding that size.  They are more likely to get used from the bin than in a bag hiding in a drawer.  

The other finishes are baby quilts that I finally got bound, and I'll share those another day.

Tuesday To Do

 

I'm happy to check off the first item from this week's To Do list - the Saturday Sampler row.  This year's project is a row quilt, and this is the very first row.  There are 15 chevrons plus the spacers to make a row approximately 58" wide.  I'm ready for next month now.

It was so bitter cold yesterday, and I spent most of the day in the basement sewing.  Once the Saturday Sampler row was finished, I worked on sandwiching the doll quilt and even got some of the quilting done on it.  But the afternoon was mostly taken up with piecing the backing for a huge UFO quilt.  I'm hoping to take it to the quilter tomorrow. 

Design Wall Monday - February 17

I took the weekend OFF - from sewing, and spent time with friends and family.  

Saturday morning we left the house about 8:00 am to drive to Brookings where the youngest grandson had a basketball tournament.  So we watched his 3rd grade team play 2 games, hung out with the son-in-law in between games, then scooted across town to the Jackrabbit women's game in the afternoon.  That was very handy, as it was the big rivalry game and we wouldn't have wanted to miss the Jackrabbits vs the USD Coyotes.  Jackrabbits had a win but it was a close game.

We got home Saturday just in time to meet some friends for supper and an adult beverage.  We met at one casual restaurant and after eating, we walked next door to a new brewery for one more beverage.  That was fun too.  

And Sunday morning we met our daughter at the interstate and rode to Pierre with her to watch a granddaughter wrestle that afternoon in the state Middle School meet.  Our granddaughter earned a second place medal in her weight class, pinning both the 3rd and 4th place girls.  So it was a good day.

I did sew the binding onto this little doll quilt in the car on Saturday.  And I worked on the binding on a baby quilt in the car on Sunday.  There is only about 18" remaining to be stitched down.  That is the only sewing since Friday afternoon, which means it's time to get back into sewing mode today, before I go through withdrawal.

Carried over from last week are the chevron blocks for Saturday Sampler.  I have only 3 of the 15 left to make.  Then the row of chevrons will get a narrow top and bottom strip.

Also carried over from last week are these Buckeye Beauty blocks for a new Quilt of Valor.  The count is adding up quickly, but it will require quite a few more yet.  So these will be an ongoing project.

There are more things happening on other projects including . . .

*  a backing to piece for a big UFO

*  lots of RSC blocks using blue scraps

*  the 4-patch doll quilt to be quilted and bound

*  some progress on the SAHRR project that has stalled
*  some cleaning/organizing in sewing room

*  new block for this week in RBD challenge
*  work on applique pillow top (yes - it is a squirrel)

*  AND - whatever else pops up!!

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC25 - Week #7

It's been bitter cold here this week, so just perfect to hunker down and sew.  With a focus on blue this month I've been working on some Quilts of Valor blocks as well as some scrappy projects.  

  There are 55 of these 8" (finished) blocks now.  I haven't decided yet how I want them laid out, and whether or not to add a border.  They are very addictive to make.

 These string blocks are pieced on muslin foundations, and are squared up at 9.5".  When I opened the project box with the muslin squares I found a partially finished brown one.  I finished that one and added a blue one.  And I sorted out more blue strings. 

Those additional blue strings became 3 more blocks later in the week, in between other projects.  They make great Leaders/Enders.  There are now 37 of them but I'm aiming for 48 blocks total so more will happen.  

The hanger these blocks were clipped to was getting very full, so I've taken 12 of them and begun assembling a top.  

And speaking of Leaders/Enders, I've been working on a Piano Key border a little bit at a time for a scrappy UFO that I want to finish.  Again - all of these are scraps.  

One more scrappy project that surfaced this week - a scrappy 4-patch doll quilt flimsy.  This one is about 20 x 24.  I will dig into the backing leftovers and see if there is something that would work for this and try to get it quilted soon.

I'm linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

More churn dash

 Yesterday I needed a break from the chevrons for the Saturday Sampler project, so I made a few more churn dash blocks for the baby quilts.

A few at a time do add up quickly.  And I had several fat quarters set aside for these churn dash blocks.  These will go nicely with the more pastel group. 

And I did get 3 of those chevrons made, so only 5 more to go to complete this month's row of blocks.  Maybe today I'll get them done.  Or maybe not.   

Bags, blocks and binding

Besides working on the Saturday Sampler this week, I'm finishing a few little things, and keeping up with other weekly tasks.  

The first month's row for Saturday Sampler is almost halfway done.  Seven of the 15 chevrons are assembled and all of the other pieces are ready.  I've made a few each day this week, with other sewing in between them.  I have until the 2nd Saturday of March to finish this row, but plan to have it all done much sooner than that.  

Those little coin purses I was working on are finished.  I think I've made 13 of these so far.  All of them are made from scraps, except for the zippers and lobster clips.  But I had those zippers and clips in the stash anyway.   

The 5th block for the Riley Blake Design challenge was posted on Tuesday, and I got this block cut out and sewn on Wednesday morning.  It's called Flower Patch, designed by Heather Peterson.  This was an easy one.  I've been using my stash of Tula Pink fabrics.  The fussy cut center square has a squirrel.  

The binding is prepped for some small projects - a baby quilt and a doll quilt.  First thing today I plan to sew the binding onto the baby quilt so I'll have that to work on in the evenings while watching TV.  The doll quilt binding is actually ready for hand stitching.  

Snow and sew

 We finally got some measurable snow on Monday.  It snowed all day long, and I stayed in my sewing room most of the day.  

We ended up with about 4" total, and then the cold moved in behind it.  Yesterday morning it was -14 when I got up, with a "feels like" temperature of -36.  And we were much warmer than anyone north of us!  But the sun was shining on all that new snow.  These are the days that I'm grateful that I didn't have to be on the road before dawn for work.

When I picked out the top stitching on each of the coin purses, I managed to make a big hole in the aqua star version.  But the others went just fine. For the one with the hole, I just removed the zipper completely and replaced it with a different outer fabric.  All 5 new coin purses are ready to hand stitch the lining closed, and then turned right side out.  

And I did the cutting for the new Saturday Sampler.  Once the pieces were all cut, the assembly has begun.  I switched the dark brown for the lighter shade so there was more contrast with the chevrons.  One third of the chevrons are sewn so far.