I only worked on my April Color Block quilt a couple times this week so I didn’t make much progress. I spent time one evening squaring up all the blocks which made this pretty pile of confetti strings!
Yesterday I started sewing the diagonal rows together – here’s the top left all pieced.. just the bottom right to go
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In other news – I decided to re-join WW, again… ugh! I’ve lost count how many times I’ve done this but honestly it’s the only way I’ve been able to successfully lose weight in the past and not feel deprived. I’ve got to do something to stop this slow gain that’s been happening over the last few years.
Here’s my lunch from one day last week, it was so yummy! I made this salad with radishes, carrots and Deli Fresh Rotisserie Chicken and I used regular Ranch dressing but only 2 tsp (yes, I measured!). So far I’m doing good on the plan, I picked up more fruits and veggies from the store today for this week.
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That’s about it for now… have a great rest of your weekend!
Next step is to square up all the blocks and then start piecing it in diagonal rows. Once that’s done I’ll add a 2.5″ border which will make the top 49×60. This QAL is so great because not only does Debby give you the quilt pattern each month, she also suggests a quilting motif that can be accomplished on a domestic machine. This month it’s an all-over swirl in varying sizes, like shown here in her sample
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Off topic… have you ever used GoodRx? I had not until just recently because I have medical benefits and I just ASSUMED I was getting the best prices on prescriptions – OH BOY WAS I WRONG!!! If you take any meds I would recommend downloading their app and checking the prices in your area. I’m on a hormone replacement patch and I take a progesterone pill with it – I had to refill in January and because it was the beginning of the plan year I paid $250 for 90 day supply. I called my insurance provider to ask why it was so high and she was the one to suggest GoodRx!!! We went online together and holy moly… I could’ve gotten both at a different pharmacy for only $98!!!!! Wow!
I swear this is not an ad… I’m getting nothing out of sharing this other than I hope to help save someone else. The only thing to know is that if you use GoodRx instead of your insurance those dollars will not count toward your deductible – that’s it!!
I’m due for a refill again and I’ve already transferred my Rx to a different pharmacy to get the better prices. What boils my blood is… if they can do this at one pharmacy why the H*** can’t they all offer those same prices!!???
Ok, back to quilting related stuff 😀
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Actually, that’s all for today! Have a great rest of your weekend and stay safe!
I put the final stitches in the February Color Blocks quilt. I switched up the layout of the blocks and called mine Fish Tails. I used a ‘wave’ stitch for quilting with the most perfect Teal variegated thread in my stash. I’m super happy with how it turned out 😀
I’m still ‘on hold’ with working on the Double Wedding Ring quilt for my friend. She’s going to shop around for some different backing fabric – I sent her a few options I found online as well.
In the meantime, I started working on blocks for the March Color Blocks QAL and as of yesterday I have the blocks I need. The pattern calls for 20 blocks but my blue scraps only made 16 so I cut a bunch of green scraps and I’ll use four of those blocks to finish the corners. Also pictured here is the sky blue fabric I’m using for the background.
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In other news… I got my first COVID vaccine shot!!! Here I am later that evening
It happened rather randomly, when we went for my husband’s appt last Tuesday we asked if there would be any ‘left overs’ that I might be able to get vaccinated. She told us they had to fulfill all the appts first so I’d need to come back at the end of the following day and wait in line. We went back at 4pm the next day and by 4:30 I had my shot!!!! Whooooo Hoooooo! DH goes back 3/30 for his second shot and I go back 3/31. The location where we got our shots used the Moderna vaccine – the only issue we had was a sore arm the next day which gradually faded away by the end of day 4. I’m so thankful we’re getting vaccinated at the same time!!!
Last but not least… SPRING is coming!! We went for a walk the other day and I just had to snap a shot of this beautiful tree in full bloom … unfortunately I have no idea what kind of tree it is!! Any ideas?
I got started working on the Double Wedding Ring quilt for my friend. Just as a reminder, her 80 year old mother has decided to stop sewing and there are several quilt tops that need finishing. I decided to start with the largest, most difficult one because this top just needed some finishing around the outside. She sent along a baggy of 4-patch units and I thought “Oh, hard can this be?” Um, until I actually sat down to start I didn’t realize it meant I’d be working with Y seams!! (cue me screaming!)
I didn’t take any pictures in progress, it took all my concentration just to get them pinned and stitched into place because the patchwork was not quite precise. I cursed my way through getting those eleven 4-patches added and then laid it out to measure…this puppy is 90×114! And unfortunately…ugh, it does not lay flat… not sure how I’m going to baste and quilt this thing without puckers – eeeeek!!! And some of these seams are SO bulky…I’m going to have to use a quilting motif that will allow me to avoid them!
I would appreciate any and all advice for dealing with this.
I’ll be quilting this on my domestic which will present even more struggles due to the size…I’ll probably need to move my machine to the dining room table to have adequate support for the quilt.
I decided to forge ahead and get the backing ready, when I measured the fabric she sent along with the top I had exactly 7 yards. I did some quick math and it’s not enough!!! 😦
Check me here… the top is 90×114, I like to have at least 2″ extra all around so that’s 94×118. The width of this fabric measures 42″ selvedge to selvedge so I used 41″ in my calculations, that gives me 1476 square inches per yard. 94×118=11,092 divided by 1476=7.51 yards. If I were buying the fabric, I’d get 8 yards just to have some wiggle room… regardless, it’s just not enough for this back 😦 I called my friend to let her know and she said she had found some other large pieces of fabric in her mother’s sewing room so she would check those and let me know what she finds. For now, this project is on hold!
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The weather here in Myrtle Beach has been absolutely beautiful the past few days… we’ve been able to go out to eat many times!! We haven’t had Mexican food in so damn long (cuz in my opinion it just doesn’t do well as take-out) so that was the first place we went. They have a small outdoor patio and it was perfect – sunny, 72 degrees with a light breeze!! Yes!!! In fact, I think we’ll go back there today :-p
Otherwise not much else going on… I finally got DH an appointment for his first dose of the vaccine, we go Tues at 2pm. I won’t qualify for a little while longer (there’s a 9 year age difference between us) but that’s ok, I’ll just continue to be very careful.
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That’s all for now… have a great rest of your weekend! Stay Safe 🙂
I didn’t spend a lot of time in my sewing room this week so I don’t have a lot of progress to show.
Last week I mentioned that I didn’t have enough of the mint green fabric that I really wanted to use for the background so… I ordered more! The pattern calls for 3 5/8 yard and I only had 3 yards so I went through my fabric receipts and figured out I bought it from 5bucksayard.com. Since I wanted to be sure I didn’t have any shading differences I went ahead and purchased 4 yards to use on this project…saving my original 3 yards for something else 😉 I also purchased a solid blue and a solid peach for my stash.
That new order arrived on Thursday but I didn’t cut into it until yesterday. I spent the morning squaring my scrappy blocks, cutting the 7″ squares from the background fabric, marking the diagonal sewing lines (one for the scrappy block and another to make a bonus HST), sewing on those lines, cutting and pressing – whew!
31 blocks done (I’ll be saving the extra block in my orphan bin for some future project). The mint green is actually a little better represented in the next picture of the bonus HSTs. I have no idea what I’m going to do with these but I certainly couldn’t waste that much fabric. These were squared up at 6″.
And that’s all folks. I still need to cut the sashing for in between each scrappy block and then decide if I want to follow the pattern and apply a 8.5″ border…hmmm, I’ll wait to make that decision after the top is pieced.
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Still no exercise to speak of… it’s been chilly and rainy for several weeks now… at least it’s not snow!! Ha!
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I’ll be cheering for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tonight in the Super Bowl and the Australian Open starts later tonight too (Monday in Melbourne) – whoop whoop!
Have a great rest of your weekend! Stay safe and stay strong 🙂
I finished piecing and ironing the 30 blocks necessary for the February Color Block challenge! I pulled fabrics from my gray/black scrap bin and just cut a ton of 2.5″ squares with no idea how many I needed to make 30 blocks… Ha, math prep is not my strong suit! As it turns out, I ended up cutting enough to make 31 blocks!! Wow 😮 now that’s dumb luck for ya!!!
Once all the blocks were done I started looking through my stash for background options… I pulled these and gave them a trial run
Once again the ‘prep’ bug bit me because I didn’t check the fabric requirements to make sure I had enough before I fell in love with one of them! Argh! The pattern calls for 3 5/8 yards – grrrrr! I only have 3 yards each of the green and orange so I have to either take them out of the running or… alter the pattern or… buy more fabric!!! I’ll let you guess what I’ve decided to do 😉
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ATP & WTA Tennis are gearing up for the Australian Open to begin in about a week. I’ve been keeping up with several players online and many had to endure a rough 14 day quarantine once they arrived in Australia. They’ve finally been released and now they have a little time to really go hard preparing. The warm up tournaments have started so I’ve been watching a few matches late at night as they’re 16 hours ahead of me!!
Other than that I haven’t been doing much… I stopped running for no particular reason. I missed a few days, then the weather turned rainy and cold which made me miss a few more and before I even noticed – it’s been almost a month!!! Ugh!!! I had gotten up to 3 miles doing run/walk intervals – now I’m going to have to start all over 😦 Damn, that makes me so mad at myself!! There’s just no excuse for it… apathy, laziness, delayed consequences, SMH!
That’s all for now… here’s a picture I took last week when Sammie was stalking me for another treat… she’s got one very menacing stare!! LOL
I’ve been working on my February Color Blocks for Debby Brown’s QAL. I had already pulled my gray/black scrap bin and cut a ton of 2.5″ squares. Last week I finished piecing them into 4-patches, I just needed to press the seams open and pair them into sets of four to be pieced into 16-patch blocks.
I’ve put two together here… I love the little pops of color in some of my squares!
I have this bin sitting on my sewing table with all the groups stacked together, a finished 16-patch is hanging over the side waiting to be pressed. I got side-tracked with another project which I’ll show you next…
My niece messaged me yesterday morning with a link to a mask asking if I thought I could make it for her. She’s been told she will be going back into school in March and she wants to be prepared with extra masks – even though they tell her she’ll be given PPE. The link provides pictures and videos of the mask being made along with a template and measurements.
I got so excited I made a prototype within an hour! Pink is not her color so this one is mine 🙂 This mask is incredibly easy to make – the hardest part is cutting out the fabric with the template…and that’s not really hard at all!
She asked if I had any sports themed fabric – she’s a PE teacher – unfortunately I have NONE, Zero! I pulled a few ‘fun’ fabrics from my stash and sent her a picture… she chose three of them: Jacks, Dino’s and Buses. Each of these was a FQ but due to the size of the template only the Jacks fabric was cut large enough to get two masks.
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My draw to social media has started to diminish each day now that I don’t fear what new catastrophe might be awaiting. It’s going to take some time for that ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ syndrome to subside! I’ve started to get back on Instagram more regularly to see all the beautiful quilts others are posting….ahhhh, now THAT’S my happy place!! 😀
I’ll be watching the NFC & AFC Championships today… I’ll be rooting for Buffalo and Tampa Bay – Ha, we shall see!
I literally just put the final stitches in the binding of my January Color Blocks quilt!! Wooooohooooo!
I popped outside to take a few pictures before putting it in the wash (I couldn’t find the clips I’ve been using to hang the quilt from the fence so it’s just draped over)
I followed the suggestion from Debby Brown to quilt a spiral design, it was a little tedious on those first 3 or 4 rounds but after that it got a lot easier and once I was on the large circles it went pretty fast!
And here are a few indoor pictures before it got dropped in the wash…I used leftover strips from the 16-patch blocks to make the scrappy binding ❤ ❤ ❤
Debby has release the fabric requirements for the February quilt (but not the pattern), I’ll need thirty 16-patch blocks… I guess I better get back to those gray/black scraps I cut up last week 😉
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Inauguration Day is coming up… I’m trying to stay away from social media to keep my anxiety in check because I’ve seen some horrifying things online about what those white supremacy groups are saying & planning. I pray to God every day he keeps us all safe!! I never thought I’d have to worry about my safety in the USA, times certainly have changed 😦
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Have a great rest of your weekend… I’ll be cheering for the Browns & Buccaneers today 😉
I won’t spend a lot of time discussing the current situation with our democracy… this sums it up completely:
My anxiety has been a roller coaster ride for the last few days… ha, I thought it was bad over covid! Nope, I’ve reached a new level in this game 😦 I’ve been trying to focus on sewing and staying away from the constant news cycle, I don’t always succeed. I keep praying I’ll check and find that trump has been removed from office and held accountable!
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As for sewing & quilting, I’ve pulled my gray/black scrap bin and started cutting 2.5″ squares for Debby Brown’s “Color Blocks Quilt Along“. I didn’t even try to keep count, I just cut strips using my AccuQuilt strip die and then manually cut those into squares.
I started piecing them into sets of two and I even made a few 4-patches… lots more still to come
As for the January quilt, I made the choice for backing [inspirational text on the right] but haven’t cut it to size or started basting… I’ve got all month, right? Ha!
I watched the NFL Playoff games yesterday, two of the three teams I was rooting for won… poor Washington! Maybe they can figure out the QB situation before next season!!
I’ll be watching more today, cheering for Ravens, Bears & Browns…let’s see how it goes!!!
We celebrated the new year pretty much how we did last year, quietly at home watching the ball drop on TV – Ha! We popped Asti Spumante at midnight and called our oldest neighbors & friends in California. We bought townhouses next to each other back in 1989 and have been friends ever since. We used to host NYE parties in our basement and because they lived right next door, we started a tradition of having a ‘shot of peppermint schnapps’ before they went home. They moved to a bigger house in MD several years before we moved to SC and they’ve since moved to CA, but we always call each other at midnight and joke about having a shot.
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I’ve started a new quilt along called “Color Blocks Quilt Along“. Debby Brown is leading and her initial intention was to use up scraps by making 16-patch blocks from 2.5” squares but there really are no rules!! She’s been encouraging folks to use whatever they have in their stash 🙂 I decided to use one of the FQ bundles I’ve been getting each month from my Fat Quarter Shop subscription [side note: I changed my subscription starting this month to their Modern FQ Club, I was getting too many florals in the Moda FQ club].
I took 10 of the FQ’s from the Homestead Petite bundle and cut them into 2.5″ strips. I created strip sets of four then sub-cut them into 2.5″ strips, pieced those into 16-patch blocks and voila‘… I got 26 blocks!
She released the January pattern on NYE so we could sew into the new year; the pattern is called Suitable for Framing and uses 25 blocks. I decided to use a soft gray for the background fabric, I think it helps tone down all the bright colors :-p The top finished at 64×64, a generous lap quilt 🙂
The QAL is all about finishing the quilt each month so she also offers up a suggested quilting motif which can be accomplished on a domestic machine. First, I must choose a backing fabric… here are two possibilities: on the left is a king size cotton sheet from Target, on the right is 108″ inspirational text fabric I’ve had in my stash. I’m leaning towards the inspirational text fabric since this quilt will most likely be donated to charity…and who couldn’t use a little charitable inspiration!?
That’s about all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend and stay safe out there!!
