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.   

Binding the Blockheads quilt

Today is the first day of the Quilting Across the Dakotas shop hop, with 49 shops across both North and South Dakota.  Sophia and I plan to visit both local shops this morning and see if there is a small project she would like to work on.  All the shops always have some extra fun things featured during this month long shop hop. 

I have PT again today at 12:15, or we could do a little road trip to Chamberlain.

Binding did happen finally, and I'm pleased to be able to check another large UFO project off of my 2026 list.  I need to take this along to the Pin Cushion so they can mark it off my PHD list as well.  

This is the Blockheads 6 quilt, which I will donate to our Quilts of Valor group.  I've mentioned before that I like to do test blocks in red, white, and blue so that they can be used in a QOV.  I also like to do the same thing occasionally with a sew-along. 

In this case I wanted to do the sew-along but didn't have any good ideas of what colors to play with that would be different than my usual.  So - red, white, and blue was my Plan B - which was going back to RWB.  

Ella and I did go to the basement sewing room for awhile yesterday while Sophia was gone to the wrestling camp.  Two more bindings were prepped.  The yellow one will go onto my Hollow-9 lap quilt, and the red striped one will go onto another Quilt of Valor.  The strips were already cut, so I needed to sew them together and then press them.  

Settling in

It's hard to even get a binding stitched . . .

Sophia arrived yesterday, along with this little gal for the week.  Ella is settling in here although she's quite aggravated by all the cats that hang around out on our back deck.  The nerve of those cats!!

On a side note - I'm trying out something new for the Achilles inflammation and for arthritis pain, based on the good results a friend reports.  One of my best friends has terrible arthritis in her hands, and has been using Frankincense balm for a few months.  She says it has made a huge difference in how her hands feel.  I noticed she doesn't drop her cards like she used to when we play Hand and Foot.  So, I'm going to try it myself.  Can't hurt, right?  Plus it smells good and feel good on my skin. 

Design Wall Monday - July 20

There isn't much on my design wall this week, as it will be a really busy week with other things going on.  I have an appointment this morning at the ophthalmologist, followed by some much needed grocery shopping.  And I need to replace my vacuum cleaner that is dying, which means a trip to Walmart.  On Tuesday I have a manicure appointment, Wednesday and Thursday I'll have PT again.  

Granddaughter Sophia is coming later today to spend the week with us.  She has a wrestling camp in town, plus she wants to do a little sewing.  I've been on a cutting tear all week, so I cut a couple of doll quilt kits that she could work on if she wants.  Or we can find something else that she might want to make.  We can shop my stash or visit the 2 quilt shops in town for something fun. 

The Hollow-9 lap quilt is finally quilted, and I have bright yellow binding cut for it.  This was on my goal list months ago, but it kept being set aside.  Time to get this one done, and donated.

We'll see if I accomplish anything else this week, but I'll still have things to share during the week: pictures from the QOV float in Saturday's parade, a QOV flimsy assembled, etc.

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog