The end of a week

I've fallen behind in reading blogs the past few days, and also in commenting or responding to comments on my own blog.  Life happens. 

Monday I played golf.  Tuesday I had appointments.  

Wednesday morning began early as I had to make a quick trip to the clinic for a blood draw prior to my annual physical.  But just before I left we both got phone calls from friends to share some very bad news.  In the tiny rural town we lived in previously there had been a house fire, just 2 doors from our old house.  The husband and wife living there both died in the fire.  We were neighbors for 2 decades, I taught with her for many years at the same school, our kids went to school together, she gave both of my girls piano lessons.  I just had lunch with her 2 weeks ago.  It was just so shocking and so sad.  The loss of these 2 fine people will leave a big hole in the community. 

Honestly, I never set foot in my sewing room Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday this week.  Yesterday morning was sewing time, and I worked on some binding in the evenings.  There will be a UFO finish to show off for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge post tomorrow.  

Yesterday involved making this week's Blockheads block, another 18" block.  It's called Bellissimo Star by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree.  The block went together nicely but there was a lot of waste left when making it.  

I used some of that waste to make a 6.5" block to use as a mug rug.  

One row was assembled for the Buckeye Beauty top, and I made several of the QOV blocks that I had kitted up for Leaders/Enders.  Today I hope to get more rows sewn with the Buckeye blocks.  

Buckeye Beauty layout

 

The Buckeye Beauty blocks are all set into 4-sies (16" finished), and are ready for a final decision about placement.  Next step is to sew these into rows, and then into a completed flimsy which will be about 64 x 80.  This was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project this year.  

A sew-free zone

 

First of all, I need to wish a very Happy Birthday to my firstborn today!!  She's a busy working mom to 3 kids and 3 dogs, and wife to 1 husband.  Hope she has a really good day!

My house was a "sew-free" zone on Monday, and might be again today.   Yesterday I played 18 holes of golf with my husband.  He wanted to get in a practice round at the course (45-60 minutes away) his tournament will be on Friday, so we made a tee time.  It was a gorgeous day for golf - low 80s for temps and not windy.  Yay!!  

Today is a haircut and manicure day, but maybe I'll find time for a little sewing.  Tomorrow I have my annual physical, and a DAR meeting.  Seems like a really good time to take a day off from blogging.  See you Thursday - maybe. 

Design Wall Monday - July 7

 I've been on a roll lately with sewing nearly every day for at least an hour or 2, some days a lot more.  It really adds up. But today will hopefully be spent on a golf course and not in the sewing room.   

It will be a semi busy week, so I'm being more reasonable with my plans for the week.  I picked up the Scrappy Pyramids quilt from the quilter last week, so I'm hoping to get that one bound.  The binding is scrappy too, and all from the leftover binding chunks in a drawer.  I got a start yesterday hand stitching that binding down, so hopefully it will easily be finished by the end of this week.  

The other 2 projects I plan to work on this week are also UFOs that need attention.  One is another doll quilt, and the other is a Quilt of Valor.  The doll quilt just needs binding too, so that should be a quick finish as it's only about 20" square. 
 

The other UFO that needs attention . . . Indigo Way. This was a Bonnie Hunter mystery a couple of years ago.  I made some blocks at the time, but never actually put them together.  The blocks and lots of parts of blocks have been languishing in the project box.  This is my plan for using the blocks so far. The corner triangles still need to be cut.   In order to make it large enough for a Quilt of Valor I'll have to add a couple of wide outer borders.  

The Buckeye Beauty blocks all need to be sewn into sets of 4 before laying them out for final assembly.  There is a small stack yet that need to become a 4-sie.  That would bring this project one step closer to being finished. 

And of course there will be various block sewing - like always - RSC blocks, Leaders/Enders, Blockheads, more QOV blocks.  Maybe some other small things like mug rugs or placemats.  Whatever strikes my fancy, right?  There are parts already cut for more QOV blocks, and for more RSC (purple) blocks.  Kitting up block pieces makes it really quick to sew a bunch of new blocks.  

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog  

RSC25 - Week #26

Halfway through the year already!!!  That means we're on color #7 already, and I dug right into the purples with glee this week.  Once I pulled out the purple scrap bin, a lot of cutting happened all at once.  I may have gotten carried away with purple and July is just beginning. 

The first purple blocks were the Buckeye Beauty.  I'm hoping to have enough of these blocks now to start assembling the quilt top.  I haven't counted them yet but I'm getting close I think.  I've been sewing these individual blocks into 4-sies.  By the end of July, I'm hoping to have a completed flimsy of Buckeye Beauty. 

Three purple Give It a Whirl blocks came next.  There are 3 of each color so far, meaning there are 21 of these.  They add up quickly.  

Then came some Hollow-9 blocks, and a couple of string triangles.

And finally just 1 Brighten block was added to that collection.

I'm not worried about having nothing purple to make the rest of the month however, because there are other RSC block sets hanging in the closet that need purple.  And if I were to look through the UFOs, I'm sure there is purple there too.  

There is a LOT MORE inspiration out there in the RSC blog posts.

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

July 4th

 Happy 4th of July!!

One of my husband's cousins had a funny post on Facebook yesterday . . .
On this date July 3rd 1776, Thomas Jefferson historically said "holy crap!! Is that due tomorrow?"  

Sorry - I just couldn't resist sharing it today.

The June row for Saturday Sampler is finished.  Some of the rows have been narrow, with lots of small (like 4") blocks.  And a couple of rows have been this size - 12" finished - with only 5 blocks in it.  We're over halfway through this program already.

Since I was in a red/white/blue mood a good share of the week I continued to play with the leftovers from Quilts of Valor.  That lead to pulling out some 6.5" orphan blocks from the bin - some are patriotic and others were just random ones.  These will be more mug rugs and the bonus - uses up more orphan blocks. 

To continue on with my focus on red/white/blue, one of the UFO projects on my July goal list is to do something with the Indigo Way blocks that have been languishing in the project box.  This was a Bonnie Hunter pattern from a couple of years ago.  If there aren't enough blocks done for a Quilt of Valor I may end up making a few more.  

Blockheads and Leaders/Enders

The Blockheads 6 program is chugging right along.  This was week #6 already, and so far I've kept up with the weekly blocks. 

Last week's Blockheads blocks were Dew Drops by Chelsi Stratton. 

This week's block is Moonbeam by Robin Pickens.  It's 18" finished, so twice as large as the previous 5 weeks' blocks.  

So far, we've made 2 blocks each previous week, except for one.  And now we've added one big block to the mix.   Because I'm doing scrappy red/white/blue these blocks are all destined to end up in a Quilt of Valor.  

Ironically about the same time yesterday morning that Moda posted the newest Blockheads block, Bonnie Hunter posted her new Leader/Ender Challenge block.  She's calling this 4-Patch Fun, and it's very similar to the Bento Box block our QOV group has used in the past.  So my brain immediately went to red/white/blue.  While I was cutting the parts for the Moonbeam block I also cut some pieces for some of these.  And I also used some other patriotic fabric scraps.  They did make perfect Leader/Ender pieces while working on the Blockheads block.  These will be very fun to make.