July FNwF and Rainbow Scrap Blues

During the week I purposefully had prepared an applique block for sewing on Friday night. Cheryll had sent out the invitation for Friday Night with Friends and I fully intended to be there! This is #20 for Afternoon Delight which is being offered on The Quilt Show. All you have to do is join and the block of the month is FREE. You can get all the details HERE.

So last night night I finished all the nooks & crannies of the circle on the left. I also started adding the "spokes" in the picture on the right. It will end up being a circle in the middle of the circle on the left. I am working this "off block" as my friend Katie taught us during one of our meetings for TAS (The Applique Society). An earlier similar block I did not do like this and, while it turned out OK, it was a pain to sew. I'm thinking (and hoping) that this will be more Sue-friendly!

Previous Twirly Block

So that is what was accomplished last night while watching Blue Bloods. We managed to get into Season 6. Thank goodness for DVD rentals from the library as there is no good TV-watching lately.

Wednesday was July 1 and so Angela chose our next color. It is sky blue. I have totally run out of shades of blue so I have decided to take a pass on the color this month. However, I was late starting the hexies for Heartfire so I will catch them up this month. I have ZERO light/bright green ones for January and just the start of TWO orange ones for February. I also cut out the pieces for ONE teal and TWO dark green blocks for Awesome Land. That will catch me up for those months as well. It all works out perfectly for me because I knew I only needed EIGHT colors for Awesome Land and only SEVEN colors for Heartfire.

I did manage to finish up the pink Heartfire hexies.

My Patriotic Gameboard is finished and hanging.

I finished Block #19 for Afternoon Delight.

I also completed the June 15th clue for Bloomtopia (bottom right motif).

I located my Star in a Star basket, sorted my pieces, and determined that not all the blocks had been pieced entirely. This is my challenge UFO that is due at the August 25th meeting. It is also on my list for the 2020 PHD Challenge.

Various Parts Waiting Completion

Glimpse of 5 Completed Blocks

And how could I end this long post without a picture of our handsome Brody. I think he's looking more boy and less baby!

I'm linking up with Angela at SoScrappy to see how the others are doing with Sky Blue and also with Cheryll at Gone Stitchin' to see how and what my international friends are doing.

Special thanks to my friend Millie for picking me up to visit a quilt store and enjoy lunch out. Fred's kidney will be removed this Tuesday so I don't know how long I'll be house bound taking care of him. Nothing like a good friend to cheer one up, right?

Have a great week!

July PHD Report

I'll make this short & sweet ... hopefully. What did I hope to accomplish by month end?

To-Do List for June

1. Get that Kyoto to the finish line!!! - Finished in time for Show 'n' Share at my LQS via Zoom. This counts on my PHD list!

2. Get Pooh finished too! - Top is completed. Count that as a win too! Started this QAL with Quilting Gail in June.

3. Cross Patriotic Wall Hanging from my list! - Finished except for stitching down the binding & hanging sleeve and writing on the label. This is the project I found when I was reorganizing my upstairs sewing space due to the baker's rack I snagged. You can read about it HERE.

All in all, I think I did pretty good reaching my June goals. Just a couple loose ends and then I'm done. So what will I hope to do for July?

1. Quilt, bind, & label Winnie the Pooh

2. Finish Patriotic Wall Hanging 100%

3. Get Star in a Star top assembled. This quilt is due at my LQS on August 25th. It finishes as a queen-sized quilt. For credit at the shop, it will also have to be quilted, labeled, and bound. Definitely a big job for July & August. Currently, 5 of the nine 24" blocks are assembled and the top & side borders are complete. What's left? Assemble the final 4 blocks and finish the 4 border cornerstones. They are hand appliqued Celtic knots. Sounds like a hospital project to me!

4. Quilt, label, & bind Hope.

5. A little more progress on Eva Grace would be nice too!

Thanks to Quilting Gail for keeping us accountable with our PHDs. I'll be linking up with the others and cheering my fellow PHDers on!

Last of the RSC Green Saturdays

This is it! Last Saturday of May which means it is last Saturday post for dark greens. We're all wondering what color Angela will select for June. Many are hoping for a warm color and here and there I hear someone looking for purple. Hmmmmm ...... Well, anyway, here's what I've been working on. If you'd like to see what others have done, you can find it all HERE. Angela hosts a wonderful Linky party!

Earlier this week someone from my neighborhood posted she had a free baker's rack if you want to pick it up at her address. There was a post underneath saying the baker's rack had moved but it didn't fit so it was now located at her house with a new address. A couple of hours had passed but there were no further posts. I decided to see if it was still by the curb. Hot diggity! There it was! So I loaded it up and drove home.

It was obvious this baker's rack used to live in a kitchen because there was a bit of an issue of grease build-up but nothing 409 & elbow grease couldn't handle. I cleaned it up and it now resides in my upstairs sewing space. It even holds my small TV just fine!

Sooooo, in the process of moving the bins to the baker's rack, I found an unexpected UFO I  had started last year with the intention of having it completed for this summer. I was making it patriotic and had gotten as far as the red & white 9-patch cornerstones & border. All the fabric choices were there as well as the pattern. As I looked at what I had already sewn, I remembered I wasn't thrilled with my sewing. The flying geese units had points cut off because I didn't have my Deb Tucker geese trimmer at the time. Oh well, I decided to jump back in because, in the famous words of someone, "Better done than perfect!" So that's what I did  although it's not quite done yet! There are six 9-patches in the bin above it that will get attached to the ends with some spacers and then a final border.

Sheesh! From here you can't even see that the star points aren't that great! So glad I'm getting this one done. The pattern is called Looks Like a Gameboard from Country Threads.

While sewing Gameboard, I of course used Awesome Land blocks for leaders & enders. Got four more done which makes 6 for the month. There are two more cut out and ready for sewing and the month is not quite over yet! *wink*

I made fabulous progress on Kyoto. Last week I was working on border #2, the dark blue. I finished that and am close to done with the final border. All that's left are the two long sides of border #3, another stripe fabric. I've started one of the sides with the rest of it pinned.

I did manage to finish the last applique block of April for Afternoon Delight. Pretty sure I won't get the four May blocks done before June 1st! Ha! I love the purples in this block. I won a package of scraps from Jan Patek and these were in there!

That just leaves Bloomtopia, the cross-stitch project from Fat Quarter Shop. I got the little bird on a branch finished up last night while waiting for the Tater Tots to cook. Wonder what the next section will be!?!

To keep you up-to-date on hubby's health, we went to the doctor's this week. The output numbers have improved significantly lately so we're giving that kidney 2 more weeks to shape up or it'll be forcibly shipped out! Lol! Anyway, we're keeping our fingers crossed that this is a positive trend and he gets to keep the remaining portion of his right kidney. Time will tell and prayers are appreciated!

Have a great weekend! Now go wash your hands AGAIN!

Movin' It Forward!

Sarah & her kitty Penny left Friday afternoon. I'm going to miss them but two things kept it all in perspective for me. 1.) I'll be seeing Sarah again in a couple of weeks when we head out to visit the Washington, DC area to meet Brody; and 2.) I had quilt retreat Saturday & Sunday! Yay! I must say that although this picture looks like Polly & Penny got along, it was more along the lines of a healthy respect between the two.

I managed to work on several projects at retreat. Saturday was devoted to sewing the sashing on Simplify by Cluck, Cluck, Sew. All the blocks were sewn, including half blocks. Then I sewed all the rows together ...  well, mostly since I was short two sashing strips. To refresh your memory of Simplify, here's a picture of one of the blocks.

It's a very scrappy quilt with heavy Kansas Troubles influence. It will end up being queen-size so seriously too big to put the rows together at retreat.

Sunday I was going to work on a kit I bought from AQS but I hid it before Sarah's arrival and now it's somewhere, which I haven't a clue! Ugh! Hate when that happens!! So instead I put the finishing touches on my Tiny Tuesday blocks for June.

That was easy enough so next up was to start a new project. Yup! You heard that right! Because I don't have enough projects going and because I've been dying to start Gameboard by Country Threads. I even had my patriotic fabrics already starched and ready to cut up!

This is the center. I regret not having my Studio 180 Flying Geese ruler. Go ahead and look closely -- I ended up cutting off the points of my star. Would have never happened if I'd had my ruler. But I was at retreat and it was all systems GO! Not so much a Movin' It Forward project but that's what I did this weekend!

Linking up at Em's Scrapbag for Movin' It Forward.