Finished (or not) Friday

Well, it's closer to a finish at least . . .

Windy Days is a flimsy.  The original plan was to use 2 blocks (21 x 25) in a vertical wall hanging.  In my head I could even picture it where I wanted to hang it.  But that plan just didn't look how I thought it would, so Plan B came about.  It's now a horizontal wall hanging, and I have sandwiched it with batting and backing to quilt myself, maybe over the weekend.

I've been looking at ideas for using the leftover Tilda fabric.  I had a Fat Eighth bundle but only used a small amount of it for the wall hanging. For now it's going back into the project box I guess, and will wait for inspiration to strike. 

The other main goal this week was to finish the stitching on my DIY Round Robin project for guild.  The final round was to repeat some element from a previous month.  I repeated the hexies that I began with the first month.  Our reveal is tomorrow at our August guild meeting.  I can share my whole project next week, and also hope to get pictures of some of the other participants' projects.   

For more finishes, please visit:  https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/

Mid-week progress

Yesterday I posted about only 2 goals for this week, but should have included at least 1 more that has an upcoming deadline to meet.

The missing goal was totally forgotten until I went downstairs to sew yesterday, and that was this month's Saturday Sampler task.  Luckily this month we only had to make 3 blocks so it didn't take long to get caught up.

Cutting the pieces for 3 blocks (14") didn't take long, but deciding what colors to use was time consuming for me as I kept changing my mind.  LOL

These make me think of crocheted Granny Squares.  The blocks were sewn together and will get another different block added to this section as the quilt is assembled. We're getting close to a finish on this Saturday Sampler program.

The Windy Days UFO project has a start finally and there is progress.  The blocks are 21 x 25, and my plan is to make a vertical wall hanging with  just 2 blocks.  Each block is done in 4 sections - the girl's head/hair, the dress, the tree, and the dog.  My dress sections are done, and I'm working on the heads. 

One thought from me about the Tilda's World directions - the pattern has great pictures.  That is a good thing because in the cutting instructions it doesn't tell you HOW MANY of each piece to cut or even if that size piece is cut from more than one fabric.  

One little finish

Because hand stitching on binding was something I could easily do while Sophia was sewing last week, there were actually a couple of finishes.

One finish was another doll quilt.  This one is 30" square, made from the extra blocks left over from a quilt project.  My first intention had been to make a big floor pillow from it, but decided it would just be a doll quilt to donate.  Currently it's wrapped around a Bugs Bunny stuffy, but I think it needs a bigger critter so I'll be looking for something else before it's actually donated this fall. 

Design Wall Monday - July 27

I'm very late getting a post up this morning. We had a houseful of family coming and going all weekend, and I must admit that I never gave a thought to my own sewing plans for the week until early this morning when I was drinking my first cup of coffee.

Granddaughter Sophia was with us for the week, and she actually got 3 projects sewn while she was here. First we shopped for fabric at both quilt shops in town.  She made a pillowcase and drawstring bag with fabric from one shop.  At the other shop she picked up some Halloween fabric for this 3-yard quilt.  The top is done, and she did a great job on it. She did all the sewing, and most of the cutting and pressing.  I did do a lot of pinning to match seams for her while she sewed.
  

On Saturday I spent the day at a class to learn how to do Flying Geese using the Stripology ruler.  It was a fun class and my little wall hanging is done to the flimsy stage.  

There was a storm brewing on Saturday evening, missing us but both daughters' towns took a direct hit by wind that took out the giant tree in one daughter's front yard.  Miraculously it missed their house and all the neighbors' houses, but did get fall on a neighbor's Jeep across the street.  You can see in the photo it uprooted and fell diagonally across the neighbor's yard and out into the street.  It also tore the electrical services off the house.  But no one was hurt - and they were actually at our house so there was nothing they could do until getting home yesterday.  They had power restored last night, but will still have tree debris to deal with.  The other daughter's family is dealing with AC issues right in the midst of our 100 degree plus days, which isn't pleasant either.  The joys of home ownership!!

So - that brings me to this week's design wall - that today only holds 2 project goals.  One goal is to finish a little stitching on the guild DIY Round Robin, and to get the gift bag organized to give away to one lucky participant.  Our reveal is this Saturday at our guild meeting. I'll share some photos next week after the reveal.

My other goal is to get started on the Windy Day project from my UFO list.  This will be a wall hanging, rather than a whole quilt. The pattern was free to download from the Tilda's World web site, I'm using part of the fabric bundle I've had in the stash of Tilda prints. There will be a lot more fabric leftover than used on this small project, so I'll have to dream up some other way to use these pretty florals. 

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog 

RSC26 - Week #30

Yikes!!  That is a 30 I just wrote - which means we're well past the halfway point in 2026 already.  For some reason I feel some panic lately about how fast time is flying.

Today I'm at an all-day class on using the Stripology rulers. This one focuses specifically on using it to make flying geese blocks.  Should be fun!  Plus, it's supposed to be over 100 degrees outside so it's a good day to NOT be outside. My husband and both sons-in-law are playing in a golf tournament all weekend - crazy people!  Grandson Jack has a baseball tournament, so his mom is there with him - sweating I'm sure.  Granddaughter Sophia is just hanging at our house with the dog, in the air-conditioning. Smart girl.  

  

There is an RSC finish to report this week. This is the lap quilt I made with the Hollow-9 blocks I've been making for RSC. It's only 36 x 42, so a nice size lap quilt for someone in a wheel chair.  The backing and the batting are both leftovers too. And I actually quilted it myself on my domestic machine, with a simple serpentine stitch. Yay!! The quilt is ready to donate locally.  One of our guild members is gathering lap quilts for a local agency.  I'm hoping to finish quilting and binding that blue South Dakota themed one this next week so I can take them all to her at our guild meeting next Saturday.  
 

I also made a couple of placemats with the leftover aqua blocks paired with string blocks (also RSC) in one of them.  And there is 1 pink block and 1 aqua one left in the basket "for seed", along with a few more string blocks in various colors.  Hollow-9 is a great little block to use those 2.5" squares that seem to remain from every project.

It was fun to do a quick review of the aqua blocks that were made this month.  I only did 2 Scrappy Stars (upper left) with the black backgrounds instead of the usual 4. We'll see what I end up needing in the end for color balance in the quilt.  The rest of the block sets are reaching that stage where I want to start laying them out even though there are some important basic colors still needed.  Yellow?  Purple?  Coral?  So many possibilities!!

Actually I'm really excited to be moving on to a new color in the next few days.

Let's go check out more Rainbow fun on this final Saturday of July . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Sewing with the granddaughter

Sophia and I finally got some sewing time yesterday, and plan to do lots more today.  She had that wrestling camp Tuesday.  And she has been going to the gym with grandpa each morning to get in her workout.  Wednesday afternoon we did go to both quilt shops here in town, where she chose fabric for a couple of projects.

Sophia's first project a year or so ago was adding borders onto a panel to make a throw quilt - which I noticed she has with her right now.  Her second project was making herself 2 pillowcases.  She decided she's ready for an actual pieced project. So we looked at some of the 3-yard quilt patterns from Fabric Cafe.  Tic Tac caught her eye, and at C.O. Textiles she fell in love with this Halloween line.  That black one even glows in the dark.  And ironically those colors are nearly a perfect match to the picture in the book.  This is a great project for learning to follow a pattern to cut the pieces for a quilt. 

At The Pin Cushion the colors from the Hue line really called her name.  She has always loved to draw and paint so it's not a surprise to be drawn to this color study fabric.  Her plan is to make a pillowcase with these.

One completed pillowcase later . . . plus a cute little drawstring bag made with the leftovers from this pillowcase.  We will run to Walmart today to get the cording for the drawstring.  Then she is going to begin working on the pieced quilt project.

Rodeo parade float

The Pin Cushion decided to enter a float in the Corn Palace Rodeo parade this year, which had an overall theme of America's 250th birthday.  The gals featured the Quilts of Valor program with a couple of veterans even riding on the float. Our group was delighted to lend them some quilts to use.  It won 1st place in the "retail" entries.

From the front you can see one of our local veterans.  Two more were on the other side.

One side showed off several quilts.  I love the big banner they created above the quilts down the whole length of the trailer. 

The other side looks just as good.

From the back this gorgeous quilt really looks good.  I think this one was made by a shop employee last year.  It was the perfect end cap for the float.  These ladies did a wonderful job with the float - and with their prize winning painted windows earlier in the week.