RSC - Pink Pineapples

Thanks go to Angela for gathering this group of Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters together every week. We share on her blog So Scrappy, which you can click on to see what everyone did this week with pink. Next week we'll be into March ... wonder what color we'll be tackling next?!?!

This week was a pineapple week for me. Four scrappy pink pineapples.

They'll be joining the two dark blue ones I completed in January. Have a great week!

I Like Thursday #107

It's Thursday and you know what that means! We bloggers like to share happy things on our blogs because we believe happy thoughts make happy lives. We share on LeeAnna's blog Not Afraid of Color and you can see what we all liked this week right here.

My first "like" this past week has to be I LIKE RETREATS! If you know me, I didn't even have to say this out loud. Haha! I left for four wonderful days on Valentine's Day. One of the retreaters, my friend Carol, made these tasty heart sugar cookies. She said we were her Valentines. Sweet ... and delicious! I heartily ate my fair share of these! *wink*

Of course a retreat post can't go without a few quilty pictures. Enjoy!

Karen's

Edna's

Kathy's

Gwen's for a Dallas fan

Carol's

Gwen's for an LSU fan

Millie's

Karen's

What did I accomplish?

Two more words in the Letters to Santa QAL

A Chubby Charmer tote for me

I also quilted Twisted Valentine which I'll be sharing over the weekend.

So what about more LIKES?

Making progress on my jigsaw puzzle

Blue Vera Bradley Mini Hipster Purse
(my Christmas present from my son & family)

I love Sanders from Costco but
Fred found these heart Sanders
for my Valentine's Day

It was my birthday this week
and Polly loved my boxes.
My! What shiny eyes you have!

The beginning of a couple of crocuses

I'll leave you with  another photo of a beautiful cardinal. He practically matches my neighbor's barn-red houe.

Be sure to stop by Not Afraid of Color's blog where you can find more to like!

May I Present Mr. McChill Meets Purina - 2022 Finish

 

I was reluctant to share this completed project earlier because it was being submitted to Primitive Gatherings 2022 Red & White Challenge. No sooner did I finish but I put it straight into the mail the next day. It was shown on the Stitch with Lisa YouTube video. If you skip to 5:30 on the YouTube video you'll see it but I recommend watching the entire show. There are some really outstanding quilts shown!

So, let's talk about Frosty MeChill aka Mr. McChill. The embroidery designs were created and freely shared by Melisa on her Pinker 'n' Punkin blog. She's quite talented when it comes to designing embroidery and cross-stitch projects. Here's the link to what started my journey - Block 1. You can easily find the rest on her blog.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to set all 12 of my blocks. Melisa set hers 3 x 4 and made a lap quilt. I knew I wanted a wall hanging from my blocks so I ended up with a 4 x 3 setting and then making bazillion scrappy 4-patches, lining them all around each block and also the entire project.

Next I needed to figure out how to quilt the blocks and it needed to be done quickly. I decided to use a snowflake design that I'd seen on Lori Kennedy's blog. I chose single lines rather than over the entire embroidered blocks after ditch-stitching around each block.

Here's a picture of the back to give you a little better idea of how I quilted it.

No quilt is complete without the label so here it is. Nothing fancy -- I had to get this thing off in the mail to make the deadline!

Thank you, Melisa, for such a fun project. Thanks also goes to Lisa Bonjean for hosting the Red & White Challenge.

I Like Thurs #106

I'm writing this early because my biggest LIKE this week will be retreating! Hopefully I'll have some good stuff to post at RSC on Saturday but who knows? Sometimes the gift of gab gets away from me! Ha!

First "like" this week is once again jigsaw puzzles. I finished off that 1000 piece one a couple weeks ago and found a couple of 1500 piece ones in Mom's basement. So I started one of them. Here's where it'll stay while I'm gone.

Monday I went to Mom's house. It was a beautiful, sunny day with temps in the lower 60s. I decided it was a good day for some yardwork. First I burnt last year's daylillies.

Then I cleaned out the window wells. That filled a small garbage can up to dump into the ginormous Yard Waste can. Since there was still room in the Yard Waste can, I decided to get a good start on cleaning out her iris bed. Carol @ From My Carolina Home says irises need space and fresh air to bloom well. It worked in my iris bed so I thought I'd treat Mom. You can see some are already coming up!

The cardinals have really been sporting some beautiful color. I caught a picture of this pretty one sitting on a bird feeder. So RED and I love cardinals!

Last Thursday I was at my LQS and won a FQ! Of course I chose a PINK one for Rainbow Scrap Challenge! Isn't it pretty with my pink placemat and coffee mug?

I'll close for now. Sorry I'll be MIA for a few days but just know that I'll be enjoying myself!

Have a great Thursday and check out what the others have shared HERE!

Let's Do Some Pink!

To begin, I'd be remiss if I let Dark Blue January leave without a final picture. All of a sudden I realized that I hadn't finished the dark blue string zig-zags for the outer border of String-X. The blocks were made but not cut down to make the half square triangles and then assembled. So I set out to do just that ... and I did!

I mentioned last week that I'd started the Twisting Heart Valentine. It has now become a finished top. It's not super large and those squares finish at a mere 1-3/4"! It is just full of pink, isn't it? Let me show you the steps in pictures.

Sew together 3-1/2" squares

Using the Tiny Twister tool, cut out 2-1/4" squares
where the seams meet

Sew squares back together

Add a border and ...
voile! You're done!

Wasn't that fun??!!!

In the meantime I finally finished the January Uptown block. Lots of parts. Thankfully the February  block doesn't look as difficult so I might actually get caught up!

Has anyone seen "The Banshees of Inisherin" yet? It's up for a bunch of Academy Awards including Best Picture. Per Wikipedia, this is what it's about:

"The Banshees of Inisherin is a 2022 black tragicomedy film directed, written, and co-produced by Martin McDonagh.^[6][7][8] Set on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, the film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two lifelong friends who find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them"

"Black tragicomedy" is an excellent way to describe the plot. We found the Irish accents a bit difficult to understand but I enjoyed the movie even if a little disturbing. Of course there's a message within the movie -- hey! It's up for Academy Awards! Need I say more. I'd be curious if anyone out there has seen this movie yet and their thoughts.

Whether or not you watch the SuperBowl this Sunday, I hope you have a good weekend. Enjoy those half-time snacks!

Thank you, Angela, for continuing to inspire us to use our scraps each week on your SoScrappy blog.

I Like Thurs #105

Happy Thursday and that means it's time to take a look at anything and everything that made us happy over the past week. If you look around, I'll bet you can find a few things that made you smile too! Thanks to our hostess LeeAnna, we can take a peek at what made fellow "Likers" happy too!

As for me I finished reading "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig. What a good book! It's a real thinker without being a deep book. The main character Nora is likable and the story moves right along. I recommend this book!

Goodreads Synopsis

"The Midnight Library" was an e-Book so now I'm back to the library book I was reading before TML became available. That book was "The Bangalore Detectives Club" by Harini Nagendra. Luckily I was able to pick right up where I left off. That is always a good thing.

Goodreads Synopsis

If you follow along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, you will already know that February's color is pink. The other day, Gracie & I spied a pink full moon! Did you know that the full moon of February is called the "snow moon" according to the Old Farmers Almanac?

Our prompt this week deals with Valentine traditions, Valentine memories, or anything else Valentine-y. I'd just say that my Dad always bought my mother a big heart-shaped box of candy for Valentine's Day. My sister & I would get a smaller box of chocolates in a heart-shaped box. We loved the candy and we loved our dad. The tradition lives in my heart.

I'll leave you with a sweet video of our youngest grandson. It looks like he's trying to crawl but not that day! Haha!

And on that note, have a great Thursday! I'm off to my LQS for Rosemary's Tips & Techniques!

I Like Thurs #104, FNwF, and RSC Pink!

 Oh I love the color pink! So many shades and almost all are lovely to see. That would include the color magenta, Pantone's Color of the Year! So let's begin with a couple of likes from this past week. I have a few and there are plenty of others to admire if you follow Not Afraid of Color's link HERE.

The last day of January gave the pond's fountain
a lovely ice crown at the base

Groundhog's Day brought another beautiful, but chilly, sunrise

I loved how the rising sun cast
a gorgeous red glow on these tree limbs!

Horribly cold morning for a walk the next day.
The weather when we got back.
Check out that Feels Like! YIKES!

That brings me to Friday Night with Friends. My cyber sewing buddies and I stitch our 1st Fridays away and then share with all at Cheryll's Linky Party HERE. So I started preparing fabric for Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month while I was at it. I'll be sharing over at Angela's SoScrappy Linky Party HERE too.

Cut enough for four PINK pineapples

I'll also need pineapple backgrounds

I plan on making this free pattern of Twisting Heart Valentine by Connie Kresin. I happen to already have the right size Twister tool so I went ahead and cut the pink squares. I still need to check the stash for a suitable background fabric.

And, looking forward, I pulled these greens and have already traced the embroidery pattern on a background fabric.  I love Kathy Schmitz projects and this project will keep me busy while Mom is at P/T.

I hope Angela picks GREEN for next month!

Have a good weekend. We'll try to stay anchored at home  as we are looking at much wind today. Thankfully warmer temperatures are on the way even if only temporarily, but I think that groundhog may have had it right -- 6 more weeks of winter!

February Brings a Finish and PHD Report

Happy February 1st to all! The month where we celebrate Groundhog Day, St. Valentine's Day, President Lincoln's birthday, President Washington's birthday, and --- wait for it! --- MY birthday! Hahaha! This is usually a pretty good month for me.

Before February can officially begin, we must seal the deal on January and that means a PHD Report. 

It doesn't look all that good yet as I didn't finish any UFOs but if you look under STARTS you can see that I did have a finish! Also if you've followed me for a little bit, you know I'm getting close to finishing the top of Awesome Land and I only need to sew the back for the Rudolph pillow. But let's talk about the finish I did manage to achieve.

My friend Karla (who used to be my neighbor) invited me to her daughter's baby shower. I was thrilled to hear that Karla was going to be a first-time grandmother so happily accepted the invitation, especially since she told me to bring Mom along too. The shower was held at a local pizza shop and it was wonderful. We had salad, bread sticks, toasted ravioli, and mostaccioli. So delicious!

After looking over the gift registry, I knew I had the perfect fabrics to go with her nursery choices. I went to my Fat Quarter Baby Quilts book and decided on the James quilt. The directions were easy to follow and I had a quilt top in no time. Here's a link to where I last spoke of my quilting progress and now that's it's been gifted, I can show it to you. I regret to say that I was in such a hurry, I really didn't get any good pictures. It's been REALLY COLD around here lately too.

Freshly washed with all its crinkliness!

Looking sweet with a bit of red background

A peek at the backing which was also used on the front

Close-up of the blue orange peel quilting and a closer look at the fabrics
I love the blue gingham binding, as well

Couldn't resist a draping shot
We're holding this chaise for Karla for when she can move it

So that's my finish for January and I can start thinking about getting the Awesome Land top and Rudolph pillow finished!

Have a wonderful mid-week Wednesday!