RSC19 - a touch of light blue

Light blue seemed like it would be an easy color to find in my stash.  Not so much however. I have lots of medium blue, but had to dig a lot to find much light blue.  The Ohio Star came together quickly and joins the other 7 that I have made so far following the Rainbow Scrap Challenge monthly colors. 

I laid them all out in the shade on my back deck. Maybe I should have put them in the sun to really show off the pretty colors.  

The pieces are cut for a light blue cat block and I may get that sewn later tonight after work.  Then I'll look for just a few more small pieces of light blue to make a couple of the flower blocks.  

More Patriot Stars

I had a little sewing time yesterday and made 3 more 12.5" Patriot Stars and 3 more ritzy cracker blocks using the same fabrics.  One fat quarter of a print will easily make 1 of each, with a little leftover.  

Our guild had a sewing "morning" last Saturday to work on some group projects. One of the ladies pieced a backing for a finished QOV top. And a second top was finished, so 2 Quilts of Valor are in the hands of long arm quilters.  Another gal attached a binding to a QOV.  And a couple more ladies worked on our guild baby quilts that morning. 

Blast from the past

Do you or your kids have favorite toys from their childhoods that bring back great memories? And maybe even cause some big kid play time?

My girls both loved Lego blocks as kids, and also still love playing with Legos with their own children.  I never had Legos as a kid but really enjoyed building with them with one of my younger cousins at his house.  In fact when he turned 40 several years ago I sent him a big Lego set as a birthday present.

At my house, ALL of the Legos from their childhood are in a couple of big containers. The grandkids (5 of them all 8 and under) pull those out almost immediately when they are here.  And I have a huge round coffee table in the family room that makes a perfect building site.  

We had some elaborate sets when my girls were kids, but never kept the instruction books unfortunately, so once they were taken apart that was it. My younger daughter's family was here over the weekend and we found the instructions online for a Lego castle the kids were finding parts for. So a fairly simple Google search happened and we found exactly what we needed. Note: I've now had to start a file folder to keep the instructions we printed. 

Next thing I knew my daughter and her 2 kids were sitting on the floor sorting ALL of those Legos by color.  And the next step was building the castle.  Piles of red, yellow, blue, white, brown, black were joined by piles of "people" pieces and odd things like swords or tiny little pizzas. 

Once that was done, we found instructions for a couple of other things that we built as well. The funny thing about the castle is that this was a set that I bought for myself (in my mid 30s) and it sat on a shelf for years. My girls always laugh about the fact that I didn't let them play with it - but that they did anyway. They just made sure to put it back together so I wouldn't get mad.  This morning this castle is sitting on the fireplace mantel. 

We definitely have 3 generations of Lego lovers in the family. 

Marking quilting lines

How do you mark your quilting lines?

A purple marking pen that disappears in the air after an hour or so is my favorite "go to" marking tool.  But it doesn't show up well on dark fabrics and I needed to mark 4 dark red triangles in this Simple Whatknots project.  I had a couple of white tools - a pen and a pencil.  The pen is a Bohin brand called Iron Marker. The marks it makes wipe off easily with a damp cloth.  But it was just about empty, so I had to pull out the white pencil to finish.  The pencil marks also just brush off with a damp cloth. 

Do I have a preference between these tools?  Not really, but I will probably buy another of these pens because they are a bit neater than the pencil. 

A mental health morning

I decided this morning was going to include some "ME" time.  It was a mental health morning - or at least a couple of hours.  Playing hooky from work for the morning hopefully will help my afternoon productivity as I face some daunting deadlines and complicated projects.  

First I finished quilting my latest Kim Diehl project and attached the binding.  I'll show that off another day once the binding is turned and stitched down, and I've dusted off all of the quilting markings.  The second project was pulling out the second version of the previous Saturday Sampler because it's become a UFO.  And I definitely don't want another UFO. 

Four blocks were already done and sewn into a unit, but the other 20 blocks still needed the last 2 pieced side sections and a final fushia corner attached.  So I've finished 4 more blocks and added them to the first section.  This makes one complete section.  Two more identical sections to go - on another day, since I have some work deadlines to deal with and company coming on Friday for the weekend.  

Design Wall Monday - 60 degree runners

All of the Halloween 60 degree runners are done.  There are actually 2 identical ones with the orange around the outside, but I didn't include both in the photo.  The backs of all of these have spiderweb fabrics.  And the white sections of these glow in the dark.  I think the smaller hexie shaped ones are so cute, and they are made with the leftovers. 

Now that these have been quilted and bound I can go back to working on some UFO projects again.  And on that topic - I'm giving myself permission to weed out some UFOs that I just know I'll never finish. Now I need to find the time to actually sort through some of them. 

What is on other quilters' design wall today:  https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

The Sew Together bag - counting up

With the 3 bags I finished this month I've now made a total of 12 of the Sew Together bag.  A dozen!! I think I've sold 3 so far, gifted 4 and have the other 5 at my house.  The 3 I just made will be gifted or sold. The Love 2 Sew bag (bottom left) is currently holding my hand stitching supplies. But we'll see - it might end up as a gift or getting sold eventually. 

The black one in the center is MINE.  This one I'm keeping.  I hand quilted and hand stitched all of the  3/4" hexies on it.  It's my favorite one so far.  

I made the first ones in 2016 and then taught the class twice at the Pin Cushion in 2017. That was very fun and some of the ladies have commented about how much they use their bags.  It is pretty practical and a useful size, about 9" wide.   

Hanging in my sewing room closet in a bag with zippers and fabric I've set aside to make more.  There are 4 sets of zippers in various colors.  And every time I see an interesting print I find myself thinking "how would this look as a bag?" and wondering what coordinating fabrics I would put with it.  Does that mean that I'm addicted to making these?