Next Up

I’m making this for a friend’s 94 year old WWII veteran dad. 

I also want to make one to donate, soooo… since I’m going to be cutting lots and lots of fabric to get a scrappy look, why not make 2 quilts at once?

Still need to cut the small squares for the star corners

I want it a bit bigger, so I get to redo the math too. It’s not a big deal, except for that pretty star that’s full of half-square triangles. I think I got the sizes right… but if not, it’s scrappy and I can fudge it until it fits, right???  (Why do I do this to myself??) Hoping that once the stars are done this will be a fast sew. A quilter can dream. 

My sister sent me a photo I’d never seen before, passed on from a cousin in Tennessee. That’s me, Teena and infant Donna, with our parents, at Easter 1957. Donna was born April 7, so I’m guessing this is late April. So cool. We were stylin’ in those hats and dressy coats. 

Done!

With only 5 rows left to go, this didn’t take long to finish, even after I had to pause to cut more background fabric for the last row. 

Really pleased with how it turned out. I love that sewing a bunch of squares together gave me a circle of stars. 

Note to self: pinning is worth the time!

And, thanks to my ‘pinning protocol’ - put a pin in the first of each pair of squares so they don’t get flipped while sewing - I only had to rip and resew one block out of the 100 in the project. It’s a miracle. 😂😂

Two Franken-pieced blocks in a row

Hoping to take this and Wheels of Fortune to my longarmer pal before we leave on vacation later this month. And maybe one more that I started cutting fabric for tonight… 

2 seams to go…

Franken-piecing

Finished 6 more rows today, for a total of 10,

including several blocks I had to Franken-piece (sew littler pieces together to make a big enough piece). 

You can kinda see them now, but once this is finished and quilted, they should be pretty much invisible. 

Only 5 rows to go!

Shrinky Dink

 First 4 rows are sewn together. Whoo!

Finished size looks to be about 38 x 38”; so much smaller than it originally looked on the design wall. I think it’s a nice size for a wall hanging.

Only 11 rows to go…

Decision

Spotted this on Pinterest, and while I’d love to make the patriotic version,

I thought it had potential for using up leftover bits and pieces from Around The Lake/Wheels of Fortune. 

I still need to cut 30 or so background squares for the bottom row, 

but, after a bit of creative piecing in a couple of places,

 I have enough blues and greens to get this done. 

Need to switch some colors around but I think I can start sewing rows together tomorrow… (I started out so neat on the top row and it just went to heck the further along I went. 🙄😂)

Note to self: “I” foot, 0.0 needle position, use right slit as edge guide.

Addictive

Once I got started on my Wheels of Fortune, I couldn’t stop. Two days and many hours of sewing later, I think it’s done. 

Considered adding a border of some kind…. but I think it’s too distracting. Maybe something with just the cream fabric? (Ordered more since I can’t find the safe place where I put the last order… 🙄)

Here’s the addictive part - I still have 36 snowballs and a crap-ton (technical term) of 3” half-square triangles that I NEED to make something with. 

There’s enough snowballs to add another row to the quilt, but I’m all out of oranges and think it would look weird with just the blues and greens. 

Or maybe make a table runner with 4 wheel blocks (technically they’re “X’s and O’s”) 

or set them in a different configuration?

Should I use the HST’s with the snowballs?

Or make something smaller with just them??

Decisions are hard! (But fun!)

Carolina Lillies

Confession - I made this fully intending to donate it to my quilt guild. 

It was an experiment to try a Fat Quarter Shop tutorial (here), and to use up some gorgeous fat quarters that had been hanging around the stash for a couple of years (here). 

Yeah, jokes on me. I love this thing. The colors - orange and teal - the quilting - a Baptist fan pattern I’ve wanted to try for a long time - the galaxy backing…  Love. It. All.

It’s not the prettiest pattern (it is fast and easy tho…) but it definitely shows off this fabric to perfection. (Gifted to Cheyenne’s friend Kim, 9/4/2024)

Not What I Was Looking For…

I was searching for fat quarters to make this -

when I unburied a bag holding pieces of Around The Lake, from April 2022.

Making those circles was intimidating 

There’s no chance Lake would ever get made - I cannibalized the remaining fabric for several projects, including this (which I put the binding on just this afternoon… weird timing) -

but maybe I could repurpose the 60(!) finished snowballs into … something?

Hmmm, looking promising….

Stars and Stripes

Despite a *&$# trimming error 

(and more swearing when I had to cut into new fabric to remake *one* block) 

this one is done and headed to the longarmer in the morning. 

I thought it was going in the donate pile, 

but hubby likes it best and wants to keep it, so Mighty Star (here) will get donated instead. 

The backing is 5 yards of fabric I’ve had since Quilt Ventura days. All this time later, I still like it - glad I finally found a good use for it. (Using this emptied out another bin in my storage room. Whoo! Making progress using up the stash.)

First Day

First day of school for the local grands!

Note the hand-colored shoe. So stylish!

Donovan, first grade

 Cowboy boots, knee socks and a piggy lunch box. So cute.

Jaclyn, third grade

 Leo is pure teenager -  no shoes until the very last second. 😂

and Leo, eighth grade.

 Technically not a school day pic. Taken at last week’s Bruno Mars concert.

Leia, high school junior and college student, started school last week

 More fabulous shoes

as did Cyrus (prefers that to Addy), who is a high school senior and first year college student. 

 ”Are you done yet??”

So exciting, at least for the littles, at least for today. Tomorrow it’ll be, “do I have to go???” 😂😂

Cheese and Cake

 We celebrated Two Days Until School Starts 

with a surprise trip to Chuck E. Cheese,

where jumping in the bounce house and 

collecting balls from the claw machine were the big thrills -

Jac and Donovan each ended up with two balls, one of every color in the machine. Such excitement! 

Even the teenager had a great time. 

Then home to bake their favorite cake and play in the sandbox. 

I’m a little bit sad that summer’s almost over …