And Red It Is PLUS a Finish or Two!

Angela has chosen RED as the color for April. We Rainbow Scrap Challengees try to use as much of the monthly color as possible, trying to use up our scraps. Do we really think that will happen? I have to say that some of the participants have actually made dents and that's progress!

I haven't started any red sewing as of yet but I have looked over my possibilities for the Gem Tones. You know what? I've decided not to make any red ones. I just can't get into light, medium, and dark reds. I did play around and found one color combination but I was really struggling with a second block. This hobby of mine is supposed to be fun so I'm opting out of red. Let's see what we can come up with in May.

I do have a finished quilt to share with you though. This quilt pattern was an AccuQuilt pattern by Eleanor Burns called Grandma's Star Quilt. The fabrics were bought when I went on a Shop Hop in Melbourne FL with my friend Vickie. Our husbands were there for a military reunion and we were all there in April 2023 to enjoy memories and past friendships from our Hawaii assignments in the 1980s.

Then in October 2023, Vickie and I joined our friend Sharon at a Kinderhook retreat. Sharon was the instigator that the three of us should make a quilt together, a friendship quilt. We each started working on our quilts at that time together. By the end of retreat, we shared our progress.

Mine (horrible photo)

Vickie's

Sharon's

All versions turned out so pretty. I even like mine now that it's finished. Quilted, washed, and ready for snuggles!

Close ...

Closer ...

Closest!

After I washed it, I folded it up. That's why there are a few wrinkles but, honestly, it lies straight. Maybe I'll fluff it another day and take better "beauty" shots. Yeah, maybe. Anyway, this one finished at a nice 56-1/2" x 69" after all was said and done.

My backing was just a bit shy so I inserted a strip of the orange fabric. Looks so good with the black & white backing fabric I chose.

The back is so pretty!
Love the orange strip with the orange binding.

A couple more pictures to show off the block, the fabrics, and the quilting.

The backing is full of friendship phrases and was the perfect choice for my "friendship" quilt.

Now I'm ready for the next clue of the mystery quilt being offered at my local quilt store. That'll be on Monday. I'm also ready for the next block of The Quilting Life quilt-along which I believe will also drop on Monday. I'm signed up for a class on Wednesday called Posh Peneope. It uses the Sew Wonderful Curve ruler like my pineapples used. I love their projects and I plan on using several pieces of gradient fabric that I think I got from a free table during guild or retreat.

Speaking of class, I forgot to share with you my 4-Pocket Case. I took this class at my local quilt shop and discovered zippers and vinyl are not to be feared! Lol!

4-Pocket Case
Love the Dragonfly Fabric!

Pouch Opened
Two Zippered See-Through Pockets on Top

Two Open Pockets Under the Zippered Pockets
So Convenient!

I'm sure you're wondering about the pattern. Here's a picture of the cover. The one I made was the large size. Someone made the smaller size and it looks very useful too. I'm planning on making one of those also -- another day.

Pattern by Aneela Hoey (#AH116)

Don't you think I've rambled on enough by now? It's rainy here in the Midwest. My rain gauge measured 6-1/2" of rain since Thursday. I emptied it out this morning to see how much more we receive. I can tell you all the docks are underwater around our pond! YIKES! I think it's a good day for sewing.

Have a great weekend. I hope we dry out soon. Catch all the RSC sewing blogs HERE.

Yellow Ending

This was the last full week of yellow. April 1st starts a new month and that will mean a new color for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. We so appreciate Angela keeping this organized so we will have motivation to sew up our scraps by color each month. Here's what I accomplished this month.

Two Gem Tones blocks in yellow obviously. Here's a look at them with two of their "friends".

Crummy basement picture

Although not on the RSC radar, I did get my units sewn up for the Itch'n to be Stitch'n mystery quilt. It works for this month since I'm using yellow scraps.

I'm off to for a sew day. I'll be sewing down binding and will share my finish before the month ends.

Have a great weekend!

Yellow!

Finally I can join with a yellow post! It's not that I don't love yellow (because I do!). I just haven't sat down with that pile of scraps and here I am going to an all-day class today. So much for yellow today, but that's alright. There's still half a month left to go!

All packed & ready to go with a bit of yellow

I have joined in with a mystery quilt at my LQS. Of course I jumped all in to make the queen-sized one! Ha! Because I missed the February meeting, this month I picked up Feb & March clues. I also needed to decide how I wanted to proceed -- go all-in scrappy or maybe one-color scrappy. In the end, Fred helped me to decide with one-color: yellow. Doesn't that work out nicely for March's RSC color!

March Clue just about finished
January Clue seen upper left

Three out of ten sets done for February Clue

Bits & pieces waiting for a trim

So glad I got to play with a little yellow this month. Hopefully I can sew a bit more this last half of March.

Have a great weekend. Hopefully last night's major storm (complete with hail) left my neighbors and friends unscathed. It was a rough one, for sure! I'll be linking up with Angela at SoScrappy as soon as I return from my class this afternoon.

I Like Thursday #172

Welcome to my I Like Thursday post. This is where a group of us share things that have recently made us happy, gave us a smile, and/or just puts a positive spin on day-to-day life. After reading my I Like blog, please visit the others over HERE where LeeAnna rounds us up. OK? Got it? Let's go!

Last Thursday was the first Thursday of the month and that meant the three of us were headed over to the Senior Center for our monthly luncheon. March once again brought us the Irish dancers. Between performances, we were also entertained with Irish ballads.

Corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes, roll, and a fruit cup
Fancy cupcakes for dessert!

My west-facing dining room window is loaded with beauty. Three of the amaryllis plants are blooming!

Two of the blooming plants

See the other buds coming?

This starry-faced beauty is called Minerva

Hadeco was the first to start blooming
It's an orangy red

Meet Bolero who started blooming this week
She's a pinky-red

There is one other amaryllis in "the collection" that has a bud shooting up. I lost the tag so I have no idea what the name of it is but I'll bet it's pretty!

And speaking of flowers, Spring has started springing up in the yard!

Blooming purple & white crocuses

Twinkly purple crocus

The promise of my biggest show of hyacinths to come!

Flowers were not the only things making appearances in and out of the house. Look who stopped by for a visit!

I finished "The Quality of Silence". It really stretched out too long. I'd give it a 6 out of 10 stars so don't drop everything to read this one. I picked up my next book which was a recommendation from my daughter. Her book club read it. I'm about 70 pages in and it's interesting so far. This is a true story. Read about it HERE.

"Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy"
by Ben Mcintyre

In the kitchen this week, I made a strawberry pie for Fred. He loves pies! I followed this recipe since I've made it every Spring for years and it's a winner. Sorry no picture.

With St. Patrick's Day coming up soon, I'll be making Ina Garten's Irish Soda Bread. It is also a winner and I've made it in the past. Mom loves this one with a subtle taste of orange in the background. I don't use the called-for currants and instead substitute raisins. Scrumptious!

I hope you're still with me because I saved the best for last. Our family is growing! My niece announced that she and her husband are expecting a baby later this year!!!

We are all so happy and can't wait for the baby's arrival. Our family feels so blessed!

I hope you all have a blessed week and are able to keep a positive attitude. There are plenty of things around to appreciate ... sometimes you just have to look!

Thank you, LeeAnna, for continuing to host this weekly post where we can remind ourselves and others that sometimes you sometimes have to actually look around to find appreciable things.

Lucky For Me

Do I have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge finish for blue February? Nope. Did I start on RSC yellow March? Nope. But if you put blue and yellow together, you get green and I DO have a green finish!

Quite a few years ago, my friend gave me a Riley Blake Designs kit, may have been for my birthday. I loved it even though it got put on the back burner for a while. The pattern is copyrighted for 2020 to give an idea of "a while ago". I decided it was time I put it together for St. Patrick's Day. What do you think?

It is quite large at 20" x 20". Mine actually ended up being a little smaller, probably closer to 19" x 19". I stuffed it with a 22" pillow form to really fill it out.

Pretty much fills up my rocking chair!

Checking the weather ...

Getting a little sunshine showed off its true colors!

Now to dig into yellow for the merry, merry month of March(?)! Have a great weekend!

I'll bet there's plenty of blue scraps that made it to blocks and maybe even into quilts! I'm heading over to Angela's blog SoScrappy as soon as I get this posted!

I Like Thursday #171

Another week has gone by and I've put off looking for an estate sale agent as well as a real estate agent. Also on my list of phone calls neglected was getting Mom & me in with a civilian PCM. The list just seems to always go on and on and on ... But we are back around to Thursday and I do have a few things to share!

Let's start with my birthday weekend. My birthday was on the 21st and it just happened to coincide with the sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat on the 21st & 22nd. Apparently there are several of us with January & February birthdays so one of the retreaters brought in a birthday cake with our names in hearts on it.

What did I work on while I was there? I appliqued 16 hearts down for a the start of a St. Patrick's Day pillow. My friend bought this kit for me so many years ago -- I can't even remember how long.

Friday night when I got home, we decided to go to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinner. It was a wonderful time, except for the 60+ minute wait for a table. Our server was great, the food was wonderful, and I got to go back to retreat the next day! Yippee!

Another birthday treat was my grocery store gave me a free donut. I chose a Mardi Gras one.

Another thing that really made me smile was one of my amaryllis plant started blooming. I don't know if you remember, but a neighbor has given me amaryllis plants for Christmas for the past several years (2022, 2023, & 2024). The one that has started to flower is called Minerva and is from 2023. It's beautiful with the white star through the middle of the flower.

I have four plants from 2022 & 2023 and they all have buds coming up. I'll keep you posted!

Mom had fun at PT this week. Here's a new "trick" they had her do on Monday. That pole is about 8 feet long and is very hard to "steer". First tap all the cones from right to left and then back again. She had to do this as fast as she could for 2 minutes with the last 30 seconds in turbo-time!

The next "trick" was three cones lined up in front of her from near to far. She said this was harder than side by side.

Look at that concentration!

Today they had her push a football trolley with 40 pounds of weight on top. I guess the trolley must weigh about 30-40 pounds because I was told that the total weight was 70-80 pounds. Mom only weights 100 pounds! Anyway, she had to push that trolley all around the room, then turn it around and backtrack the way she came. She was really puffing after that and needed to sit with a drink of water.

I've been trying to put in some time with the cross stitch project but it feels like it's taking forever. I've told myself I have to finish this one up before I start the new Spring project. Last seen ....

Progress up to now ...

More of the tree has been filled in
and red ornaments added

Still reading "The Quality of Silence" and enjoying it. I'm down to the last 20 or so pages so the end is definitely in sight. My next book will be one recommended by my daughter.

A major BIG LIKE is Survivor kicked off the new season Wednesday night! Whoop! Whoop! I'm looking forward to another good season!

This week was also a major score with personal care. I trimmed Mom's fingernails on Tuesday and cut Fred's hair on Wednesday. Polly better watch out because her claws are next! Ha!

Until next week, try to keep a positive attitude and enjoy the transition from Winter to Spring here in the northern hemisphere!

There's more to like over at LeeAnna's blog. Check it out HERE.