Green Scraps - Chapter II

Buckeye Beauty Blocks

8 inch finished

Green is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month.

This week I made Buckeye Beauty blocks. First I dug into my 2.5 inch width scrap bin and pulled out all of the pieces that were long enough to make into a Four Patch.  Then from green and neutral scrap chunks I cut and made HSTs. Then the blocks were assembled. 

 

If I make a few more blocks I will have enough for an all green/neutral comfort quilt. Or these can be the start of another collection of blocks in all colors to be made at year end into comfort quilts. If I go that route then I need to catch up on making Buckeye Beauty blocks in all of this year's previously called RSC colors. 

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

****

Do you remember that earlier this year I participated in the 2025 Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR)? I made 5 kiddo sized row quilt tops. Well, I won one of the prizes and it arrived yesterday!

Can you believe it? A smart iron. Who knew? 

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Whole Bunch of Baskets

The May theme in my sewing space to move UFOs forward is "Baskets". 

Earlier this year I received a lot of blocks for making into comfort quilts from Sherron. I pulled out some of the gorgeous basket blocks for the center of a medallion quilt.

So far I've just added a border.

The weather has been beautiful so I've spent most of my days the last week outside in my gardens but with a few minutes here and there I did manage to make a few more Little Baskets that finish at four inches.  I now have 51 Little Baskets toward my goal of 110. 

And sew on...

Finished OR NOT Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

****

Finished a book - The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict.  

An AI Overview -

"The Other Einstein" by Marie Benedict is a fictionalized account of the life of Mileva Maric, Einstein's first wife, focusing on her intelligence, scientific aspirations, and the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-dominated field. The novel explores the dynamic between Maric and Einstein, highlighting their intellectual partnership and the sacrifices Maric made to accommodate both his fame and social expectations of the time. It also delves into the question of Maric's potential contributions to Einstein's theories, specifically the special theory of relativity. 

And I might add...I didn't know Albert Einstein was such a big jerk.

 

Wednesday Wandering

Tree Peonies are in bloom!

I've been pretty busy in the gardens lately. Now that the last frost date has passed by I've been planting seeds of everything from beans to zinnias and I'm still not finished sowing. 

This beautiful Wednesday afternoon I went out wandering through the gardens with my camera. 

My tree peonies bloom before the herbaceous peonies.  Tree peonies are woody and do not die back to the ground each year like herbaceous peonies. 

(No, that big woody limb does not belong to that Tree Peony! It's a mulberry limb that fell into the garden about seven years ago or so.)

You can kind of see the woody limbs of this Tree Peony sticking out at the side. 

Shooting Stars

They are slow to multiply but now I have several little clumps of them in my native wildflower area. 

Camassia. I have four different varieties. This is the first patch to bloom.

They are not all that fancy; however, they are a nice pop of color in the garden this time of year. 

Stop and smell the lilacs.

Trillium in bloom at the base of a rose bush.

Sweet Rocket. I never know where it will pop up. It seeds itself here there and everywhere. 

One of many climps of wild or species tulips. It seems critters leave the species tulips alone but love to devour any other tulips so I've quit trying to grow any type of the fancy tulips I love. 

Critters also leave the Daffodils alone. I've fallen in love with the many varieties of miniature Daffs. These are fragrant. 

Another miniature fragrant variety of Daffss. 

The shade garden has several different varieties of fragrant mini Daffs too.  And, look!...the Aquilegia (or Columbine) are starting to bloom. I've started them from seed over the years and some varieties have seeded themselves here and there. 

This year I sowed a mixed variety of McKanna's Giant Aquilegia and will be planting them in the gardens soon. 

Aquilegia

Aquilegia

Aquilegia

Some of the other varieties are not in bloom yet.

This is the native variety of Aquilegia and it is in my native wildflower garden. 

Hostas are starting to pop up here and there to give some color to shady areas.

About 25 years ago I bought several different Hostas on clearance at Walmart. I have separated them many times now over the years and given some away. That's a Hellebore in bloom in front of the Hosta. 

Hosta

This is a smaller piece of a bigger Hosta I planted a couple of years ago. Depending upon how much shade/light it gets the leaves might look blue. And an older more mature Hosta of this variety gets at least two feet tall and the leaves are huge. 

And sow on...

 

It's A Flimsy! Flower Baskets

It's a flimsy!

It's a top!

Flower Baskets

65 x 78

The May theme in my sewing space to move UFOs forward is "Baskets". 

I can't believe I started making Flower Baskets back in 2020

I love Basket quilts and had Googled "flower basket quilt" or something like that and when I clicked on the image I liked my Norton Antivirus came up with the message that it was a malicious site so I drafted my own pattern from the picture.  I made 9 inch finished blocks from scraps.

The complete block set has been in my SAR (Some Assembly Required) bin for quite some time so all I had to do was assemble but before I could do that I had to figure out what to use for side setting triangles.  I usually don't have a lot of pieces of fabric over a yard so I was thinking I might have to go with some scrappy flowers for the side setting triangles. I looked in a little box of floral fabrics and that multiflowered piece that was left over from yardage I used long ago for a backing practically jumped into my arms. I didn't have quite enough but with a little "poverty piecing" I made it work. It was meant to be. 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

***

REMEMBER, TREASURE, GROW, READ (my words of the year)

I've finished two books from the 8 books in the Resistance Girls series by Hannah Byron.  -- In Picardy's Fields and The Diamond Courier.

 I've been so busy working in the gardens as weather permits - weeding, planting, sowing. Ended up with "tennis elbow" from repetitive motion using a garden hand tool with fork on one side and hoe on the other. Also chipped my front tooth when I bit off a torn fingernail. (My other front tooth was chipped when I was a freshman in high school and someone pushed my head into the water fountain while I was drinking.) Took pics of what I thought were two wild turkeys roosting on barn roof but then thought they might have been turkey vultures. I was going to study pics closer but ended up accidentally deleting them, darn it.  Been harvesting, eating and sharing asparagus from the garden. I was looking through a lot of my old cookbooks for new recipes for asparagus and noticed a lot of old recipes use asparagus in egg dishes. I also have shared some of my rhubarb crop but havent used any yet myself. Since John can't eat I hate to make a whole rhubarb dessert for myself. 

Hubby John on antibiotic and steroid after they saw something on his chest Xray. He has swallow test on Wed. to see if speech therapy will help him learn to swallow food/drink without aspirating. He sure hopes so!

Thanks for all of your comments the last few posts. I promise I'll reply soon!

 

Green Scraps - Chapter I

Rail Fence

4.5 inch finished.

Green is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for the month of May.

I decided to look at my bin of 2 inch width scraps which mostly contains short lengths of scraps. Last month I started making these Rail Fence blocks with black centers from the longer scraps at least 10 inches long so I could cut two rails. So now with lastt month's red blocks I have 36 blocks. At this point I am just going to make blocks with the longer scraps in the bin and decide how many I need for a quilt  later. My main goal is to empty the 2 inch width scrap bin. 

Easy Breezy

6 inch blocks

I now have 42 toward a goal of 120 or 130

This is another block I started making a few months ago. I have a little bag of sets of four 2 inch squares I'm using for these as well as any 2 inch width scraps 8 inches or so in length. 

Buckeye Beauty blocks

6 inch finished

These blocks are new this month. I first made four patches from 2 inch squares in green plus black scraps. These were cut from 2 inch scraps at least 4 inches in length for two identical squares. Then I made green and black HSTs from green scraps - some came from the 3.5 inch scrap bin and some were cut from scrap chunks.  Two HSTs and two Four Patches combined to make Buckeye Beauty blocks. 

All blocks will have color of month alternating with black scraps. 

25 Patch

7.5 inch finished

Another new block this month is a 25 patch made with 2 inch squares. 

Hopefully all of these blocks using various lengths of 2 inch scraps will empty out my 2 inch width scrap bin. 

Boo Boo Patches

3 x 6

I now have 204 blocks toward my goal of 260 blocks.

These came out of the 1.5 inch width scrap bin. I've been making them for a long time. Maybe this year I will reach my goal. 

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

May Baskets

The theme in my sewing space for May is Baskets. I have five UFOs with baskets that I'll be working on all month.   

Do you remember making May Baskets? I guess it was late 50s or early 60s that I made them - construction paper rolled into a cone shape and a  string inserted at the top foor the handles. The lilacs were usually in bloom and we filled the baskets with lilacs and sometimes a little note or poem and hung the baskets on the door knob of older folks in the neighborhood, rang the doorbell and ran off. I remember...that's why I thought I would make Baskets my theme for May. 

I got started with making a few Little Baskets that finish at four inches to my collection. I now have 41 and I think my goal is 110. Hmmmm...will I make my goal by month end? 

Eventually they will be set on point and alternate with squares of that red fabric with baskets. 

I'll blog about the other four UFOs with baskets as I work on them this month. 

And sew on...

***

Received a box of scraps and fabric from Nann.

My mammogram showed no problems. 

Boxed up two boxes with a total of 11 quilts to be dropped off at UPS today when I make a trip into town to pick up new prescriptions for John. The quilts are going to a coordinator for both Wrap-A-Smile and Quilts Beyond Borders. She will put them to use where they are needed the most. 

 

Throwing In The Towels

I have been out in my gardens most of the week so have done very little sewing. But in the evenings before bed I've been crocheting a few dish cloths and embroidering on a few dish towels. 

One of these days I will make some hot pads/potholders to go with the sets. I have a few scraps of chicken themed fabrics. I used to make sets for stocking stuffers, christmas gifts and housewarming gifts but haven't made any sets for the last five years or so. I have a lot of different dish towels for embroidery I have accumulated over the years with coupons or on clearance and I have a lot of embroidery thread, a lot of it from thrift stores, and I have a lot of embroidery transfers, vintage and new,  and I have a lot of cotton yarn for crocheting the dish cloths so my only investment will be my time. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

***

REMEMBER, TREASURE, GROW, READ (my words of the year)

I've finished two books. I had been reading a lot of WWII historical fiction but had to take a break from that with something a little lighter.

1. Unwritten by Charles Martin. If it was a movie it would be rated as a "chick flick". I've read quite a few of Charles Martin's books (my favs are When Crickets Cry and Chasing Fireflies) and most bring a few tears to my eyes. There's usually a lot of down-and-out characters in his books who find the way out. 

2. The Stars and Their Light by Olivia Hawker. It was historical fiction based on the 1947 Roswell incident. Lives were changed in different ways. It was a slow moving book but interesting.  I've read several of Olivia Hawker's books and this was not one of my favs. 

And now I'm back to reading WWII historical fiction.