Riptide is Finished!

About mid-July, I rented time on the longarm at my local quilt shop. I've had this top done for a looong time. I'd guess five years or more. The pattern is Riptide by GEDesigns (Gudrun Erla). It's a nice lap-sized quilt, approximately 49" x 60". I used a Kansas Troubles jellyroll and some background fabric and I picked up the backing fabric (another Kansas Troubles fabric) at my quilt store. I will try to update this post with the name of the pantograph I used to quilt it.

I used Tuscany Cotton batting and this quilt is very snuggly! I hope you liked the photo shoot!

I Like Thursday #123

If you like heat, you would like our temperatures lately. We are hot & humid here in the Midwest. We have been near or over 100 degrees and the Muggy Meter (that's what our weather folks call it) has been in the dangerous zone. Combining our temps & dew points, which are in the 70s, we have Feels Like temperatures of 110 to 112. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! But enough of that. This post is about things I've liked over the past 7 days.

Let's start with food. There's usually a like or two there and this week was no exception. One night we dined on teriyakied chicken wings. I LOVE WINGS & KABOBS so I stuck the wings on skewers and hubby grilled them up perfectly!! My kabobs have got to include bell peppers. Mushrooms are always good too but we didn't have any in the house that night. Served with it was Copycat KFC Macaroni Salad. My family loves this recipe and I may have shared it in the past!

No new recipe here. Just showing off our local corn on the cob, burger with a local, Amish yellow tomato, and hot & spicy garlic pickles also made locally. We like this food and we like supporting our local community. Win-win!

Last week I started reading Matt Haig's "How to Stop Time". He's the same author as "The Midnight Library" which I really liked. This book is similar in a strange, different-kind-of-life way. I'm liking the imagination of Matt Haig.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

Wildlife here has been good this week too. The birds have been enjoying the birdbath, splashing about and drinking. It's been hard to keep it filled with all the heat. I did catch this little golden finch grabbing a few seeds from the front garden flowers.

Out the back window (sorry about the picture being taken through the screen) I spied an unusual bird on top of the bird patio arch. After misidentifying it, my daughter corrected us. Meet this green heron. While we see great blue herons fairly often, I had to look up the green heron. I learned from www.birdzilla.com that the "green herons are the smallest of the four species and are identified by their dark greenish-blue back and wings, chestnut-colored neck, and distinctive crest on their head." I also learned from our IL bird book that green herons visit our area only during the summer.

I must also include a non-Like this week. Mom teetered when standing up and lost her balance. She hurt her shoulder on impact and also split her skin over her eye. Our local hospital ER declared no concussion but did feel she needed stitches and gave her four. Of course, after 48 hours she has a lovely black eye to go with her Frankenstein eyebrow!

Still smiling!

Mom keeps repeating how lucky she was that 1. it was her left shoulder (she's right-handed), and 2. she didn't break anything (she has osteoporosis). I like her attitude!

If you need your lawn mowed, I can send in help. Lol!

Brody to the Rescue!

Here's hoping you had a likeable week too!

Thank you to LeeAnna for once again giving us the opportunity to share our LIKES!

RSC = Red July

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The color chosen by Angela this month is Red Hot Red! Perfect color for the season for those of us in the northern hemisphere. We are actually enjoying a couple days of high 80s but the mid- to upper- 90s are in the forecast and will last for a week straight or more. Ugh! I'm happy to say that I have an upcoming sew day PLUS a sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat later this week so I should be able to escape the heat.

Last week I spent a couple of days sewing with some friends at their retreat. I sewed mostly from 10am - 4pm for my 2 days. I got quite a bit accomplished. Besides catching up with my friends (I hadn't seen most of them since February!) on one of the days I cut and sewed up  "Summer Blue", a Quilt Anthology pattern from Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilts. Although it's beautiful in blue, RSC color is red so that's what I used to make mine. I downloaded the pattern when it was a freebie, but you can go to her website HERE and get a digital download now.

Summer Blue Pattern - 11.5" x 13.5"

For a long time I've loved the red fabric that I used but could never find the right project. I also only had a fat quarter of it. I think it worked wonderfully in this tiny quilt which is based on an antique doll quilt. Isn't it sweet? I'll share it again once I get it quilted. I believe it will be my entry for the Table Mat Challenge.

On the other sew day, I worked on my scrappy Quadrille. This was a mystery pattern offered by Carole at her From My Carolina Home blog. She offered it in several sizes from wall hanging/baby size all the way up to king bed size. You can get the monthly directions for free on her blog until the end of the month. After that you'll pay a nominal price. So, here's my scrappy version, a baby quilt that I'll probably donate to Projecf Linus Quilts through my guild. It's mostly webbed; I just need to sew the rows and finish it off. I'm looking forward to quilting it.

And that is all from here. I'll continue working on my sewing machine furniture this weekend. In between I've got some yard brush to burn and I told Mom I'd take her to The Produce Patch right here in town. Mostly I'm hoping for a laid-back weekend after my busy past week.

I hope you have a good weekend planned ahead. I'll be linking up with the rest of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters HERE.

I Like Thursday #122

And here we are again with another Thursday to talk about things we've liked this week. There are quite a group of us that share on Thursdays. You might want to check some of them out on LeeAnna's blog (link at the end).

I'll start by telling you how much I liked our recent visitors. My niece and her fiance came out to the area from NC so the niece could introduce her fiance to some of her MO family that hadn't met him yet. We were honored that, even though we'd met him, they spent a couple nights with us. We decided to show them a bit of IL by going to Grafton, a fun little town. We did the SkyTour at Aerie's Resort. We could have gone up in a gondola but we chose the open chairs. It was such a beautiful day!

Chris & Jenn Loaded Up

Me, Mom, & Fred Going Up

Chris & Jenn with Quite the View!

Once at the top, we had some refreshments while sitting out on the huge open patio, enjoying the view of the river.

Chris opted to try out the Alpine Coaster. There's also a Zipline that one could do if they'd like.

Fred noticed some metal artwork on the way up. Of course, I liked the dragonfly!

After returning to ground zero, we went over to the Loading Dock. We had lunch right on the river and looked for barges to go by. There were so many when my daughter visited but there wasn't even one that day. We did enjoy talking with tourists on a river cruise from Dubuque IA to St. Louis MO who were taking in the sights that day of Alton & Grafton IL!

Chris & Jenn Down by the River

Looking Up the River

All too soon the visit was coming to an end. Time for a few family pictures.

Group Photo

Mom with Chris & Jenn

On their way back to Jennifer's other grandparents in MO, they stopped by the St. Louis Arch -- Gateway to the West.

Did you know that the Arch is 630 feet high AND 630 feet wide at the base? I learned this fun factoid on 6/30 (aka Gateway Arch Day in St. Louis)!

View from the Top
 With Busch Stadium on the Left

One more note about the visit: One of the evenings we played Parcheesi, of course. I'd like all to know that Fred won. Why is this memorable? Out of all the times we've played over Christmas visits and more, he has never won so this was A FIRST!!! I liked that a lot!

As for TV Likes this week: We enjoyed watching Wimbledon, the Men's Finals in particular. We've also been watching Suits on NetFlix since there's not much entertainment on summer TV. We're into Season 3 and getting kicks out of watching Megan Markle on the series. Of course we've been cheering our St. Louis Cardinals on and feel pretty good about winning our last 5 games. Nolen Arenado has really been putting on a show lately. Our season isn't looking good this year but at least we've hit a bright spot!

The only new recipe I tried this week was Cinnamon Sugar Donut Hole Muffins by The Kitchen is My Playground. Very tasty! Probably won't make again as they were fussy to brush with butter then roll in the cinnamon sugar mix. We all devoured them, of course!

One last Like for the week: I'm sewing with friends at Itch'n to be Stitch'n Quilt Store yesterday & today. Most of these friends hail from up north around the Springfield IL area. I haven't seen them since February when we last got together. I do enjoy sewing with this group. Probably even more so since I haven't touched my machine at home for the past few weeks due to the company and the sewing machine furniture construction which is still ongoing.

I hope you've had a good week and can look back on it with a smile. I'll be sharing with others at LeeAnna's blog Not Afraid of Color. Bet you find some interesting stuff there!

A Beautiful Red PHD Finish

Surprise! Surprise! I have beautiful finish and it happens to be right in line with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge which is red this month. It was also included on my PHD list so a win-win for me! This is "Hello, Autumn!" and the pattern is designed by Red Button Quilt Co.

I bought this as a kit when my friend Sharon & I went to Oblong IL to visit The Village Stitchery. What a beautiful store with so many beautiful fabrics, wools, samples, and kits.I knew I had to buy this one. Besides being so pretty, it had some of everything in it. There's wool applique in the middle, a bit of piecing in the border, a little embroidery at the top, and I ended up hand quilting it because it was small and didn't hurt my hand too much. It's only about 13" x 14".

I had the top done during the Fall last year but had never gotten around to finishing it up. It is now quilted, bound, and labeled.

I better get my red & neutral scraps together. There are pineapples to be made!

Linking up with Angela at SoScrappy and all the other RSC quilters.

I Like Thurs #121

 I've been AWOL lately because the calendar has been full of this and that. I've enjoyed reading a lot of your posts even if I haven't commented each time. Trust me, I'm still following a lot of you but time has not been on my side.

A lot of my time has been trying to assemble my new sewing furniture. I took the plunge at the end of June to purchase ON SALE a Kangaroo desk with Joey cabinet. With that came a (free?) Kiwi storage/cutting table/ironing station cabinet. Some of the pieces arrived damaged so I had to wait on replacement pieces but there was no problem. I do have the Joey cabinet assembled but I'm going to have to watch the videos on how to get the self-closing drawers to close. The desk is halfway assembled. It looks like quite the mess around here with boxes and parts strewn everywhere. It'll be nice once done and I know I'm going to really like it!

I finished reading "Demon Copperhead" last week. Let's just call it an interesting book. I will say I felt like the last 1/3 of the book dragged a bit but everything did wrap up nicely. I'm not saying I loved the book and I'm not saying I'd heartily recommend it but I'm not sorry I spent the time reading the 500+ pages either. I'll let you take it from there. Lol!

My current read is "Counterfeit" by Kirstin Chen. It's a lighter, summer novel and so far the character seems a bit self-absorbed. Not sure if I'm going to enjoy this one much but I'll get to the end and let you know.

Synopsis Here

No sewing has been done around here lately but I have been working on my cross stitch project. I like having this in my lap while I watch Wimbledon tennis!

Last week I enjoyed spending some time with my friend Sharon. She showed me how to use the AccuQuilt fabric cutter and what I was going to need for AccuQuilt Club at my LQS. You may recall I won a small version of the cutter and want to learn to use it. Between Sharon and the club, I've got some teachers!

As for cooking, I made a Chocolate Cherry Coca-Cola Cake by Kardea Brown. It was very good but we felt there was too much sweet frosting. I'm going to try it again using half the amount. Also on the cooking front was a Rib Sandwich with Sauerkraut by Valerie Bertinelli. We thought this sounded so weird it just had to be good -- And it was!!! Now I'll admit that my husband (not a kraut lover) said it was good with just a little bit of sauerkraut. That was fine with Mom & me because we got extra on our sandwich!

I'm sure LeeAnna, our fearless leader, had a prompt but I'll be doggone if I know what it is this week. I'm happy to be sharing some of my LIKES of late anyway. See some more likes being shared HERE.

 Have a great week!

End of June, End of Blue

It's time to wrap things up for June, the month of light & bright blue. For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I managed to get four pineapples done.

And because I was curious as to how they might look together with all the pineapples from this year, I laid them out on the floor. Pretty, huh? I also have 2 dark blue pineapples from January. I'll see if I need to add a couple more to balance things out at the end of the RSC year. These pineapples are quite large, approximately 8" x 14".

As for my PHD, I managed to complete this table mat (meaning it also qualifies for the 2023 Table Scraps Challenge). I started this last year and got the top pieced. This month I quilted and bound it. My inspiration was a quilt that I love from Temecula Quilt Company's book "Quirky Little Quilts" called Ruby Rooster. I changed up the ROOSTER for a RABBIT when I learned 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit on the Chinese calendar.

The background is actually showing more brown than the true gray. It finished up at approximately 15" x 20" and is just adorable. All the different blues fit the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The Table Scraps letters for June were D and/or I. This project started the month as Incomplete and, by month's end, was now officially Done! How's that for using the appropriate letters??!!

Here are a couple of close-ups of the quilting and also a backing/binding pic.

Of course I've got other projects in the works around here. My EPP block for the month is nearly finished as is the applique Uptown June block. I'm adding a few more hand-quilted stitches to a sweet little Fall wall hanging. There are only the borders to add to the Fat Quarter Shop's Haunted Halloween Mystery wall hanging. I've got a date with a longarm machine at my LQS later in July so that should be another UFO project crossed off the list.

So June is over, July has begun, and that's a wrap from me. I hope you have wonderful week and are able to celebrate the 247th birthday of our magnificent country which offers so much freedom.

Linking up with Angela @ SoScrappy, Gail @ QuiltingGail, and Joy @ TheJoyfulQuilter.