July RSC Pineapples are Done!

Here it is the last day of August and I finally got the July RSC pineapples completed. Ta! Da!

Sorry about the crappy photo

I also got the last (I think) Red Threads embroidery block done. It's definitely a weird one!

Not Sure What This One is All About

Yesterday I spent and today I will be spending time with friends at the monthly sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat. Yesterday I almost finished six of the paper-pieced sashing strips. They look like this when completed.

Scrappy Kansas Troubles (mostly)

These will make 22 strips completed with only 50 to go! OMG! What was I thinking!!??!! Lol!

I do have the orange fabrics with me at retreat and the necessary tools, I hope. After completing the started strips, I will take a break from those and make the orange pineapples. Then on to the next set of six sashing strips.

I hope you are having a fun weekend too and getting ready to start the next RSC color which I believe is going to be purple. Check out these posts at SoScrappy to see what progress others made with the last of their orange RSC scraps.

Trying to Catch Up

Terribly behind but hope to be caught up with my Pineapple blocks soon. Made a little progress last night. Here are the bottoms of my teal/turquoise pineapples.

I have the tops cut and ready to go so let's see what I can get done.

Wishing you a great weekend!

I Like Thursday #153

Late again to the I Like Thursday party. Oh well, I do have a few things to share. Hopefully you had a great week and have already checked out the "Like" posts on the Not Afraid of Color blog.

Remember my neighbor's sunflowers? She was waiting for them to bloom. Now they have exploded! This picture was taken a couple of days ago. I'm sure there are more sunflowers in her garden by now. I also love the colorful zinnias standing tall in the front row.

My little tiered garden planter is coming along. By the way, many of you commented on it. It was an Aldi Find several years ago so I don't know where you can find another except maybe Amazon? Anyway, I've got marigolds, allysum,  and zinnias blooming happily. On the bottom row you will also see a "volunteer" moss rose from last year. It's happy too!

View From the Top

Desert Rose Hanging from Bottom Left

While driving to one of my quilt clubs, I spied this painting on the building. It's new and looks wonderful. We are getting our kicks on Route 66!

Taken Out My Window While Waiting on Red Light

Speaking of Route 66, I finished this 1000-piece puzzle.

LeeAnna's prompt this week was favorite meal/mealtime. I guess I'm more of a lunch person but only because I get up so early, breakfast is almost always a bowl of cereal. Currently I'm enjoying Honey Grahams! Lol! Dinner is so late in the day and, since I made it while tired from the day's activities, I'm not overly enthusiastic about dinner. But lunch is right up my alley. The other day I pulled out the fresh hatch chili Mom & I had picked up at the grocery store. We didn't know quite what to do with it, just knew they were supposed to be delicious. They were marked "Mild" so we figured jalapeno-mild since that's what I'd read online. So I treated it like a jalapeno-poblano.

First I blistered it on the stove and peeled off the outer layer. Then I stuffed each half with cream cheese, sprinkled chipotle chile powder on top, topped that with cojack cheese, and popped them in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes. Then I switched on the broiler and browned them up. Here's a picture of mine! So tasty! Only thing missing was a margarita -- too early. No margarita for lunch! Haha!

I did finish "The Dutch House" and really enjoyed that book. It was a fun and interesting read, not too deep, and had a good (but strange) cast of characters. Now I'm reading a book that my daughter recommended. It's "Endurance: Shackleford's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing. It's about Shackleford and 27 others trying to make the first way across Antarctica to the South Pole back in the 1910s. The hardships they'e endured and the uneasiness of not being in control of their situation as the ice has got them stuck and frozen still. No way the boats can sail through as everthing is frozen rock-solid. The 24-hour darkness followed by the 24-hour daylight periods has not helped their situation. I'm about halfway through and I'll finish. It IS interesting but it's not a book that I would say I'm "enjoying". There are some very rough spots that they've endured but the passages from the explorers' diaries are very interesting and give you a sense of what they're going through.

GoodReads Synopsis Found HERE

We've had a taste of Fall here lately with highs only in the mid-70s and lows down into the low- to mid-50s. Summer will be returning before the weekend is over with 90s for the highs again. It was good while it lasted, right? In the meantime I started feeling like making soup (obviously due to the weather) and made this Creamy Sausage Tortellini Soup. Whole Lotta Yum gives you three ways to make it -- Crock Pot, Instant Pot, or Stovetop. Isn't that great??? I went Instant Pot and subbed out the kale for spinach, used whold milk instead of heavy cream, and only used 4 cups of chicken broth. We loved it!

I hope you have a great weekend and can find enjoyable things to appreciate near you.

I Like Thursday #152

It's time for another round of "likes" for the week. We like to share that HERE on LeeAnna's blog. There's always interesting stuff there to learn/share/see.

Let's start in the garden, mine and others. My neighbor's coreopsis is blooming nicely around her mailbox.

On my back deck, the multi-tiered planter is finally blooming. We were gone this past Spring for a NC Bridal Shower so my seeds didn't get planted  until mid-June. That explains the tardiness.

Top: Marigolds
Middle: Zinniuas
Bottom: Allyssum

Ameren is our gas provider. I didn't realize they sweep through the neighborhoods checking for gas leaks. They found a small one in our yard. Here they are digging up the pipe. They were so kind as to be as careful as possible of my garden and then placed the bricks back in order and seeded the grass.

He actually dug a hole up to his waist!

My quilt guild had an amazing program this past Tuesday evening. Our presenter was Candyce Grisham and she showed us many wonderful ways to make Dresden blocks. You can visit her website HERE.

Amazon Link

She shared so many beautiful quilts. I wish I'd taken more pictures but I didn't remember until towards the end. Doh!

Geesh! I just realized I never posted this. Here you go -- I'm having a great Thursday!

Not Much Orange ... Yet

The past week was a blur. Monday morning I had Quilt Club at my LQS and then hurried home to get Mom to P/T at 1pm. Somehow I managed to get 3.5 loads of laundry fully washed, dried, folded, and put away with the last load in the dryer as I went to bed. Tuesday I cleaned up all the floors in the house and finished up that last load of laundry. I also worked on getting prepared for Wednesday's expedition. My friend picked me up and away we went at 8am to knock out a few (six!) quilt shops on the All-Illinois Shop Hop. I was dropped off home at just past 5:30pm and I whipped up BLTs for dinner. Man, was I tired but in a VERY GOOD way. Thursday was up & at 'em for Tips at another LQS (aren't I lucky?). After rushing home to get Mom to P/T again at 1:00 and then home again for my sister's phone call at 3:00, it was on to Dairy Queen for dinner. What???? you ask? 20% of all proceeds that evening were being donated to the Troy Senior Center. We love our Senior Center so much that we decided that DQ Dinner was a win-win. Every Friday Mom & I leave at 11:30 for her standing hair appointment at noon, followed by a little grocery shopping. We usually get back home around 3:30.

That brings us to Saturday when I was signed up for a Zoom class through The Applique Society. Class was scheduled from 10am - 4:30pm and was all about broderie perse. Dena Rosenberg, our instructor, was wonderful! The class was informative, inspiring, and so much fun! She had given a lecture to our group earlier this year and I was so impressed with her knowledge and skill that I was excited for this class.

It doesn't look like much, but this was my progress on Saturday.

My Layout

A Close-up of my Appliqued
First Flower

As for my Red Threads project, I didn't get last week's block (the elk) finished. Rats!

Looking Good So Far

We got the very last embroidery block on Friday. After 50 months, it's a relief to be done getting them. Now to finish up the elk and get that last one done. Of course there's still all the paper-piecing of the flying geese sashings that run the length of the quilt -- 88" according to the pattern!!!

So that's been my week. Busy, busy. I'm looking forward to the upcoming calm week.

If you want to see orange blocks and orange creations, head on over to Angela's SoScrappy blog. There's lots there being shared.

I Like Thursday #151

What a crazy month so far around here. We went to near 99 degrees yesterday and today felt almost chilly with a high in the mid-70s. The All Illinois Shop Hop began this month and my friend & I hit the road yesterday morning at 8am. The weather was perfect without any rain or heat. We stopped at six new-to-me shops and I was dropped off home at 5:30pm. I have to admit that by the 6th store I was having trouble digesting all I was seeing and didn't even buy a thing. I was so looking forward to my bed! Since this is my I Like Thursday post, I can honestly say that I like my friend, I like to shop hop, and I like to get out and see new places. Triple LIKE!

I am very nearly finished with "The Dutch House". I can't imagine how it will end but I am enjoying this book very much.

GoodReads Synopsis HERE

This past week I made Cabbage and Sausage Foil Packets. I nabbed the recipe from Spend with Pennies. Fred doesn't like cooked cabbage so I substituted carrot chunks in his. Since Mom & I like cabbage and carrots, we ended up getting both in our packets. It was an easy recipe and it turned out SO GOOD. Fred liked the easy kitchen clean-up! Here's a picture of his packet.

Recipe HERE

I've been watching one of my neighbor's sunflowers grow and grow and grow. Each day I check for a bloom. This week I was rewarded. Look how tall!!!

The other day I did a happy dance when I put the final piece of the puzzle in place. This 1500-piece puzzle was a good one.

Earlier when all that was left was 123 solid blue pieces left

Ta da!

I'll leave you with a photo of a silly little yellow finch. Do you see him? Sitting on top of the car? I think he found something to eat or was drinking some of the raindrops/dew.

I hope you have a wonderful Thursday. Don't forget to stop & smell the flowers. Just not that sunflower -- unless you're 12 feet high! Haha

Linking with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color.

Friday Night with Friends

I can't believe how far behind I've gotten myself. Yes, I know, there's no pressure but I like to give myself deadlines. Turquoise/teal July has finished and all I've got is fabrics selected for the pineapples and now I need to browse my purple orange stash for August's pineapples.

On the other hand, I've kept my hands busy with embroidery work on the Red Threads blocks. Here are the ones I completed last month. I can't remember if I've shared any of these already or not.

What did I work on last night? Last week's Red Threads block. I also downloaded this week's and it's the one I've been waiting for -- an elk! But anyway, here's the one I finished last night.

The only machine sewing I've been working on is the paper-pieced sashing strips. Lots to make, for sure. The horizontal sashing strips are in 2 pieces which I have yet to sew together. I am using scrappy predominantly Kansas Troubles fabrics with a few Kim Diehl thrown in.

I've got a few more to do before these are finished. The vertical strips are one long, long string of flying geese. The paper pieces are in sets of 8. I've got a bunch of the papers prepped and ready to sew!

Let's get this weekend started! Hope yours is a good one too!

Linking up with Angela @ SoScrappy and also with Cheryll @ GoneStitchin'. Go ahead and check out what my friends are doing too.