I Like Thursday #162

And here we are in the middle of November. Thanksgiving will be here before we know and we all know what follows really quickly next this year. Here's a picture of my "toilet-scape". I love decorating my bathroom. My Fall Guy is hanging out in there too! Lol!

We turned cold abruptly here in southern IL and the wind is gusty this morning. On Gracie's walk I saw that the neighbor's tree lost a big section. Maybe they're out of town because surely they would have seen the mess across their driveway.

The tree across the street did OK and was so pretty yesterday with the sunshine behind it. It is one of a few that still has its leaves attached.

I baked Cherry Pie Bars yesterday. The recipe is from one of my sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat buddies. Mom & I plan on enjoying a piece with our coffee this morning.

Recently I took a Zoom class through The Applique Society. It was with an Australian quilter named Katrina Hadjamichael. It was wonderful and I learned a couple of new "tricks" for my applique toolbox! Our project is called Daphne and I've prepared the middle for stitching down now. I went with a Christmas vibe. Katrina's sample is more spring-like but anything would work. I may do a Winter one next! We have part 2 of our class on December 1 to discusss how we will finish this up and for Katrina to answer any questions that we may have after this part 1.

I finished reading "The Measure". I really enjoyed it and think it would definitely make a great book club read. Lots to discuss.

In the meantime I read "Run on Red" by Noelle Ihli. This book was recommended to me by Mom's P/T receptionist. She knows I like thrillers. However, this was not the kind of thriller I enjoy! Lol! It was more of a "Scream" or "Friday the 13th" type of thriller. But I persevered and finished it up. If you're a Freddy Kreuger fan, then you might like to check this one out.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

So what am I reading right now? "Sister" by Rosamund Lupton. Somewhere I got the name of this book but I can't remember where. Anyway, it's pretty good so far and I think this will be more my idea of a thriller.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

Once again I am joining in with my I Like Thursday sisters on LeeAnna's blog. Please feel free to join us for some fun sharing. Have a great week!

My Fall Guy is Finished

My Fall Guy is a pattern I picked up while bouncing along on the All Illinois Shop Hop. I saw it finished at The Village Stitchery in Oblong IL. What a wonderful store. If you ever find yourself east of Effingham, it is well worth the trip to take a country jaunt to Oblong. This shop has everything -- modern fabrics, reproduction prints, Kim Diehl fabrics. Are you a fan of Laundry Basket fabrics? She has some. You say you'd like some flannel or wool? Make the trip!!

Anyway, I saw this scarecrow sample made and knew I wanted to make it. He could hang all Fall, not just during Halloween October. When I saw the pattern, I thought WOW! I'd never in a million years pick it up because the cover is not attractive at all, in my opinion.

The embroidery was completed during Mom's twice weekly October physical therapy visits and Friday hair appointments. I wish I had followed my gut and changed some of the called-for threads for darker ones since I worked it up on this plaid. Oh well! I still love him!

My Fall Guy
(Inside Picture)

Backing & Label
(I embroidered the label)

I love the border fabric. It's a Mary Koval fabric which I recently ordered from Quilted Twins. The binding I found laying around -- I think I got it from a retreat silent auction. It's a scratchy homespun(?) but the color was exactly what I wanted. The backing is a remnant I bought at a dear guild member's yard sale after she passed. So many memories in this one!

He finished up at 31" x 8-1/2" --  he's a tall fella! I took him outside to see if I could get a better picture. What a handsome guy!

Now that this one's finished, I'm working on finishing up Homestead, the SAL with Lori at Humble Quilts.

I'll take a moment now to thank all the veteran's from every branch of service. Your dedication to the freedoms of our country is something every American can and should be proud of. Thank you for your service.

Today I'll also be paying a visit to my dentist. I believe this is the final visit for my dental implant. I lost the tooth last December and I have surely missed it. Lol!

FNwF and Another Look at a Finish

Last night was Friday Night with Friends and we come from all over the world. I love these get-togethers because, while we all do the same, styles are different in different locales.

What did I work on last night? Cross-stitching! My progress has been slow because it so tiny and my eyes are usually too tired to make any progress. However last night I wanted to watch some television with the family and I didn't have anything else put together to work on.

Here's where I started.

After a few hours of TV shows, I made it this far (be sure to look at the right-hand side of the project).

Sheesh! Doesn't look like much does it? Lol!

Just in case you missed my post from yesterday, I want to share with you my Strips & Nachos quilt. I finished it and washed it up on Thursday.

If you'd like to read more about this beauty, you can go HERE.

I'm sharing on Cheryl's FNwF blog HERE and with Angela's SoScrappy blog HERE. Have a great weekend!

Strips & Nachos Finish

I have a finish! That's right, I finished the Strips & Nachos quilt. Here it is ...

I finished sewing the binding on October 30 and threw it in the wash October 31 so I'm calling it an October finish. That was my goal and I made it by the skin of my teeth!

The pattern, Strips & Salsa (yes, I've called Strips & Nachos all this time -- DOH!) is by Gudrun Erla of GEDesigns. I knew right away that I wanted to make this quilt first: because I love her patterns -- they look difficult but she manages to make it easy; and second: my LQS had given her Quilt Club members surprise bags of coordinating 8 FQs and this pattern called for 7 FQs plus fabric for background & binding. Perfect! I was set with fabric. I needed almost 3 yards for background. Remember when I couldn't find the fabric for Red Threads quilt so I bought an extra 3 yards of something that might work? And then I found the missing fabric? I used the original fabric in Red Threads and used up the extra yardage in this quilt. Score!

Here are some close up pictures of my Strips & Nachos quilt.

Pieced Back

View of Front & Back Together

Some of the Quilting

Low Light to See Quilting Better?

The quilt finished at 72" x 56" before washing. It now measures 69" x 54". It's snuggly, colorful, and I love it. I think it worked up into a nice lap quilt.

A couple last beauty shots of Strips & Nachos.

Have a great Friday!

I Like Thurs #161

Happy Halloween! I like to see kids dressed up in costumes. I like the return of Fall. I like the changing colors of the leaves. I like tidying up the garden & yard for Winter. I like pumpkins and apples. I like Autumn!

Fred Carved Our Pumpkin

Jacob Picked Out a Pumpkin at the Farm 

Yes, we almost always have a carved out Jack o'Lantern or two at our house. The kids are carrying out the tradition with the Grands.

In the kitchen this week, I made Beef Barley with Vegetables Soup in the Instant Pot. Delicious except then the weather went all hot around here. Last night we got a cold front pass through so we'll have the leftover soup tomorrow night.

Sightings on our morning walks this week include beautiful sunrises. A little girl was getting dropped off at daycare and pointed to the sky, sharing the sight with her Daddy. Gracie & I appreciated the view up there too!

Pink Contrails!

The trees are looking lovely this time of year.

We even caught a rainbow earlier in the week. Very faint but you can see it!

I'm very happy about my orchid blooming again! Seems like it was quite awhile in between this time but I've got a lot of buds waiting to open too. It's going to be so pretty!

Wishing you all a great week. I hope you liked what I liked this past week! If you want more, go visit LeeAnna's blog HERE!

A Few More Pineapples

 A few more pineapples were added to the mix this week. I call these caramel brown pineapples,

I have two deep purple pineapples cut out. They'll get sewn up this week. I only need four more pineapples and then I'll have my 60 ready to lay out and sash. I'm thinking maybe a dark brown -- as in chocolate colored? Maybe I'll have this one put together soon (?)! Lol!

Here they are individually in case you wanted a closer look.

Today is day 2 of retreat. I forgot my phone yesterday so I can't show you what I worked on yesterday. I'll be sure to get pictures today. It's a Judy Niemeyer table runner that was started at a guild class so very long ago. I'm anxious to finish it -- I think it's beautiful!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Don't let the spooky Spidermans, princesses, or goblins play tricks on you Thursday. Go ahead and pass out those treats! Hahaha!

I'll leave you with a sweet picture of Brody. He went to the pumpkin farm on his kindergarten field trip this week.

Sharing with the other Rainbow Scrap quilters at SoScrappy.

I Like Thurs #160

Welcome to my corner of the world where I can usually find things that please me. I hope you like what I'm sharing with you today. Our weather has been wonderful lately -- cool/warm sunny days with cool/chilly nights. Great for walking the dog and great for taking care of garden clean-ups and firepit burns. We enjoyed the beautiful Harvest Moon this past week too.

The other day I spied Hootie! He was being chased by a couple of crows(?) which is what caught my eye. He even gave me time to set up my phone and let Gracie off the leash.

And aren't the leaves beautiful around him?

Speaking of walking, I happened to check my walking mileage on my phone app. 

Whoa! That's a lot of miles!

So that got me wondering how far exactly had I walked. Turns out I've walked quite a bit further than from New York City to San Francisco. So I played around and I'm over by 10 miles going from my house to New York City and then all the way to San Francisco from there. Guess I'm on my way back home from California! Lol!

Oh the things that entertain us, huh? Lol!

I finished up "All the Colors of the Dark" and now I've started "The Measure" by Nikki Erlick. It's the story of everyone in the world 22 and older getting a mysterious box dropped off where they live. Inside is a string which represents how long of a life they will live. Some get long strings (good) and some have short strings (panic!). Some of the people want to know their string length so open the box. Others do not. It tracks several different people and their reactions and their friends' reactions to this occurence. I'm only about 60 pages in but it's quite an interesting concept.

GoodReads Description HERE

I've been enjoying Survivor (so glad they gave Rome the boot last night! Haha!) and the World Series on TV. The family has been enjoying Tracker, Matlock, NCIS, Elsbeth, and also the game show Switch. Any new shows or series that have attracted your family?

Our prompt this week was do we enjoy going in haunted houses or watching scary movies? I've not visited any haunted houses but I don't think I'd enjoy it. They don't seem very real to me. Scary movies? Not so much on that either. Guess I'm more of a realist and they're mostly just weird to me. My mother would say I like scary books but only because I read Steven King. My favorites of his were "Pet Sematary" and "Misery" and "Christine". Guess those describe "scary" to me.

We'll be carving our pumpkins early next week and filling our pumpkin bowl with candy for the trick-or-treaters. I did make some delicious pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting this week.

I hope you found something to entertain you here. You can find more likeable blogs through our hostess LeeAnna. Check out her blog HERE.

RSC Deep Purple & Caramels

This week I counted up my pineapple blocks and, yes, I'm a little short of the 60 that I need. Of course, right now I can't remember how many short but last night I went ahead and started cutting fabrics for more. I made up the start of 5 more blocks. There will be two deep purple (almost brown) ones and three caramel-colored ones. (Yum! Caramels!)

Here's the work in progress. I'll get out my Sew Wonderful Curve ruler and start cutting this weekend and hopefully get a few more pineapples under my belt.

Have a great weekend, everybody! I'll be looking in on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge friends to see how they're coming along with finishing up 2024 projects. You can take a peek HERE also!

I Like Thur #159

Happy Thursday, friends! I hope you've managed to find some happiness this past week. All you have to do is look around and I bet you find something to like. I'll share what I've sound this past week with you.

I've been reading Chris Whitaker's "All the Colors of the Dark" and have been enjoying it. It's beautifully written and reminds me of the style in "Where the Crawdads Sing". Of course the subject is entirely different but both are use colorful language.

The storyline in this book is interesting but I do find that it drags a bit at times. Maybe the prose is just a little too rich for me? I'm definitely curious to see how this one is going to end so I'll keep reading.

On the culinary front, I saved this recipe from a 2022 calendar and finally got around to making it. Truly a comfort dish!

I also saw a container of blueberries that seemed to be hanging out a little too long in the fridge so I made a lemon blueberry cake. So yummy and Mom really loved it!

You can find Carole's recipe on her From My Carolina Home blog right HERE. It's easy and delicious!

What has kept me very happy lately? I've been quilting up a top most recenly. I love free-motion quilting!! Here's a peek ....

Have you noticed lately how dark it stays in the morning? Gracie and I have been leaving a little later on our walks because it's just so dang dark still at 6:45. The other morning as the sun was starting to light up the sky, I noticed this beautiful X in the sky. I hope it brightens your day too!

Have a great Thursday, everyone! You can find more "interesting" things at LeeAnna's Not Afraid Of Color blog where we all share things to like.

Light Browns

Lori from Humble Quilts started a SAL a couple of weeks ago called Homestead which she is basing on an antique quilt. Of course I was late for the party because of all my recent company followed by a trip to NC for my niece's wedding. Luckily, she shared what fabrics/colors we might want to use before we left so I had a fabric pull ready to go when I got home.

Check out those RSC lights & browns!

When I got home, I checked out the first clue in the SAL and changed my mind on a few of my original fabrics. First up was pairs of 9-patches with a red center.

I quickly moved on to the second & third clues. I got the top assembled last night. It could use another good press.

I love it!!! I'm patiently awaiting the finishing and quilting suggestions she promised to share soon. I would have never put that green with the pink with the light brown, wavy print but I think it works.

Here's another picture of the top with the diamonds going the other way. What do you think?

I think it looks different turned even though it's the exact same top. Funny about perceptions, huh?

If you would like to read more about this SAL or join in, here's the link to get you started.

I hope you have a great weekend. I'll be working on something else until I get the last clue to Homestead!

Linking with Angela at SoScrappy.

I Like Thursday #158

Happy Thursday once again and I've got a few "Likes" to share with you this week. I finished "The Little Liar" by Mitch Albom. What a fantastic book and I definitely recommend it if you can stomach the basis of the book. It held my interest all the way to the end.

Last Thursday, Mom & I headed to the library to return books finished while on vacation and to pick up new ones. I had placed a hold on "All the Colors of the Dark" by Chris Whitaker. It was recommended by my friend Vickie. I can say that it started off running! I'm only about 100 pages in with 500 to go but it's good so far.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

While we had visitors and then were on vacation, Survivor kicked off a new season. I'm finally caught up and I'm so happy that I had something to watch on TV. This week starts all the other shows, I believe.

This has been a busy, quilty week for me. On Monday was Quilt Club at my LQS and for once I won an attendance prize. Since I was the first name drawn I got first picks of 4 sweet sewing kits. I chose the pretty green & yellow lemon patterned one with the green gingham interior.

The scissors & pins were included!

Tuesday evening was my guild meeting. We had a LQS visit to give us a Christmas preview. It was so much fun and loaded with ideas and things to purchase. I was particularly happy to see that they had the Stripology Quickies book by Gundrun Erla (aka GEDesigns). I already had the book but they showed a couple of quilts that they had made up (and probably kitted) from the book.

Today is Rosemary's Tips & Techniques which is always a good group meeting. I'll report on that next week if anything interesting comes up from that.

Yesterday we picked out tub, shower, fixtures, and more for a master bathroom renovation. That was fun! I'm not really looking forward to the process but I am looking forward to the result.

LeeAnna asked us if we'd ever been on a hayride and did we like it. I have to say I've not been on a hayride and I don't think I'd like it. I understand that hay is very pokey and I wouldn't like that. Lol!

I hope you have a good week. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses along the way!

Linking up with other I Like Thurs bloggers HERE. Go ahead and check out their blogs too!