Birthdays and Shopping, Sewing

Last of August, hard to believe the month has finally come to an end!  It is a very full one for our family, three birthdays, the last two celebrated together.  Our son and his son have birthdays a week apart, so they celebrated them together last weekend. Here's Dane with his sack, hunting for toy dinosaurs hidden around the yard, with his younger cousin watching with his other Grandma and Aunties. 

Mama hid a lot of toy dinos in the flowerbeds, there was even digging needed.  The boys all had a great time on the hunt. Pin the tail on the Dino, there in the background on the house, was popular as well.  

Here's Dane looking pensive before singing and cake being served.  I didn't get any photos of him smiling, but plenty of video.  Just after he got his mini bundt cake, he pretended to let a plastic dino toy take the first bite, so cute. 

And here's the adult birthday celebrator, Nick, hanging out with his nephews and sisters.  It was a fun party and great to be able to get together for pizza and cake, presents and family time. 

Daughter Elaine finally found a spot to squeeze me in for a haircut and color--much needed /overdue.  I went downtown early and did some thrift store shopping. I was sad to see that my favorite Salvation Army thrift store closed or moved, but there were plenty of other shops. Of course I always look for fabric and most of the shops did have some. One nicely packaged trio of cuts was $1.99 and I snapped it up. 

This Egyptian print was just over a yard of fabric, very nice quality and unwashed.

Being that well-aged, it is even 45" wide. I've never heard of this company, though.  The other two conversation prints were over two yards each. 

Asian tigers in a rich  print...

and Asian figures and flowers on the other.  These also appear never to have been washed.  They will make great backings.  

Some sewing did happen recently, more work on the bookshelf quilt. 

I decided to add more detail to the bookends I made a couple of weeks ago, aiming for a "brass" detail at the base.  I also grouped two books in a tilted block setting. 

Directions are from the Fabric at Work Bookshelf Quilt Pattern.  

I was happy with the way these turned out.  Lots more sewing to do and detail decisions to be made!  

Design Wall Monday--Independence Day

Design Wall Monday--lots to share today.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

Something patriotic to start--a mini flag quilt made years ago.

Tiny HSTs that finish at 1" and lots of scrappy fun in the borders.  Machine quilted very simply.

Star Spangled Banner music sheet backing. I always remember that Freedom isn't free, it is the result of much sacrifice, generation after generation.

My employer gave us the afternoon off on Friday--paid!--plus today, so it was already a long weekend. I took three more vacation days for the week so only have to work on Friday, yay! Lots more stitching time planned and I have been playing in the scrap bins again. 

The Basket quilt I showed last time DID need the leaf appliques, after all. 

A bit more pattern added with the leaves.  They did not take long to stitch down.  

The leaves add even more sweet charm to this little quilt.  The Mini Charmers 2 booklet by Heather Mulder Peterson has two more  patterns and I want to make them all. I chose the Winding Road for the next scrappy play.

Mostly medium toned scraps with a few zingers to break it up. These all came from my 2.5" precut scrap drawer.

Heather used a a mini charm pack and solid gray for her quilt, but I found a printed plain for a little more texture for mine.  I could make dozens of these from the same scrap drawer! Two of of these butted together would make a nice long runner.

The final pattern is also made from Mini Charms and is called Reflections. 

There is a lot more cutting involved with that.  I will search around in my precut mini charm packs that I've acquired over the years and see if I can find one I like for this pattern.  So fun!

Slow Sunday Stitching--Cat stitch progress and Birthday

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more stitchers' projects on Kathy's Quilts blog.  

I've continued working on the kit I bought at my local quilt store--I previously said that it cost $5 for this DMC kit, but I was wrong.  It was $5.99 :)

Lots of stitches were added when we were vacationing recently at my brother and sister-in-law's in Arizona for a few days.  The cover photo isn't quite true to the floss shades, but I don't mind the warmer blue for the kitty. 

Our son and daughter-in-law and third grandson Dane were also spending time with their Uncle and Aunt. DIL and I went to a local park one day with Dane.  There was a huge reclaimed water basin and we were surprised and delighted when a huge geyser went off. It must have been over 100 feet high--can you see the rainbow?

Our timing was lucky as it goes off every 90 minutes or so.  Dane (bottom left of photo) liked the play equipment and the ducks and geese in the water too....but his favorite thing was giving hugs to this little girl.

They had a mutual admiration party going :)  Her brother/cousin/relative was counting the hugs.  "That's five hugs!"

I got a lot of love from family too...

I had a birthday recently and got some lovely handwritten cards from the older two grandsons.  This is Hunter's (age 5).  We are having fun in a garden, I believe. Look at all the hearts and love.

Cove, age 7, did all his own spelling.  I am happy to know he thinks I am OSOM !!!!

Sewing and Celebrating

On and off my design floor are several small projects.  I spent more time with charm packs, as I mentioned last post.  The baby sized Falling Charms quilt got laid out and rearranged. 

This charm pack was called Wing and Leaf, lots of bright fun prints.  I have since sewn the blocks into rows and it will become a top in the next day or two.  I believe I have a good option for the backing in stash.  

I got the binding on Sid's quilt (for a family friend's son) and laid it out to show the quilting my sister did before I washed it. Love the baseball hats.  The cloudy day turned my tile pink in this photo but showed the quilting pretty nicely.  A label is all that is needed to get this one off to its new home.  

My mom turns 80 this month and there was a grand party for her this past weekend.  All told, we  were about 50 folks, most of them family, including her sister and 6 brothers, all 5 of us kids and most of her 16 grandchildren, and the three great-grandsons.  Mom requested a bagpiper to play and I managed to get a photo of them. 

He played a few songs, finishing up with Amazing Grace.   My grandsons weren't fans, covering their ears and heading into the house, but the rest of us enjoyed the novelty.  I decided last minute to make Mom a little quilt and cast about in the sewing room for something already in progress.  I happened upon the Sajou quilt from Humble Quilts' mystery sewalong a few months ago.  I had forgotten that I'd completed a backing as well.  I had set aside a green fabric for sashing but opted instead to bind the quilt as is.  A quickly pieced batting from scraps and SITD quilting and I was ready to add binding, which I pulled from stash.  

I didn't label the quilt as I wanted it to be double-sided.  Mom loved it and got lots of compliments on her gift.  I really enjoyed getting this finished and giving it to Mom.  Happy Birthday!

Cocoa Baskets Progress

What bliss to spend a weekend piecing blocks on this old UFO, Cocoa Baskets.  Saturday afternoon I came home from watching grandson Hunter and got the few needed basket blocks fused to the backgrounds and blanket stitched, and cut out the remaining Churn Dash blocks.  That left the 9 patches to pull together this morning before layout. 

After I took this photo above I realized I had yet to trim the basket blocks down to size.  A rotating cutting mat is indispensable for this task, so glad I bought one a few years ago with a 50% off coupon. There are four partial 9 patch blocks yet to assemble.  I wanted to wait to choose their colors once the vertical rows were decided upon. 

There will be sashing between the vertical rows, so this is not a final top size,  but I ran into a snag almost immediately.  Can you see the wart in this layout?  Sticking out by a mile is that low volume 9 patch which I pieced so long ago.  It had to go. There was a bit of switcheroo of other blocks for some balance. 

The wart removed and replaced, the blocks were stacked and labeled for assembly.  I'll add the partial blocks later.  I'm liking this a lot and can't wait to get the rows together.  Then there will be a decision about sashing.  The original pattern used a fabric that was solid with a star print fussy cut for the sashing.  I'm leaning toward using a solid or a "printed plain" with just a bit of texture.  I do think it needs to be a color and not a neutral.  It will be another puzzle to play with but I'm leaning towards a deep green. I have a stripe to make a bias binding from, which I think will look great.

Tonight while Grant was cooking dinner, I brought out my patriotic quilts and decor and the house is ready for festivities for the Fourth.  We'll likely go to my parents' house as usual and enjoy the fireworks show for free from the backyard while visiting with family and friends.  I can hear fireworks going off in the neighborhood as I type this. Have a happy and safe Fourth, those who celebrate!  I'll be playing with this little flag from leftover HSTs I stitched last year.  Another UFO that needs a finish!

Assorted Flavors

Well, didn't mean to disappear for over a week!  I finished my KonMari purge of all the papers and got most of them organized.  There are still some loose papers that need corralling in binders, and some thoughtful contemplation for the extra bins and folders that have piled up. I've been sorting the mail as soon as I get in the door and will continue that.  

Although I had thought to get into my kitchen next, on reread of the chapter on Komono, or miscellany, the next category was CDs/DVDs.  This morning I have completely gone through my personal CDs and through the family DVDs with my husband.  The CD cabinet remains full with my husband's collection, but mine are pared down to only the ones that "spark joy", and all the DVDs now fit in two photo boxes.  Love that.  

The horrible heat that we've been having for weeks has put a damper on sewing, and especially ironing, but the Bullseye blocks don't require ironing as they are assembled.

I concentrated on adding green to the piles.  Some of the circles came from previous rounds.

 Final center round has now been attached and I will give these a quick pressing before cutting into quarters and laying out the border. 

 

I'm happy with how the diagonals are working out, even though I had to rip apart the blocks for one border twice and resew them to make the diagonal go the right way 'round. I'll have to be careful with this second row too :)  Once I get the next border on, I'll assess what additional border widths I need.  I have a brown print for a narrow containment border, and then will have to find a suitable green print for a larger outer border to get this to a queen size for my brother's bed.  

And for the big finish on this post, this week our DD Elaine and husband Chris let the rest of the world know the wonderful news we've been dying to share: 

Cove is going to be a big brother next year!  We are thrilled they are adding to the family and look forward to the new grandbaby, girl or boy.  Life is good!

Design Wall Monday

Still plugging away on the wedding quilt, with a deadline fast approaching. I have two more weekends!

Luckily my sister is here to help. She re-ironed every other block's seams the opposite way so I could nest them as I assembled the rows. Yesterday I sewed five rows, leaving four to finish that task. There was a little complaining about the boring job I gave her, but it sure was a big help to me, lol!  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Over the weekend we had a huge party at our house. There was even a band.

That's my hubby on the far right, playing with some friends at his 60th birthday party. It was a really good time and having the food catered was terrific!  First time ever that we didn't spend all night in the kitchen :). Today is his actual birthday, though, so happy birthday, honey!  Love you bunches!