2014's final post

Well, the end of this crazy, insane year has finally come - and, as usual, I'm not ready for that to happen just yet.  (Could I get a 2-week extension please?)
I should have a few finished projects to share with you - after all, I've had all month to work on them!  (What have I been doing with all that 'spare time' that I'm supposed to be enjoying?)  Yesterday, I decided that I was going to try to finish one or two of my Rainbow Scrappy Challenge projects - it's just a matter of putting the assorted blocks or strips together - that can't be that hard, can it?  Well, it might not be if I had actually finished the November portions of my projects; then I had to decide on, and make, the sashing or whatever assembly method that I chose.
I actually managed to finish one of the tops, and a second one is quite close to being finished (no pictures of that one, unfortunately).  I'm planning on both of these quilts being donation projects, and I think that this first one will be a cheerful one, wherever it ends up!  It's the "Scrappy Braid" strips - 3 sections each month for 11 months.  I chose a greeny-taupe Kona cotton solid (Limestone?), and just placed 2.5" strips between the rows; 3.5" strips around it finished it off.
They say that "the proof is in the pudding" - so, get out your spoons, 'cause the pudding is right here:

My always popular "Kickin' Stash" blocks will be getting mottled gold sashing strips; I'm not completely sure if there will just be continuous strips, or whether there will be cornerstone blocks at the intersections.  However, that decision will have to wait for another day - tomorrow is New Year's day, and I have a quilting mystery to prepare for!  It's going to use a lot of batik fat quarters, and butter and (?)limestone Kona cottons for the backgrounds.  Hopefully, I'll have a picture or two by tomorrow evening...

On the needles, Fri. Dec. 12th

I finally feel like I can sit back and take a few deep breaths!  It was a lot of fun having our kids home last weekend, and especially, enjoying giving, and getting our Christmas gifts.  They were all on their way home again by Tuesday afternoon, and then "life" kicked in again - doing the routine things that had been put on hold while the kids were home.  Now, that part of my week is mostly behind me, and I'm able to pick up my knitting again.  I'm still working on finishing "Pears the Elephant" - I've got all 4 parts of the ears "on the go" at the same time, so that I make sure all the shaping gets done at the same time - the two back parts are the gray, and the fronts will be striped, white, fuchsia and blackberry.

I decided that having only 1 knitting project on the needles at one time is boring, so I started the first of what will be several pairs of socks for our (as yet unborn) grandson.  This little sock is working up really quickly - I did all the ribbing in about 3 hours (between getting up a few times to tend to other little things), and I've just done about 4 rows of turning the heel.  The pattern calls for leftover sock yarn, which I never seem to have, so I bought a ball of Kroy in typical boy colours (Singin' the Blues), and I'll knit socks until the ball is finished.  That way, if one sock gets lost (which inevitably happens), there will be a replacement available!  I'll try to make the socks match, as much as possible.  By the time this sock is finished, I'll have a better idea of the striping pattern.

I can show you now!

Hooray!  I'm tired of having to keep secrets, and, since we had our Christmas gift "opening" party yesterday, I can finally show you what I've made in the past month or sew....
First off, my November "ALYoF" project - my younger daughter and her hubby are expecting their first baby in a few weeks (which means I'll be a grandmother!).  They have most of the urgently-needed items for the nursery, but they're still working on the little extras.  We had a baby shower here a few weeks ago, and she got a few items for the nursery walls, but I wasn't able to finish the project I was working on.  I had made a number of bibs and burp cloths, and I'm knitting a sweater set, but what really caught my eye was the "Grow Chart" from the Fall 2013 Quilts From Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks.  Of course, she wasn't pregnant when I bought the magazine, and I chose it for a number of other projects in it, but when I heard that a baby was on the way, I knew I had to make it!
This is what my version of the wall-hanging looks like:

My daughter and her hubby were thrilled with it, and were immediately trying to decide where to hang it.

I also had a knitting project on the go for my oldest daughter.  I've had a sweater that I knit for myself when I was about 19 - I've literally loved it to pieces - there's a hole where the left elbow used to be, and another one in the collar.  Unfortunately, I've long since lost the pattern, and letters to the pattern company have gone unanswered.  My daughter LOVES that sweater, and has been hinting for 2 or 3 years that she'd love one just like it.  Not having the pattern for it is a bit of a problem - that is, until I picked up Fons and Porter's Love of Knitting Fall 2014 issue - and there was a sweater pattern that really closely resembled my sweater (the Olive Jacket)!  Both DD#2 and I decided that it was a close enough match to the original.  I even found yarn in a close-enough colour - and she is THRILLED with it!  This is what it looks like:

So, I have to finish only one small project that was meant to be a Christmas gift, and then I'm reasonable close to being caught up!  Hooray!  It feels good!

On my needles....

Here's another Christmas gift that I'm trying (rather frantically now!) to finish by Monday!  I found the pattern on Ravelry - it's called Pears the Elephant.  I love the original bright purple for the body, but that colour is no longer available, so I've gone more traditional, with a colour called Wallaby.  The yarn only seems to be available from KnitPicks - and I'm loving how it's working up!

Obviously, I've got a way to go!  I'm hoping to have "her" finished no later than Sunday night - and the plans for tomorrow involve doing laundry and knitting - even shopping is on hold!  Keep your fingers crossed that I manage to pull this off!

I'm off to link up on Judy's page.

This is what I've been busy doing....

I still can't post a pic of my November "ALYoF" project, (check back on Tues.!), but there are other things I've been busily sewing while we're waiting for our first grandchild to make his appearance.
What baby / mom doesn't need a few burp cloths? and babies always need bibs, right?  So, I paired up some flannel fabrics for burp cloths, and some cotton and flannel for bibs, and gifted them to my daughter at her baby shower on Nov. 15th.  Of course, I totally forgot to take pictures, so I had to wait for my DD to send me some, and they have finally made their way to me!  Here are the bibs:

and the burp cloths:

November 2014 wrap-up

So, it's Nov. 30th, and it's the last day of the month to record my progress, both knitting and sewing/quilting.
My "A Lovely Year of Finishes" project is done, but I finished it too late for my daughter's baby shower - so, I still have to give it to her, and I still can't share a pic of the completed project.  I will share a few "sneak peeks" though - and it will be gifted to her on Dec. 7th or 8th, so look for the final pics then.  The pics:
This is the bottom left corner - the project is a wall-hanging for the nursery; the 2nd pic is the top of the back - the corners have diagonal "pockets" for a small dowel, which is what the wall-hanging will actually hang from.
I also finished my Christmas gift project, so I can share that for my "On the Needles" report - the infinity scarf was already completed, but the matching mittens were still being knitted - thankfully, they're also done, so I can link that project up on Judy's site.  Here's what the finished set looks like:

I guess that means that I'm ready for December!

On my needles - shh! It's Christmas gifts!

So, I know that daughter #1 doesn't read my blog at all, so I'm safe showing this Christmas gift.  I made an infinity scarf, and I've got the matching mittens almost finished.  The scarf looks kind of short, but it's a ribbed variation, and it stretches out a lot.  I can wear it wrapped twice around my neck, or with one wrap over my head, with a second wrap around my neck - it all depends on what the weather is like....
I bought the yarn at Mary Maxim about 5 years ago - just happened to hit there during their annual summer Tent Sale, and scooped up all 5 balls of this Caron Simply Soft yarn - and it feels so soft and snuggly!  I'll probably have some of the yarn left over - there might even be enough to make another pair or two of (smaller) mitts for the mitten tree at my MIL's church.  I'd have to have them done by Dec. 1st, so I think I'd better stop writing, and get knitting!
Here's the scarf, and the almost completed mitts:

I just wish you could feel how soft the yarn is!

Some baby-related items!

So, we had my daughter's baby shower yesterday, and had a wonderful time, seeing some folks that we hadn't seen in some time.  Unfortunately, not everyone was able to attend, but we made the best of the day! I wasn't able to finish the project that I hinted at last week, but as soon as it's completed and delivered, I'll post the pics.
I did make a number of items for the shower; just can't believe that I forgot to take pics of some of the items! Maybe I'll have to get her to return some of the goodies for a photo shoot....
So, here is the receiving blanket, and the change pad (folded up) and unrolled:

I've had a half-yard of the Newton sheep fabric for about 7 years - finally found just the right project for it!

I've also made a little progress with my knitting - the back of the sweater is completed to the yoke, and I've started the fronts.  I prefer knitting both of the fronts, and then the sleeves, at the same time - that way, the shaping gets done at exactly the same place on both pieces.

But right now, Christmas knitting has taken over my knitting time.  We've always made the choice to open our gifts on a day other than Christmas day, mostly to focus on the real meaning of Christmas on Dec. 25th, and also because both of our daughters work retail-type jobs, and being able to take 2 consecutive days off at Christmas is almost impossible.  This year, we're getting together to open our gifts on Dec. 7th and 8th - which means that I really need to concentrate on those gifts - the baby isn't due until Jan.!

Catching up....

I know that it's only been about 2 weeks since I last blogged, but it seems like a lot longer..... and to solve that problem, I'm going to combine a post or three!
First off - my "A Lovely Year of Finishes" post - I'm supposed to share a picture of what I'm hoping to accomplish this month - well, I can write a bit about it, but I can't show a pic just yet, because it's for my daughter's baby shower, and she reads my blog!  So, what I'll do is show you some of the fabrics for the project, and the I'll share the completed project later this month, okay?  Good.  Here are a few of the fabrics - so, have you figured it out yet?  LOL!

Next up is my "On the Needles" post - again, a baby project, but this one she chose, and is totally aware of.  The baby isn't due until later in January, so I have some time - and I have 2 or 3 Christmas projects that need to be finished first, but again, she reads my blog...!

Then there's my final brown blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  December's colour is light blue, and I have my fabrics cut, but I needed to show these last two blocks for October.

Finally, this blog IS called "Quilting and Card-making" and I do occasionally have to show a card - this one is for a special friend's birthday.

So, I think I'm caught up again for a bit - I should be popping in again in a day or two, or three........ hopefully! 

October's brown blocks

I know that the summer just flew by, but that won't happen again, right?  So, what happened to October? One day it was the 3rd, and then it was (Canadian) Thanksgiving on the 13th, and then it was - wait, it's the 25th?  What happened?  Well, now that I think of it, there was a quilt show, and a few appointments, and a baby shower to plan, and Christmas plans to sort out.... so, I guess that I shouldn't be too surprised!
Before I let too much more time slip past, I should share my RSC blocks - seeing as this is the last Saturday of the month.  I managed to get my Braid strips done, and my Kickin' Stash blocks finished too - and I hope to be able to get the X and + blocks done on Mon. or Tues.....
Angela chose brown for October's blocks - which is fine with me, because I have a lot of bits of brown fabric - and they look pretty good with last month's orange blocks!  Here they are:

I'm looking at the braid strips just lined up side-to-side, and I'm liking the look!  I was anticipating putting sashing strips between each strip, but now I'm beginning to think that just off-setting them by a row up or down will look great - but I still have two months worth of strips to add....  I'm going to keep that in mind though!

I'm hoping to share some new cards in the next day or two - and those last blocks too - and then I'll wait to see what Angela chooses for November's colour!

A special birthday card

Can't believe that it's been 3 weeks since I last posted - so I'm popping in quickly to post a birthday card.  I made this one for my MIL's birthday at the end of September, and just forgot to post it then - so, you get to see it today!

I've had the embossing folders for quite a while, but the flower dies are fairly new.  I'm still trying to figure out how best to use them - I'm having issues with the dies not cutting through the card-stock cleanly.  I hope I've got the solution now!  I love the effect of the yellow pistils (stamens?) give - they got sort of stuck in the die, so I had to push them out with a pin, making them curve toward the center a bit - and it made them look very natural.  The best part was, my MIL loved the card!  

Scrappy fall colours!

I'm just quickly checking in with my Rainbow Scrappy Challenge "blocks" - Angela chose orange for September.  Up until June or July, I didn't have a lot of orange fabric, but, now that I've had a chance to gather some, I managed to get my blocks done!  I'm using my peach and rust fabrics too, so that it looks like I've got a biggish stash.
I've had my fabrics cut for 2 weeks, but life has just been too busy to get to sewing.  Thankfully, a lot of the things that have clogged my calendar are now behind me - and I spent about an hour in my sewing room today, pulling these blocks together.
First are the Japanese x and + blocks:

I LOVE the orange dots with the random brown spots in the 2nd block!  The little triangles on the bottom left corner of the 2nd block have little brown and peach turtles on them - so cute!  Also, you might have to enlarge the pic so you can see that the + in the 2nd block isn't made of the same fabric as the upper right corner....

Next up are the 5 braid strips: 

I'm getting really excited to see what colours Angela chooses for the last 3 months - and then these strips will be finished!

Finally there's the Kickin' Stash blocks - I repeated some of my favourite fabrics, but I was surprised to see how many "orange" fabrics I really had!  I found some scrappy bits left over from a jelly roll - that gave me an additional 4 fabrics!

So, now that I have my September blocks finished, I'm ready to find out which scraps will see the light of day for October!

What to do....

I'm quickly running out of time to choose a project for September's "A Lovely Year of Finishes' - and the problem is, I have too many to choose from!  Plus, September is going to be a really crazy, busy month, so I have to choose wisely!
I HAVE to finish this Christmas wall-hanging

by Sept. 24th, to be able to enter it into one of my local fairs, so it's the obvious choice, AND it might be the best choice, seeing as I may not have enough time to do anything else.  The center of the wall-hanging was created with my Twister tool, and, once I got the hang of it, it was fairly easy to do.  Now that I have the hard part done, I just have to put on the 2 borders (narrow red, and wider green and white Christmas-sy fabric) on it, and then quilt it and add the hanging sleeve.  I recently bought some great gold "pearls" on a string that I might add to give the illusion of garland, but I haven't decided on that yet....  Come to think of it, that may be more than I have time for, but that's the purpose of ALYoF - challenging myself to finish a project!
So, that's it then - here's hoping it will get done in time!

August updates

Hold on to your hats folks - this is going to be a long one!  I have 3 different updates to catch up on, and they all need to be done by midnight tonight, so here goes!
First off, my knitting - last week I had almost 1 slipper sock knit, and I was very confident that I'd have the second one done by this past Friday - and I almost made it!  The slipper sock is done; it just took a little longer to finish.  If you look at the post from Aug. 22nd, you'll see that the top 3 bands didn't really slouch the way they should have, so I decided to tack them down enough to make them stand out.  Now that the knitting is done, I've tacked the bands down, and they look SO much more like the pattern picture - have a look - what do you think?

I've tried them on, and they feel nice and warm - so I'll set them aside until the colder weather sets in - like in January maybe....

Then, on Aug. 6th, I posted my ALYoF goal for August - to complete the top for my herringbone quilt.  I used 2 Vintage Modern charm packs and some Snow Kona cotton yardage to make the 2-block set needed for each "blade" of the herringbone.  When that was completed, I crawled around on the floor, trying to get a pleasing mix of colours and patterns, and finally accomplished that.  More crawling ensued, so that I could pin the strips together, and it was finally ready to assemble.  Some green Kona was used to make the first narrow border, and a wider border of Vintage Modern fabric completed the top - and here's that picture: 

I would have preferred a less "busy" fabric for the outer border, but it was difficult to find any of this fabric line, so we'll carry on with this one!

Finally, I haven't shared any of my Rainbow Scrappy Challenge blocks for this month...  That would probably be because I didn't get them assembled until yesterday afternoon!  So, instead of getting them a bit at a time, you'll be seeing all 3 of my challenge projects at once (and hopefully, that won't happen again!)  Here they are: Scrappy Braids,

  Japanese X and + blocks,

and finally my Kickin' Stash blocks:

Congratulations if you've hung on all the way to the end!  I promise that I'll try harder next time to post throughout the month!  Thanks for checking in!

On the Needles

It's been a while since I shared an "OtN" report - partly because I haven't done any more work on my blue shrug / sweater.  It hasn't been terrifically hot here this past summer, so I can't use that as an excuse.....  I have been doing some gardening and preserving, and some crocheting - but most of the knitting things I have on the go right now require a fair bit of attention as I'm knitting, and that's been hard to give lately.
BUT, I did start a quick and fairly easy project 2 days ago, so I thought that I'd share it with you.
Here is my first attempt at making a slipper sock that my girls can use when they come to visit in the winter. The yarn is some unlabeled stuff that I picked up at a tent sale last summer, and it's the perfect weight for this pattern.

The slipper sock has 3 sections of reverse stockinette at the top of the leg - the first and third bands are a coordinating green yarn (that's also used for the heel and toe), and the second band is the variegated yarn that the rest of the slipper in knit up in.  For some reason, the first band curled up like it shows in the pattern, but the other two don't seem to want to, so I may end up tacking them down to give that look.  

At the rate these are knitting up, I should have the pair done for next Friday!

This is what I'm planning to do this month!

It's already almost too late to enter my quilting project for the ALYoF challenge - August seems to be flying by as quickly as July did!  But, I still have a day (phew!) to link up on Melissa's site so I'd better get going!  I'm choosing a fairly simple project for this month - it's bound to get kind of crazy around here, so a bigger project probably won't get done in time.
I've seen a number of Herringbone quilts around blogland, and I've wanted to make one for a while.  I had 2 charm packs of Vintage Modern that I had cut in half diagonally about 2 or 3 months ago to use as leaders and enders - but, you know how that goes - you can't sew just one!  Pretty soon, my original project took a back seat so I could piece these blocks (that might explain why my June project didn't get done on time!).  But that's where the fun ended - trimming blocks isn't my favourite thing to do - but I'm thankful when they're done!  So, the HST blocks just sat there for a few weeks...
Now that July's project is out of the way, I'm ready to go!  I stitched a few blocks together and staged them as they'll end up in the quilt - and I discovered that you really have to make sure that you piece an equal amount of left-hand and right-hand blocks, or the pattern doesn't work.
I have no idea how big this quilt will be - but as long as it's at least 32" square, it will do for the organization that will be getting this quilt.
So, here are a few of the blocks:

I think I'm going to like this quilt!

It's finished!!!!

It took an extra month, but my Black and White and Lime Swoon is DONE!!!
I have no idea how big it is - bigger than I need it to be, so borders aren't going to happen.  I LOVE this quilt!

Each of the B&W fabrics are different - the Lime is a tone-on-tone, and the background is Kona Snow.

Catching up with quilting and knitting posts

Sigh.....  I think that I'm at least one day late for posting my "On the Needles" update, and almost late for my "Rainbow Scrappy Challenge", but I have a few good reasons!
First - my knitting report - my prayer shawl for Ila is finished AND delivered to her.  Thankfully, she was allowed to go home from the hospital on Thursday, I believe.  I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do that Monday maybe.  This is the completed shawl:

I ended up having to hem up the bottom edge - even blocking it didn't stop it from wanting to curl and roll up.  Sewing up about 1/2" minimized that nicely.  I almost forgot to take the pic, so it isn't stretched out properly, but you can see the completed shawl.

Then, my sis and her hubby came to visit this afternoon - they live about a 3-hour drive away, so we don't get to see each other very often, but when we do, it's non-stop chat about all sorts of different things.  After they left, I had an hour or so to hit the sewing room - I've walked into the sewing room a few times this past week, but this was the first time I actually got to sit down at the machine.  I got the 3 red sections sewn onto each of my 5 rainbow Technicolour Braid strips - and here they are: 

The strips are starting to get too long to fit in the picture, so I folded them each up a bit, and then you get an idea of the "rainbow" aspect of them.  

I'll be linking both projects up to their respective challenges in a minute, but I wanted to show you a rather big "OOPS". I'm starting a strip quilt using a "Bobbins and Bits" jelly roll, and as I finish a section of whatever I'm sewing, I stitch up 2 sections of jelly roll as a "leader - ender" project.  The fabrics are nice and bright, and I can hardly wait to see how the strips are going to look when they're assembled into the quilt.  As I was pressing a few of the blocks, I thought that I saw something unusual, so I tried to get a better look.  When you design a fabric line, it might be a good idea to have a proofreader if you're going to use quilty sayings on some of the fabrics - can you see what I found in these 2 strips?

I also have about 1/2 yard of the cream fabric, but the spelling is correct on it - interesting, VERY interesting!

I'll have to make more of an effort to get sewing this week - I'm nowhere near finishing my July ALYoF project, and I'm not sure I have enough time left to finish it.  Maybe I should get back to that now!

July's colour - RED!

Okay, so I'm just a wee bit late posting this, but, better late than never, right?  I grabbed a bit of sewing time late Saturday evening, and managed to get 2 sets of blocks done.  It's so much easier to do that when you have your fabrics cut ahead of time.  I think I spent 1 1/2 hours cutting one afternoon, but didn't have time to sew then - and that's how I managed to pull these blocks together in such a short time.
First up - my Kickin' Stash blocks:

Trust me - that one strip in the left-hand block IS red (and white), so, even though it shows up as pink, it's not!

Next up are the Japanese x and + blocks - and this time, I sorted my reds into "true" reds for 2 blocks, and the other 2 blocks are more "earthy" reds.  I really wanted to give all my reds a fair shot!  It should be fairly obvious which blocks are which:

  I still have my Technicolour Braid blocks to do, but I have to save something for next week!

A graduation card...

I just noticed that this week's trend for the "Just Us Girls" card-making challenge is wood grain.  I so rarely get to participate in the challenges, so I jumped at the chance to take part this time!  My nephew graduated from Grade 8 two weeks ago - and my dad just mentioned that he wanted to give him a small gift, but he needed a card to give as well.  You don't need to ask me twice for a hand-made card!  I had picked up a wood-grain embossing folder a few months ago - with a few woodworking family members, it's a handy thing to have.  I'd seen a card somewhere in my travels, that used a paper tree with a knot-hole to "house" an owl, so I used that idea.  I had borrowed a friend's SU owl punch a few months ago, and I punched out a bunch of owls, with their matching vests and little heart shapes, so I assembled a congratulatory owl to sit in my "tree".  Here he is, in all his glory:

Dad loves the card, and I hope my nephew does too!

On my needles Fri. July 11, 2014

I've been working hard this week to get Ila's prayer shawl done.  I've managed to get quite a few inches knit up - and I'm more than half done, but I'd love to have it finished already.  Ila's DDIL called this morning to say that she was scheduled for a brain biopsy sometime today;  she's had a number of tests done in the past week, and she's quite drained by all of it.  She could really use a prayer shawl!
This is what it looks like now:

I realized about 2 rows back that I'd mis-read the pattern - the eyelet rows are supposed to be knit every 20 rows, not every 10 as I've done.  I like this look though, and I'll continue to knit it wrong - besides that, I don't have time to pull it all back and re-knit it...

I'm linking up on Judy's On the Needles site.

Here I am again!

I apologize for not updating a little more regularly - and, unfortunately, I think that it may happen again a time or two this summer.  But I'm here now - partly because of some unpleasant news that we received Saturday evening.  A very dear friend of mine has been diagnosed with a brain tumour.  That sort of news hits hard, especially since she's the perfect mix of surrogate mother and best friend....
I've been re-reading Debbie Macomber's "Blossom Street" series - the stories (mostly) revolve around a yarn shop, and the people who work and shop there.  Most of the books include a knitting class as part of the story-line, and a pattern that's used in the class is also provided.  Why bring this up now?  Because I just finished "Back on Blossom Street" - and the project that the class worked on was prayer shawls!  I've been wondering what I could do to help Ila get through the testing and uncertainty that this diagnosis can bring (for both of us), and the idea of knitting a prayer shawl came to me during church yesterday morning.  I spent some time looking at online patterns and came across this one on Ravelry.  I found some yarn in my stash that I'm hoping will be just the right thing, and I got started on it this morning.  This is my progress so far:

The yarn is soft and light-weight - perfect for this time of year, and I love the colour of it.

I also needed a birthday card for another friend, and, of course, there aren't any made up in my box.   I've posted a lot of cards to my Pinterest boards, and I found one that I decided would make a wonderful birthday greeting.  Fortunately, I had some great designer paper, and matching card-stock, so it didn't take long to come up with this: 

I even discovered some "jewels" that come close the the rusty orange C/S, so they were added, and the card is ready to mail!

Hey, what happened to June?

I think I'm safe to say that this summer is flying by all of a sudden....  I know that quite a few bloggers have commented on how quickly June came and went, and I'm joining their ranks.  I had such great plans to get my Black, White and Lime "Swoon" quilt top assembled for my ALYoF June project - and I think I blinked, because June is gone, and I'm NOWHERE near finishing.  I did manage to get started, not without problems - let's just say that it's NOT a good idea to cut HSTs when you're tired...  I cut the wrong sized blocks, and then couldn't find any extra fabric to re-cut the blocks, so I had to find a different B&W fabric, and then re-cut all the pieces needed for that particular block.  Now I'm back on track; I have the HSTs all sewn together, and am ready to start assembling the flying geese blocks.  Needless to say, this will now be my JULY goal for ALYoF!
Here's a picture of some of the blocks I managed to sew for June:

I'll be linking up this project on Melissa's site.

More Yellow Goodness!

I know that I'm a day late posting this - the blocks were done yesterday, but I just ran out of time and energy to post anything.  I did laundry - hung most of it on the clothesline - then decided to check out the veggie garden....  We've had a bit of rain in the past few days - just enough to get the weeds going!  At first, I thought I'd just pull them out, but using the small hoe and trowel made the job much more productive.  Of course, I'm paying for that half-hour now ;-(
But, I did get my last yellow blocks done!  These are my Kickin' Stash blocks - and I LOVE how good they look!  I didn't think that they'd show up really well against the white of the blocks, but choosing darker yellows helped a lot.
So, I'm sure that you'd like to see the blocks - and then I'm off to link up to the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge page:

Lots of yellow-y goodness for a Saturday!

(I know that it's Sunday!  It was too late to post this last night).
I actually got to spend about 15 minutes in my sewing room last night.  Our kids surprised DH and I with a mostly un-announced visit - DD#1 called to say she was coming home for a few days (Thurs. to Sat.); she also casually mentioned that DD#2 might be showing up after work on Fri. evening...  Well, DD#2 arrived with her hubby - and our son showed up too!  He actually had to learn to drive a car with a standard transmission on Thurs. evening so he could come home.  Hubby and I both had birthdays the first week of June, and our wedding anniversary this past week, and the kids wanted to celebrate all of those events with us.
So, what did I do with my 15 minutes of sewing?  I had pre-cut all the yellow fabrics I'd need for this month's yellow Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, so it didn't take long to add to my scrappy technicolor braid, and to put my Japanese + and x blocks together.
I also did a bit of fabric shopping this week, and found some orange FQs, just in case the colour orange should pop up some time this year - *hint, hint* Angela!  It can be a difficult fabric colour to find, so I figured I'd better grab it while I could!
So, check out my scrappy yellow blocks, and check Angela's site for other yellow scrappy goodness!

 

I'm cutting it close!

You'd think that with all the half-done projects I have, it would be easy to pick one for my June "A Lovely Year of Finishes" project... so why has it taken me this long to decide on one?  I finished quilting my May choice, and then right away quilted a baby quilt (I've almost finished sewing down the binding), but, even though I've got 3 more quilts that are layered and ready to quilt, I really don't feel like quilting another one right now.
So....... I decided that I'm going to start a project that's been cut for about 8 months - it seems like every time I was ready to start piecing it, something would come up, and I'd have to put it aside; and then another project would get put on top of it, and I'd forget about it....  But not any more!  June's ALYoF project is going to be my Black & White & Lime Swoon quilt!  I think I'll be doing well to finish the top, so don't look for a complete quilt - but, if it happens, that will be a happy bonus!
Here's a pic of some of my fabrics - the B&Ws change from block to block, but the green will be constant:

I'm off to post this on Melissa's site.