I Tried, I Really Did

But things aren't easy lately. 

I did managed to sew some PINK.

Along with other colours. 

I work with the entire rainbow while playing with Friends' Favourite quilt. I find it hard to remember which colour this month is, haha. 

These Hollow 9 blocks are my leader-enders. 

I did my favourite little 9-Patch block when I caught sight of this cute daisy print. Resistance is futile. Haha. 

The girls at the Artisanat haven't received any new quilts to finish or kits to work on. They are starting to ask if the baby quilt drive is still on. Yes, it is. Those little Hollow 9 blocks are parts of a kit. 

Not much of a pattern: " 36 Hollow 9 blocks with 36 squares of 5.5" interesting prints. Sew in a grid of 8 X 9. Any and all layouts are acceptable and beautiful." Can't wait to seeing what this kit will grow into. 

Some of you know that I've been sick since February 23rd when I was to go on a retreat. Well I am still coughing. No improvement yet, but the doctor now know what I have. Never mind the medical term (cause I don't remember) but it's an infection in my nose. Yep, in my nose that drips at the back of my throat, irritating it on its way down and my body reacts by coughing. I cough so much that it feels like knifes in my chest and back that moves around when I cough. The meds are to take a couple of weeks to work as they aren't antibiotics but steroids. I'm on steroids?? 

The part that annoys me the most is that after all these weeks of coughing and crunching, (and wetting my pants) I still don't have a six-pack!! What's with that? I deserve a six-pack! These steroid meds better give me a six-pack or else, I want a refund. 

Anywho! 

Back in February, although I didn't stay very long at the retreat, Sonia had brought me a little gift that I want to share with you. 

A little tray and it's orange. It says: The sewing room isn't going to tidy itself, so let's just close the door. Thanks again, Sonia. It's perfect for holding my chocolate eggs while I sew. Haha! 

Now, on a sad note, my mother-in-law passed away on the 31st. She was in the hospital for an entire week. Hopefully, she is the cherry on top of the big ugly sundae that was the month of March and all will be better in April. Like Dolly Parton once said: If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Well, I need a rainbow now please. 

Hope you are under a glorious rainbow and you get plenty of sewing done. 

Enjoy! ;^)

Like me, Raven also love the sunrise's warmth. It was a lovely morning today. 

Check these ladies' link-party for more inspirations

Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Work in Progress (WIP)

These three words can apply to so many things and even situation. Like my sewing room. Hahaha.

Hollow Nine as leader/ender. Red, blue, purple, aqua. 

I started last year to (again) organize my sewing space. I talked about it with the girls at the Artisanat group and was relieve to hear that I am not alone with this "task". One even said that she sews at the kitchen table because there's no space in her sewing room. (So, she does have a room specifically for sewing but …) okay. In a weird way, it made me feel good because, at least, I still sew in my sewing room. 👌 

Regardless, a reorganization was needed. (See this post for the beginning of the journey)

More milk crates added 

Then, DH removed the legs on the ironing board which I always deemed a waste of space.

 

So much better now. I need more crates as the board is too low for me but it works for now. 

BUT am I sewing? 

Not much to show besides the Hollow Nines. I'm mostly sewing backings and bindings. 

On Saturday, Jan 17th, we (five ladies and myself) gathered to cut the batting for 42 baby quilts. I should had taken pictures but forgot, sorry. 

This is what I brought home. 

Each bundle consist of a top, batting and backing (in one piece or in pieces). I have 34 quilts with me. Two of the ladies wanted to bring some home to finish right away. 

One of the ladies had strips of flannelette that she generously gave for the cause. I'm sewing these strips together for the backing. She had some gorgeous prints. 

I'm in love! 😍

Anywho! I'm cutting and sewing binding too but that makes boring photos. 

While reading Sara's blog, I was reminded to check my fabric purchases for 2025. I keep everything on spreadsheets. (I love spreadsheets!) I was surprised to read a total of $185.33 was spend on fabric. It doesn't include the $25 spent on bonding interfacing (steam-a-seam) for the Table Scrap Challenge with Elvis. In 2024, I did real well spending only $56.39. I'll try to do better this year. 

This big boy celebrated his fifth birthday. I was finally able to take a decent picture of him. Raven is usually camera shy but seems to be okay with a phone picture. 😊

We had snow, then snow, then snow, then a "heatwave" of +6 Celsius, then we had snow, and snow, and then . . . frigid cold at - 40 Celsius this morning. (There are no typos in the previous sentence.) This year promises some wacky surprises. Better buckle my seat belt! Lol. 

Join me at these ladies' place for more inspirations

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Have a great week, everyone. ;^)

Some Sewing Occurred. Really?

I'm trying to sew along with Bonnie K. Hunter. I sew a few units of each clue. The eventual top will be added to the baby quilts pile for donation. Needless to say, I won't need that many blocks but since no one knows what's the block and what is part of the sashing (if any), I'm just enjoying a little bit of sewing every week. 

Part 1 - I had to start over as I didn't cut the pieces right on my first attempt. 

4 sets of 4 in the hope that they will become 4 blocks, maybe? Do I need only 4 or 6 or 9 to get to a baby size quilt? 

If they are to become Ohio Stars, well I'm darn pleased I set the wood grain of this print all in the same direction. :^) Time will tell. 

These are some of Part 2 and some from Part 3. As I've said previously, not enough Pink and Purple live in this house to make a bazillion-pieces-Bonnie-mystery-quilt. Orange and brown are the colours I picked this time around. 

I've also worked on these. 

Yes, it's County Clare again. (a Bonnie K. Hunter leader-ender quilt) I thought I was done but the top is too much on the small size to be approved as a baby quilt, so I added another row at the bottom and a column on the left. 

Since we have such lovely, soft, airy, snow falling (AAAAgain!) I thought a picture with the fluffy white stuff as background would be nice. The top measures 33.5 X 39.5 and I call it "good enough". Let's find a backing for this one and send it off. 

Tomorrow morning, I'm taking DS#2 to the specialist to have wisdom tooth remove. Oh that's sounds like a lovely morning. 🙄

Well, that rounds up what's been happening here, except for Raven seeing the vet. He got two thumbs up. He's back to his old self. Yay! 

He likes to sleep on the red chair when I'm at the computer 

I'm not sleeping, Mom. I'm watching you because
you're my favourite hooman. 😻

Have a great weekend, everyone!

;^)

More fun happening at these talented ladies' blogs: 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Snow and Slow ... Again

Yep, the snow is falling here too. We are supposed to get more than a cup too. It's pretty when it's falling, not so much when I'm driving. On Thursday night, coming back from work, the snow was coming down so fast it was blinding. It is more peaceful today. 

My son's car has a  black roof ... well not today. 

So I sit and sew. The log cabin is almost finish. Only one more log to go. 

Then, I'll finish the Dresden fan. One blade is not quilted and I want to add some echo stitches around the fan. The space is too big to be left "stitchless". One or two echo lines should be enough. What do you think? 

Here's her entire work. I believe I've omitted to share that picture with you. Sorry. 

Really not my style but still pretty.

She did some quilting in the sashing but all have been marked so it will be easy to do. The last border will be to my discretion as there are no marks to follow. 

Have you caved in to Bonnie's Mystery Lupine and Laughter? I so love that name that it did me in. I assembled a few blocks only which is a good thing because I did them wrong. Bloopers alert! 

Her pink is orange at my place. (of course!) There's suppose to be TWO pink (orange) per hourglass. Well, someone in this household doesn't know how to read, lol. They will become something else like this ... 

If you think you have seen this blue print here before you are right. It is the tiny little 4-patch blue. 

I thought that I used up all the fabric received in the bag but no. There were some long, wide strips that I had stored with the blue (why?) and obviously forgot about. 

Now I have a mind to replace the dark blue with the original blue. I'll take measurement first. I don't want to undo all this just to find out there isn't enough of the original blue to go around. Lol. 

My sweet Raven was very sick through out November 😩 to the point that I started to wonder if it wouldn't be best to put him to sleep. 😭 But then, after 20 days of worrying, the medicines (3 different ones twice daily) finally kicked in. He hated the meds so much that he hide from me most of the time. I missed him! Here, he's sleeping on my favourite chair protected by a mini quilt during his illness. He is now good as new and we can't wait to put this month behind us. 

Here's to a wonderful December to all of you. Cheers! 

Tagging along with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitches. 
Visiting Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! 

See you there. ;^)

Here Comes Orange!

(Sorry for another long post. My last one. I promise.)

What a fun and busy week this was. Am I Following My Weekly Resolution? Not at all, lol. And why is that? Too much work! I was mostly alone at work this week as Olivia had other priorities in her life to deal with. So, I got home too tired to do much. 

But! I did attend our final reunion of Artisanat for the year 24-25 on Tuesday. The theme was Old McDonald's Farm. 

I found a new friend. It was so soft that I almost trade it for Raven. Nnnnaaahhh! Lol. (If you enlarge the photo you will see that I was the scarecrow made out of straw. Like drinking straw. No, I'm not drunk, just a little crazy on one side.) 

Of course, I came home with a bunch of scrap bags. 

During the week someone came to my house to deliver more boxes from her old aunt. 

Lots of not-quilt-worthy fabric. They are strips of thick fabric for ...  cut from mattresses? blinds?

I don't know what but I have a whole box of it. 

And a box of SHIBs (Squirrel Hiding in Boxes, Bags) 

These are garment SHIBs. The red ones are wool and the strips are jersey. I see relaxed-fit midi summer dresses in those. Oh, I wish I had more time on my hands. 

I don't know how to knit but right now I wish I did. 

31 magazines of knitting patterns and home craft of all kinds and for everyone in the family. Dated from 1920 to 1937. 

16 magazines with crochet patterns. The oldest one is 1912! So precious. 

The aunt had a notebook forgotten with the magazines. I remember those kind of notebook with a paper cover of a Holy picture (as if Jesus was that white) and the time table on the back. But I never seen one with this serious security tips about electricity. It must had been when the electricity was a new thing. Imagine that! Electricity is a new thing! and people did not know not to touch it. Wow!  

The aunt also did Petit Point needlework. She finished this one. Some are halfway done. 

Two frames came with the tapestries. 
I did do some Petit Point a long time ago. I want to start doing it again now. 

But then! 

BUT then!! 

I said to a few of you already that I was thinking of recruiting because of the amount of fabric that comes into my place every week. Well, I did AND they responded. 

It went like this. Brought my idea to the president of Artisanat. The committee agreed to my idea. So, I exposed my idea to the group during our last reunion, that maybe some people would like to sew but don't have the room for a lot of fabric. I would make kits for baby quilts, nothing too big, and at the reunion, they can take one or two kits home and assemble them at their own speed. The instruction, picture and fabric would all be in the kit. 

10 people signed up. TEN!! I'm floored. I'm excited and scared at the same time. Okay, since we don't meet until September, I will try and kit as many quilts as I can during the summer. I got one pattern done, with 20 more patterns to go. I'll make several kits of the same pattern. All the ladies who signed up already know how to make quilts. FANtastic!! 

But did I sew? 

Yes! Just a wee bit. 

All 10 blocks for April Fool were done but I couldn't resist this one. So 11 green ones. 

Same for Flying Home blocks. Three blocks is usually what I do each month but ... 

this green-ish teal (that looks more blue against the green) just twisted my arm. So, one more for the month. 

Itsy bitsy sewing done. 

Only one green crumb block and 9-Patch, of course. There was a little bit of that gorgeous print in the new bags and I just had to get rid of that SHIB! One orange 9-Patch and the brown one was another SHIB. I did way more Rail Fence then those but it will be more fun to show them once they are assembled. Hopefully next week I'll have a few blocks to present to you. 

I thought the pile of green scraps wasn't diminishing much when I realized ... 

it's not fabric. It's Raven! He seems to like green. I caught him a few times sleeping there but he never did that with the other colours. Funny cat. 

Care to see my green garden? 

Yep, that's all. I believe a little chipmunk ate the seeds. All that's growing are a few cucumbers. No flowers. I'll plant more seeds this weekend AND store the pots elsewhere. Sigh!  

Now the end of the month comparison photos of green scraps. 

The green scraps at the beginning of May looked like this. . . 

. . . this big pile was added (from gifted bags). The piece at the front went in the stash. 

The end of the green month looks like this . . . 

Three regular-sized Ziploc bags plus a tall plastic bag and the scrap basket overflowing. I did not moved forward with this one, lol. I was looking for that pear and apple fabric when sewing the Flying Home blocks. It never showed up in time. Whatever, it will be used in an I Spy quilt. 

June is my birth month and Angela called my favourite colour: Orange. I'm so happy! 

This is all I have to play with. :^(  There might be more in the gifted bags but I'm not very hopeful as my friends are not "Orange" people. Haha. 

Phew! That was a lot. I hope life treats you well. 

Enjoy! ;^)

Good friends never let you go crazy by yourself. Love this girl! 

 

Come visit my stitching sisters for more inspiration. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever