My latest scrappy project

This quilt might look a bit familiar...  I blogged about some of the blocks here - and I finally had time to put them together and add them to a previously started quilt.  These scrappy Trip Around the World quilts are addictive!

I've also been working on an I-spy quilt for a new baby - the son and DIL of a very dear friend were expecting their first baby, and I wanted to make a quilt that would take him or her beyond the baby stage. Hopefully, this will be a gift that would become a fun activity for this baby, and for any future children that they might have.  It's mostly assembled, and I'll share the picture of the finished quilt in a few days.  Thankfully, little Evan was born yesterday, and is already the joy and delight of his parents!  This is what he has to look forward to:

I'm going to link up to Judy's Design Wall post, plus Leanne's Scraptastic Tuesday post, and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap! post.  

On My Needles (a few days late)

It's been a little while since I've shared a knitting-project blog post, and I thought it was time to change that.  My life is still far more crazy right now than I prefer, but setting aside some knitting time every day helps a bit.  It also helps that both of my daughters have friends that are expecting!  DD#2's friend actually just had her baby, a little girl, and that made me so happy!  I had bought some really pretty pink tonal yarn a few months ago, hoping that one of the expected babies would be a girl, and the first one was!
So, I finally get to knit another sweater from my new favourite baby book!  This sweater is the cover design - I loved it from the start!  I'm not so sure now that my yarn choice was the best to highlight the openwork, but it is what it is....
The body of the sweater is done, and now I'm working on the sleeves:

I'm almost at the point of starting the raglan shaping.  I've worked to make sure that the stripe pattern in the yarn matches on both sides.  Then I'll just have the button bands and neck ribbing to knit.  I'm still debating whether to add the hat....

I'm linking up to Judy's On The Needles post for June 10, 2016.

May wrap-up

Another month has flown by - but I know that it was full of all kinds of activities, some happy, some not so much...  So, maybe it's a good thing that tomorrow we turn the calendar page to June and start again!
I did get quite a few projects completed in May - my Hands2Help quilts of course, and my Quilty 365 blocks; I also finished a Twisted Sisters quilt and a wedding gift quilt.
I'm going to share the Quilty 365 blocks first - normally I would have shown you week by week, but with our computer issues, I wasn't able to show the first 2 week's worth, so I decided to just show them all at the end of the month.  I started this project on Jan. 1st, so I've now completed 152 Dancing Plus blocks!  Here are the latest 31:

I'm sorry that it's not the best picture, but I

it's my only option for right now.

Next up is my Twisted Sisters quilt (pattern by Ami Simms) - the background fabric is a"cloud" print, and I took my pinwheel colours from that fabric.  I had some yellow binding left from my big H2H quilt, and I thought that it would work on this quilt as well; it was obviously meant to be, because I had EXACTLY enough to bind this quilt with about 4" left over!

Finally, the wedding quilt!  My son was the best man for the wedding of his best friend since grade 5(?) - and we were all really happy when he met, courted, and proposed to, and married his beautiful bride.  The happy occasion needed a quilt!  It's a "throw" size - it should be big enough for them to snuggle under when they watch movies together, or to curl up under when one of them has a cold or the 'flu.  The pattern is called "The H Quilt" but I labelled it as "H is for Happiness" - and we hope and pray that they're blessed with lots of happy days!

I think I'm ready for June!

(I'll be linking up with Quilty 365 and Oh Scrap)

I'm back!

Hello all!  I'm sorry for my sudden absence - we had major computer issues - and while we quickly got a replacement, it took hubby quite a while to get our files transferred to the new computer.  Add in some major family responsibilities, hubby's full-time job, my computer illiteracy, and you get an "absentee" blogger.
So now that we seem to have things mostly back to normal, I can share some of the things I've been doing the past few weeks!  I'll spread it out over 2 or 3 posts, or you'll be reading this way past your bedtime....
I'll start with the most important things first: my Hands2Help quilts.  This is my second year taking part in this charity challenge, and I've had a lot of fun both years.  The charity that will be getting my quilts is the Yukon Women's Transition Home.  They need quilts for the women and their children that have fled abusive situations; they'll be starting new lives with the help of the Transition Home, and the donated quilts.
I made quilts for both a girl and a boy,

and a mom.

The "mom" quilt was a New Year's day mystery quilt from 2 or 3 years ago.  I finished the top, and then put it aside because life got busy.  A few months later, I found a great print for the back, so it got layered and ready to quilt, and then was set aside again - until last week.  Now it's quilted and bound and ready to go to someone that needs some encouragement.  They'll be going out in the morning, and I'm linking up to Sarah's linky party.

Have I already said how much fun I've had making these quilts?!

I've been busy!

I can use that as my excuse for not posting lately - really!  I have been busy - just look at what I've done...
First off, I forgot to post my Quilty 365 blocks for last week, so I'll start with them:

Some of the fabrics came from my stash, and a few will show up in one of my later photos.  These blocks are for Apr. 17-23.

Then, I spent a morning at a friend's house - a few of us gather there every second Monday morning to make cards.  It's a hobby I've been enjoying for about 11 years.  

I realized last week that I had completely run out of birthday cards, and I know that I'm going to need a few in the next week or two, so I managed to make these 2 (and a few others) that morning. Hubby and I have a wedding to attend in a few weeks, and what better wedding gift than a cuddle quilt?  I had to go shopping for some of these lovely prints, and I may have to get one or two more lime greens.  I'm not so sure that I'll be keeping the 2 grey and lime circle fabrics...  The quilt is a quick sew - large blocks, separated by Kona Snow sashing and grey cornerstones.

And finally, I have done some more significant sewing - these are just a few of the 12 Scrappy Trip-Around-the-World quilt blocks I've assembled in the last 2 days.

Now I'm off to run some errands - the fabric shop is calling my name!

I'm linking up to Oh Scrap!

Some scrappy fun!

I've been putting off a very important task - something I've needed to do for at least the past 6 months - cleaning out my sewing room.  My sewing space started off upstairs, then got moved to the basement - and I vowed to sort it out long before Christmas.  Well, I'm sure that you know what happened - nothing!  There were too many gifts to make, then quilting challenges came up... and it was always too easy to come up with an excuse to put it off.  But now I'm working on my Hands2Help quilts, and I needed a bigger space to work in - so I got some of my space cleaned out.  And guess what - I found a whole pile of sewn

 and cut up strips, ready to be reassembled into scrappy Trip Around the World blocks!  So I had to put everything else aside to make up a few blocks: 
But then reality struck, and I figured that I'd better get to work on what I really needed to put together - my Hands2Help quilts.  These quilts will be going to the Yukon Women's Transition Home, for the women and their children.  I had already sewn the individual blocks up for both the boy and the girl quilts; I had even auditioned a few layouts, but then I decided to make both quilts a little bigger.  I played around with different layouts, and finally decided on 2 different ones.  Here's the boy quilt top:

and the girl's quilt top: 

Finally, while I was on a roll, I decided that I should share my Quilty 365 blocks for this past week - the 

yellow one is today's block, celebrating that spring (and the sunshine!) seems to have finally arrived; the pink floral is for my dear friend Ila, who would have celebrated her birthday yesterday.
I'm going to link up to Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop-whoop, and also Leanne's Scraptastic Tuesday posts.

Orange and purple flowers...

I'm still plugging along on my various scrappy projects - the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, and Quilty 365. You may remember that I didn't actually finish my purple Pieced Tulips for March's Rainbow Scrappy Challenge - but I've not only caught up with the purple blocks that I should have completed for last month, but I've leapt ahead and made all 5 blocks in April's chosen colour (orange)!
On top of all of that, I've still keeping up with my daily Quilty 365 (Dancing Plus) blocks.  I'm trying to make a few quilts for the Hands2Help quilt project, and I have 2 newer projects to make, sooner rather than later. One is a quilt for one of my son's best friends.  Mark, and the love of his life, Ashley, are getting married in about a month, so a quilt is definitely required.  I chose the pattern a few months ago, and I've been picking up fabric here and there, but the time has come to get that quilt assembled!  As well, the son of a very dear friend and his wife, are expecting their first baby early this summer - again, a perfect occasion for a quilt!
So far, only the Pieced Tulip blocks and the Quilty 365 blocks are ready to show - so, first are the five purple blocks from March:

Two of them were done in March (the lightest and the darkest blocks), but I finally made the other 3 blocks.

I was on a roll, and I decided that it would just make sense to carry on with the April blocks in orange!

And, while I had the orange fabric out, I cut a block for the Quilty 365 project - it's here with the blocks for the first 9 days of April.

Just in case you're thinking that I haven't done much the past few weeks, let me assure you that a lot of knitting has also been accomplished - nothing that I can share right now - but it's taken up some of my valuable "crafting" time.  I've also been spending a lot of time with my dad - he just turned 87 at the end of March, and needs a little extra attention... and I managed to spend a day looking after my favourite (and only!) grandson.

I'm planning to post two quilt tops that I've assembled for Hands2Help in the next day or two, so pop back in Tues. or Wed. to see what I've done for this wonderful charity project - or click on the button on my sidebar to check out what they need - maybe you can help them out too!

I'm off to link-up with So Scrappy - there are lots of lovely orange projects there!