Closing Up Purple

Here it is the last weekend of July and August is lurking around the corner. The weather has reminded us that it is still, in fact, summer. Wouldn't you know our A/C went on the fritz! We noticed that it was getting warmer in the house and our upstairs at night was getting really awful for sleeping. It just so happened that Fred went downstairs to check and lo! and behold! there was an Error Code 69! What did the code mean? I sure as heck didn't know but I did know what Error meant! I called first thing on Monday morning (7 am) and had it checked out around noon. Ugh! Computer board was the likely culprit as the compressor looked to be running OK. Hallelujah! We were still under warranty because our HVAC was barely three years old. Part was ordered and installed on Wednesday! Cool air has been blowing through the vents again and happiness has been restored in this house once again. You know, you don't realize how much you love your air-conditioning until it's gone and Mother Nature has thrown near 100 degrees at you with extremely high humidity (due to what is called corn sweat here in the Midwest) with Feels Like temps approaching 115. So all is right again here in Troy IL.

On Vickie's last couple of days with me, we decided to do a project together. I had seen on the Bernina blog We All Sew a tutorial on making a coiled rope cat basket. We both have kitties and Vickie had wanted to make a rope basket and these directions looked easy enough so let's do it! We followed the directions explicitly --except we didn't have the exact size needles required and I don't have a fancy machine with dual feed but I do have a walking foot and Vickie couldn't use her knee-lift for some odd reason with her computerized sewing machine right then. Yup! Directions followed perfectly! Haha!

Inner Coil Started

Let's Start Adding Color!

And Done!

Vickie's Completed Basket

We had so much fun making these baskets. When I struggled a little, Vickie helped me out. When she had trouble, I was there for her. Besties for sure and we had a great time making the baskets. Best part of all, our cats seem to like them, especially Vickie's Jasper who curled right up in it when she got home and put it out for him.

Jasper is a 17# cat

Vickie used fabric she had purchased at a thrift shop while on vacation in Nebraska before stopping through here. Isn't it beautiful??? Knowing her Jasper is on the larger size, she didn't stop at the 14" mark for the bottom but continued on to 16". She also added handles on hers because she's smart! Lol!

Polly is barely a 9# kitty

I used purple scraps for Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Polly's basket. She's a smaller-sized kitty so I stopped at 12" for the bottom measurement of my basket. If you're interested in this project, you can find the tutorial HERE. If you have a kitty, you really need to make one.

We were sad to see Vickie leave Tuesday morning
She was headed to start the All KY/TN Shop Hop

Now, what did I do after Vickie left and the A/C got fixed? I sewed RSC, of course! First up was to do the second purple block of Gem Tones.

16" Finished

As I was sewing the rows together, I glanced at the picture in the American Patchwork & Quilting mag and discovered my flying geese were pointed in and were supposed to be pointing out. Oops! At that stage I wasn't about to rip it out. Here's a picture of both purple blocks (see the difference? Well, poop!) up on the design wall along with a couple of other Gem Tones friends.

I also tackled the first July step of the Mystery QAL at Itch'n to be Stitch'n, my local quilt shop. Looks to be possibly the center block?

It's a huge 16" Finished Block!

In between these big blocks, I started Bonnie Hunter's 2025 Leaders & Enders project. I'm basing my colors on lovely hydrangea bushes. I finished two blocks and a third has been started. Bonnie is calling this challenge Four Patch Fun.

I think that's enough from around here so I will close with a couple more basket pictures since we had so much fun making them.

Silly Goose!

Silly Crane on Top of Neighbor's House!

I hope you had a great week and are planning a good weekend. I, for one, am looking forward to the end of this week when we are supposed to finally cool off a bit. Until then, you'll find me enjoying my sweet air-conditioner!

Thank you, Angela, for keeping us all together on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

Purple Sewing Began This Week

Last night was the 3rd Friday of the month and that meant it was Friday Night Sew-In. I thought it was high time I started on another cross-stitch project. This pattern has been hanging around the house for years, sometimes lost and sometimes right under my nose. Time to get a move-on!

Old Pattern, New Project

My Grand Start!

Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color this month is PURPLE! I'd bet there's not a lot of people out there that do not like purple. It's a wonderful color and sure brightens up the hot, humid weather we've been dealing with lately. If it's not scorching here in Southern Illinois, then it's raining. It is what it is because it's mid-July.

Because I'd already cut out the pieces for Gem Tones, I thought that might be a great place to start this week. Over a couple of days I managed to complete one of two blocks!

Purple Gem Tones #1

Polly Approved!

In between sewing the 16" finished block, I used The Quilting Life BOM for my leader & ender. This month was a churn dash block in RSC Purple.

There was a PT appointment and hairdresser appointment this week and so I put a little time on my TAS (The Applique Society) UFO project. Here's a peek.

My best friend arrived last Tuesday and will be departing Tuesday this week. It's been nice having a fellow-quilter in the house. She has just started a Dear Jane project and her fabrics are beautiful as is her applique. I believe she said she has 14 of the 169 center blocks done. She's got a ways to go! I'll try to take a couple pictures for next week's update.

Keep stitching wherever you are! Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Wendy at Sugarlane Designs and Angela at SoScrappy.

Not Much Purple But I Have a Finish!

Hip! Hip! Hooray! I have a finish! Miss Jane's Best is done.

I took it outside for some beauty shots.

So pretty!

A glimpse of the back.
I love the fabric from my stash!
OOPS! Not signed!

Quickly corrected!

The little embroidery blocks measure 2-1/2" finished. They're tiny! I worked on these during Mom's PT, podiatrist, and hair appointments. I could have had this finished if Mom wasn't in such good physical shape! Lol! She doesn't have many doctor appointments. She's a wonder Woman! 92 years young and still going strong! Hahaha!

I took some close-ups of the embroidery. It really was fun to stitch.

Purple flowers!

More purple flowers

And more purple flowers!

A couple more snuck in here too!

The kit was all inclusive to make the top & binding. The cornerstones were supposed to be white like the embroidery blocks but, not realizing that, I accidentally chucked the scraps after cutting out my flower blocks. I'm so glad I did because I found that sweet 30's print in my stash and I thnk it worked better than perfectly! (Can that even be? Lol!)

As for true RSC purple month, I collected these fabrics for the GemTones this month. 

Lights, Mediums, & Darks for Two Blocks

I am a bit behind on these. I never did the Green RSC or the Orange RSC blocks!!! Thursday morning I cut out two sets of green before anyone else was up. Have to do things when the opportunity presents!

So that's it from around here. Hope you're having a great weekend. We're still unbelievably hot & humid in these neck of the woods. Ugh!

I think I'll try to catch up at Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge post HERE. You should join me!

June Orange Coming to a Close

Time to start winding down RSC Orange for 2025. I did manage to get caught up on my LQS Mystery Quilt. Here's a peek at my Project Box. Oops! No orange ...

I finished the last two hexies for the Fishy Hexi project. Here's my layout. I think I've figured out how to fill it in. What a momentary nightmare trying to work with the fabrics I'd already bought and not having to buy more. Lol!

I'm also caught up on the A Quilting Life's BOM. I'm choosing to make the table runner size rather than the bed quilt size. Shocked, aren't you? Here is the final addition, RSC May's green block.

And here are all six blocks together.

Aunt Jane's Best moved forward this week also. The last of the blocks was embroidered and the fill-ins sewn up. I used my Caterpillar Glow lightbox to cut out the 3" embroidered blocks. I love this lightbox! Lightweight & portable plus one can rotary cut right on top with the mat!

Here's my scrappy layout.

Did you know I finished "Winter Garden" by Kristin Hannah? What a fabulously written book. I love her style, love her verbiage, love her stories. This one had some difficult passages to read as I had been warned by friends. I don't usually cry while reading books, but let's just say that a few tears were shed while reading this one.

My current read is definitely a lot lighter, "A Map to Paradise" by Susan Meissner.

GoodReads synopsis HERE

I also checked out from my library "Today Loves Food". It contains favorite recipes contributed by the staff and guests from The Today Show. The family recently enjoyed Siri Daly's Pull-Apart Monte Cristo Sliders and Jet Gila's Beef & Broccoli Lo Mein. Both of these recipes were easy and delicious. If you can get your hands on this cookbook, I'd recomment it.

Mom had a cookbook that I retrieved from her house called "Great Food Fast". Catchy title, huh? This week brought Indian-Spiced Chicken Burgers. They were served in pita pockets and the cucumber slices with the cumin yogurt sauce put them over the top! Yum! Yum! Enjoyed by all.

On my own, since I had pita pockets left over, I made a shrimp salad which were stuffed in the pitas along with some lettuce & Arkansas tomatoes. OMG! Another delicious dinner at the Hoover House!

I enjoyed the Shrimp Salad Stuffed Pitas
with Radish Slices and Chips

And that concludes my post for the week. How was your week?

Today I'm sewing with friends. I'll be working on the hexies and also taking an applique UFO (UnFinished Object). I would love to get this one finished up!

Please feel free to peek in on the other Rainbow Scrap Challenge participants. This is the last Saturday of June so there should be a lot of eye-candy being shared! Thanks to Angela for rounding us up each week at SuperScrappy.

FNSI & More Orange for RSC

Last night was the 3rd Friday of the month and I remembered to sign up for Friday Night Sew-In. I made it a point to incorporate a bit of orange for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2025-style. Wow! My brain worked on two fronts! Lol!

This hexie was finished up

This one was started.
Update: Finished this afternoon

We are sweltering here in the Midwest. This morning Gracie & I walked out the door around 7am and just about melted. Tomorrow and the next couple of days promise to be even worse breathing weather. Summer officially arrived yesterday and I can safely say it has arrived this weekend with a vengeance.

I hope you find a place to hide from the heat if you are experiencing my weather too. Reading what others are sewing is a GREAT way to pass the time ... in air conditioning, of course!

Friday Night With Friends HERE. Thank you, Wendy, for the reminder!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge HERE. Thanks go to Angela who even gathered us together while away on vacation!

Orange You Glad ....

... I finally got to sew with orange? Here's my version of the Block-of-the-Month that I am following along with Sherri of The Quilting Life blog. We're making 6" blocks and there's a choice of finishing. You can either only make 6" blocks which will finish as a table runner OR enlarge the block log-cabin style into a 12" block which will make a quilt. Here's this month's block:

Most of my time this week was spent SILL CATCHING UP with the mystery quilt offered by my LQS. Have you tried Tiger Tape? My friend gave me a roll to try and it sure is handy for HSTs and stitch-n-flip corners.

And, of course, the cross stitch project continues to get some attention.

I'm happy to see the farmers in our area have finally had a bit of a reprieve from all the Spring rains. Fields have been planted. I hope we have some corn by Labor Day this year! Ha!

My guild's quilt show was last weekend. Thought I'd show you my Awesome Land quilt hanging. I think it's an awesome RSC quilt!

I'll be sharing this post with all my friends, including the gang at SoScrappy. Here's wishing you a peaceful weekend.

This Week's Progress & FNwF

Sadly I really didn't make much progress this week for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I did pull my RSC 2025 Tracking Sheet out and discovered that I need to make the May Green Gemstone blocks and now also the June Orange Gemstone blocks. That means there needs to be some green/orange sewing happening soon! I'll sort my colors and start cutting for those.

According to my sheet, I'm behind on A Quilty Life's SAL too. Those are small-ish 6" blocks so I should be able to pull that off easily as well. I didn't realize how far behind I'd gotten until I looked at my sheet. Thank you, Angela, for keeping us organized. You can find the RSC 2025 Tracking Sheet and all the colors so far this year right HERE.

As if that weren't enough, I discovered that I was also behind on the MQAL which my LQS is offering. I was happily making stars and apparently had only cut out point segments for half. Here is my stack of points for the other 20.

That's 80 Background Rectangles &
160 Scrappy Yellow Squares

I'm just about finished with the embroidery of Aunt Jane's Best. Only part of one leaf left to go. With the end in sight, I decided to starch up the cotton pieces in the kit so I can maybe -- just maybe -- finish this up this month?

The Bottom Right Floral was Finished
During Mom's Friday Hair Appt.
The Orange Flowes & Centers for RSC Win!

Bottom Left Needs That Last Leaf Done

 
Progress was also made on the Georgian Floral cross-stitch project. It's been with me during all the Roland Garros Tennis Tournament TV-watching. As you can see, I made a good dent in it this week! So happy that Coco Gauff won the Women's Singles Final this morning. ❤️

Photo From Last Week

Look How Far I Got!

I've continued to read when I can, especially before bed. My recent finish was "The Waiting" by Michael Connelly. He's a great author and this book was very good too. I recently put my name on the list for Connelly's newest book that just came out this year.

GoodReads Synopsis HERE

In the meantime, my library notified me that I had another book waiting. I've been anxious to read this one, "Winter Garden" by Kristin Hannah. She's a wonderful author and, 50 pages in, I'm enjoying it so far.

GoodReads Synopsis HERE

Last Saturday we enjoyed a picnic 50th birthday party with our niece. The cake was wonderful but the company was even better. What a great day!

Birthday Girl Blowing Out the Candles

My Piece of Cake -- YUMMY!

Our Gang with the Birthday Girl
(Mom, Me, Tanya, & Fred)

That's enough from me for now. We're off to the races -- watching the Belmont Stakes on TV, that is. Have a great weekend.

Linking up with Cheryll for FNwF and Angela for RSC. Check it all out on the links!