Odds and Ends

 I have been pretty busy with all my projects this summer. Here is a round up of some things that have been going on that I may not have mentioned, or maybe I did. :) So, in no particular order...

We go to the local farmer's market on most Saturdays. I have taken to getting a bouquet of flowers and they have been amazing this summer.

This bouquet came from the grocery store, as we didn't make it to market that week. I chose one with a fall theme.

This is my initial fabric pull for a temperature quilt I am thinking about starting in 2023. I have long wanted to make one. We'll see if this pans out. Anyone else want to make one?

This is 30 of my 36 blocks for the perfect pineapple QAL with Gigi's Thimble. Almost done. Since this picture two more have been done. Only 4 more to go.

Sunday I decided to use my home grown chives to make cheddar chive biscuits. They were amazing with fresh tomatoes on top of them.

I used some leftover fabric from my daughter's Sandhill sling to make her a thread catcher for Halloween.

I am slowly, slowly stitching this pretty piece. There is a photo below of the whole thing from the website.

Some lovely gifts I selected with my birthday gift certificate from my daughter. She got me a gift certificate to Snuggly Monkey who has the best stitching supplies ever. You can finder her on line, although she does do curbside pick up for locals.

Two more thread catchers for my daughter. Can't have enough of these and I have to use some of this fabric up you know.

This is the picture from the Lolli and Grace web site for the stitchery above that I am working on. You have a choice of words for this piece. Mine will say Home Sweet Home when it's done.

And, finally, I had to purchase more batting. It's quite the investment, but so worth it in the end to have what you need on hand. This will last me several years, and I take all the scraps and sew them together for smaller quilts, so nothing goes to waste either.

Well that's all for now. Happy fall y'all.

My Cactus Project

 I made a bunch of felt cacti a little while ago, for my grandson to put into his room. I meant to share them all here, but I got busy and forgot. So here they are now.

This is the box the small pots came in, so I used that to display all of them together and to deliver them.

This was one of those cute little projects that just kept growing on itself. I had so much fun trying to figure out all the styles of cactus I wanted to make, based on what I had seen while we lived out west. And now they live in his room and he is very happy with his no maintenance garden.

See you soon.

Ice Cream Social Sampler

 One of the many creative things I love to do, is embroidery. I love to have something stitchy for my afternoons and evenings. And one of my favorite stitching designers is Rebecca Ringquist of Dropcloth Samplers. I have done several of her samplers and I love them. The Ice Cream Social Sampler looked like so much fun, I couldn't say no!

The best part of these samplers is that there are no directions on how to stitch them. Use whatever colors you like, whatever stitches you want. This time, she offered a PDF of the pattern, so I printed and traced my own, and decided to use a light pink fabric for the background. The most fun of all was deciding what flavors the ice creams should be. Here we have rocky road, orange creamsicle and pistachio.

Here you can see the lemon soft serve. I decided to do all my ice creams in satin stitch. I just like the look of it. Other stitchers did different things on theirs. You can look on IG.

Mint chocolate chip in honor of my youngest grandson. It's his very favorite ice cream.

Vanilla was my first cone. I thought it was the best flavor to start with. When I was a kid, the local soft serve place only had vanilla, but you could get it dipped in chocolate.

I loved the explosion of sprinkles on this piece. I thought the item next to some of the cones was a sparkler, so I stitched it with sparkly threads and added some sparkly beads too.

                    Here we have chocolate soft serve and lots more sprinkles.

This is a picture of the entire thing finished. I enlarged the PDF a little bit and put it in my Q-snap frame and the size was perfect for me. I want to frame it, but I'm not sure about the glass beads being under glass. Oh, well, I'll figure it out eventually.

Here you can see the cherry ice cream with hunks of cherries in it. I loved doing that one.

This is back when I first started on it. We did the cones first of all. I did a sort of weave with them, as I think many of us did.

This was the most fun, and if you've never done one of Rebecca's samplers, you should try one. They are all tons of fun. So, until next time...

Missing U Quilt top

 A number of years ago, when the book Sunday Morning Quilts came out, I was smitten. It was the best quilting book I have ever found for inspiration. I wanted to make every single quilt in the book, and I never feel that way. I started an on line bee, based on the book and for 3 years we helped each other make quilts from the book. Then, I eventually moved on to other quilts.

But I have never forgotten that book and those quilts. Fast forward to now and I pulled it from the shelf again. I wanted to make another scrap quilt. I am really trying to use up my fabric scraps and the fabrics I have on hand. And it is working. I do have lots less than I used to. So, enter the Missing U Quilt by Cheryl Arkison. A rainbow quilt, big enough for my queen sized bed, if I add a few more blocks to the one in the book. But I didn't end up with a rainbow.

I started off with my blue scrap bin. Then, I pulled out my teal scrap bin. It holds every shade of blue that is of a teal or aqua shade. I didn't really know the direction I was going with this, but I thought I would make these blue and teal blocks until I either figured it out, or ran out of fabric in these colors.

But then, it finally dawned on me...after I posted on IG about this, and Cheryl commented that yes, I should use all the colors of the sea. I wanted to make the ocean, with a sunrise.

And so I did. I was so into this quilt top, I made all 36 blocks in less than two weeks. It has been a long time since I have felt that way about a quilt. So much freedom to create from my scraps that I couldn't stop. The quilt top is 91 inches square. I have ordered a 108 inch wide backing for this one. My goal is to get it quilted and on the bed before winter. I have decided on a fairly simple quilting pattern. I will be back to show you when it's finished. Man I am loving this!

See you soon.