Winter Sunrise Crocheted Scarf

This summer has been a wasteland for my WIP quilts. Either we've been busy with gardening, trips into town (20 miles one-way), house projects, or I've been lazy/unmotivated. So I've turned to doing something at night in front of the TV (we've recently discovered and binge-watched "Poldark"!). I found two skeins of Red Heart Unforgettable in Parrot in Michael's sale bin and crocheted them into a neck scarf for winter.

I found a free pattern online that employed a simple half-double crochet stitch and stitched away. If I had applied myself, I would have finished much more quickly, but I tended to forget about picking it up at night!

The kitties were very helpful while I was trying to photograph the finished product.

I love the texture and feel of this particular yarn and have already ordered a different colorway for another scarf.

Hopefully at some point in the next few weeks I can post a finish on one of my quilts!

I am linking with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.

Summer Bits and Pieces, Mug Mats, and Garden

L-R - Top: Daughter's mug mat, front and back

L-R - Bottom: Son-in-law's train mug mat, front and back.

The pictures above are of mug mats I made for my daughter and son-in-law. These are pretty much the only projects I've finished this summer! I've been very neglectful of blog posting this summer, mostly because I've been very busy with the garden.

My DIY hubby made a kitty bench for the kitties to perch on and look outside.
I covered it with a flannel cat fabric, and they fight over space on it,
so much that I'm considering having him make another one - lol!

Other than peppers, my garden is pretty much non-producing at this point, but I had a successful first year of a "big-girl" garden. I'll do a post later showing before/after photos of my garden from plowing it to building a pergola to full glory. I already have plans for next spring! I canned tomato sauce, ketchup, salsa, pepper relish, pickled jalapenos, jalapeno jelly, pickles, and wild plum jelly

One day I was shopping while my husband was in a meeting, and I wandered into a Michael's craft store and found some Red Heart "Unforgettable" yarn on sale for $3.99/skein. They only had two skeins of this beautiful variegated and soft yarn called "Parrot", so I decided to make a winter scarf for myself. I've been picking it up in the evenings while watching TV.

My husband made me a little shelf unit to house my tea supplies. We bought a whistling teakettle, and I also purchased an infuser teapot. In spite of the heat, I've really enjoyed my evening cuppa.

About mid-July, my husband got a FitBit and decided we should start walking every day. I'm really pleased that he is motivated to get his "step-quota" in each day. We've worked up to between 4 and 6 miles a day. We walk early in the morning while the temperatures are below 80 degrees. We are loving the old logging trails and views of meadows and pine trees. We live in a beautiful national forest on a dirt road, so all the road are unpaved with rustic views.

My quilting projects are waiting for my attention. I hope to become more focused now that gardening is taking a back seat and the 100+ degree days are (hopefully) behind us.

The kitties have found many ways to relax and sleep.

I hope you are enjoying your end of summer!

Dolly Quilt

Our granddaughter turned two this month, and I made a quilt for her "baby"

I tried to match (as closely as I could) the colors in the Honestly Cute dolly playpen we got her.

We celebrated on April 14 with burgers (and a vegan stew for the vegan granddaughter) and a Daniel Tiger cake. Everyone attended except our grandson (at Texas A&M) and our son-in-law, who was sick and unable to make the trip from north Texas. Our family isn't large but we have a good time together!

Our sweet little granddaughter grabbed the quilt as soon as she saw it and seemed delighted with it, which made my heart happy.

The back is a combo of a stash fabric and a very cute Cupcake Cafe by Laura Stone for Studio E.

I'm happy to carry on traditions. My paternal grandmother made me a dolly quilt in 1956 (yes!) when I was 8, and I kept it all these years. Last year I gave it to my daughter to keep for our granddaughter.

Papaw and granddaughter!

Dolly Mini Quilt
Finished size: Approximately 18x20 inches

Fabrics
Body - scraps from my scrap stash
Binding - yellow mini dot print by Waverly
Backing - Cupcake Cafe by Laura Stone for StudioE plus stash

Thread
Superior Threads #50 - Genoa Gray

Quilting
Machine - straight line diagonal

Craftsman Quilt and Garden Projects

A quilt for my DIY guy is in the works. My husband, wno loves to tinker in his building, has built birdhouses, a variety of boxes and a ruler organizer for my sewing room, our deck railing, shelves for our pantry and bathroom, and a ton of other treasures for me and our family. Now he is building me an arbor for the garden he just plowed! So I want to make something just for him. I found a really cute collection from Dan Morris Design "Craftsman" for Quilting Treasures and ordered yardage. It is even more colorful in person.

I think the Craftsman pattern by Pine Tree Country Quilts will be the perfect choice.

"In other news . . ." the garden is nearly ready for planting. My husband rented a tiller for the tractor and plowed about a 40 by 50 foot space over the weekend. It is the biggest garden we've ever had with lots of space to make pathways and have room for watermelons and pumpkins.

Before planting can begin, the arbor will be built. I've always wanted a rose and flowering vine arbor next to my vegetable garden! We set the posts yesterday and will start putting up boards tomorrow. (I say "we" meaning I will be the holder of screws and drills and help level the boards!) I ordered two climbing roses and wisteria, and I purchased a couple flowering vines at Lowe's. I can't wait!

Rain Rain Go Away Mini Quilt

This mini quilt was inspired by a suggestion by Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. I commented on one of her blog posts that I had more yellow and gray in my stash than anything else, and she said, "Sounds like you need to make a yellow and gray quilt!" And away I went!

With the frequent rain and clouds we had last month, it seemed a good choice to do a gradient quilt with yellows flowing into grays. Luckily, we finally got a sunny day for a photo!

I didn't end up using a lot of my yellows and grays, because I dug into my scraps. So a full-sized yellow and gray quilt is in the future!

I love gradient quilts and made my first in 2015 - you can read about it here and see it on the left in the photo above.

The back is a piece of Yuwa fabric I'd been saving for awhile, and it was perfect for this little project.

As always, Jack was quite vocal about wanting my attention throughout the process!

Here are the details:

Rain Rain Go Away Mini Quilt
Finished size: 20 inches x 20 inches

Fabrics
Scraps from my scrap stash
Binding - Grunge in Stone
Backing - Yuwa Suzuko Koseki Paris Yellow Dots

Thread
Superior Threads #50 - Genoa Gray

Quilting
Machine

Choose Happy Mini Quilt

"Choose Happy" is the name of this mini quilt. I originally intended this as a "bullet journal" quilt. I journaled a lot as a young mother, and I inherited my mother many yearly journals (that I love reading!), so although journaling is the new, trendy thing to do, it is not new to me. This year I purchased a few notebooks and The Quilters Planner for 2018 and have begun documenting my days - the weather, gardening, baking, quilting, and everyday things too. I had intended to design a quilt that looks like a bullet journal, representing the page of a journal with lines and bullets, but after this main part was completed I struggled with a design to go around it, so it became a mini quilt that will hang in my sewing room to inspire me.

The three appliques represent my main "bullets" - Heart and Home (family and baking!), Garden, and Quilts. I had fun fussy-cutting these from Moda's selvedge fabric "Celebrating 40 Years".

The back is a Bird Dot, a grunge-ish fabric by Carrie Bloomston and one of my all-time favorite fabrics.

I had a charm pack of Garden Project and also ordered some yardage of it. I love the colors and farm-y vibe to it!

This piece was sewn and quilted on my new previously owned Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700QCP. I found the machine on Facebook Marketplace. It was sold by a gal that worked in a quilt shop that sells Bernina, so she "upgraded" to a new Bernina and wanted her Janome to find a good home! I got it for a really great price, and it included all the attachments; plus a $600 table came with it! It is a definite step up from my Janome DC3050 purchased in 2010, but I will keep that one around to take to classes.

In addition to machine quilting part of the quilt, I actually got brave enough to try some free motion quilting on it. Although I still need a lot of FMQ practice, I was very impressed with how much easier it is on my new machine.

Here are the details:

Choose Happy Mini Quilt

Finished size: 28 inches x 28 inches

Fabrics

Grunge by Moda - Pool, Moutarde, and unknown red

Garden Project by Moda - charm pack and yardage

French Farmhouse by Andover - background

Celebrating 40 Years selvedge fabric by Moda

Binding - Hobby Lobby Nature Bounty in Terra

Backing

Windham's Bird Dot by Carrie Bloomston

Thread

Superior Threads #50 - Genoa Gray, Indian Paintbrush

Superior Threads Trilobal Polyester - Pacific Blue

Aurifil 80 wt - Pale Yellow

Quilting

Machine and free motion

Toddler Apron and Good-Bye 2017

As one last finish for 2017 I made my 20-month old granddaughter an apron for Christmas. I found a pattern but pretty much cut it "my own way" as I texted my daughter to measure certain widths and lengths on Delaney. So it was guesswork that turned out well! Delaney would not be still for a photo - lol! The few pictures I did take of the apron did not turn out well because we have had cloudy weather for sooooo long.

I used a "Darling Little Dickens" mini-charm pack and loved the soft pastel greens, peaches, aquas, and taupes.

The binding/tie was a bright green print from the Gooseberry line.

And the back was a cute little Japanese print by Megumi Sakakibara that coordinated nicely.

Here is Delaney's initial "D" on the pocket. My Janome does not have embroidery capabilities, but it has a cross-stitch that I used to outline the D. (2018 goal: new sewing machine!)

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with food, fun, and laughter. Here is a Christmas day photo of our "original four. It is rare to get a picture of just the four of us!

As 2017 draws to a close, with several quilting and sewing projects in various stages of (un)completion, as well as many plans - quilting, gardening, bread-baking, house projects, etc - for 2018, I find myself more and more unmotivated to blog. I'm not quite ready to give up blogging, but if you don't see anything here, look for me on Instagram.

Happy New Year!