Circus Parade Top

It's a top!

Circus Parade

40 x 45

I previously mentioned that Jenny B. sent me a box of small blocks. For this top I used some of the 3 inch finished Pinwheels. 

Someone else had previously sent me some different strip widths of the circus parade fabric. 

I added a few polka dots to the mix. When finished a wee one will be able to sleep under the small Big Top. 

And sew on...

Monday Musings at Brenda's Songbird Designs

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Yesterday I stopped to smell a few roses in my garden. I also pulled some nasty weeds. 

And sow on...

 

Sixteen Patches (Top 2 of 3)

 

It's a top!

Sixteen Patch Strippie

40 x 61

This month I've been working on emptying boxes. I have a lot of them full of this and that cluttering up my little sewing space. I had a small box of Sixteen Patches and Four Patches made of random 2.5 inch squares. Most came from other folks and have accumulated over time.  I decided to see how many Sixteen Patches I could make with the Four Patches.   Then I decided to make them into three different comfort quilts for kids.  I sketched out my three different quilt ideas and was short 2 Sixteen Patches so made a couple from my 2.5 inch squares. 

For this little Strippie quilt I made four rows of five Sixteen Patch blocks and alternated with three rows of 4.5 inch width strips of a very colorful geometric print in the middle of orange 3 inch width strips. 

Then to top (and bottom) it off I added 1.5 inch width strips. 

So, this is top #2 of 3. I hope to complete the other top this week but no guarantees...I'm still in gardening mode and have a lot to do outside. I love flowers as much as I love scraps!

Sixteen Patch and Stars Top #1

Stay tuned!

And sew on...

Sock Monkey Strippie Finish

It's a finish!

Sock Monkey Strippie

36 x 45

Someone gave me some strips of Sock Monkey fabric. 

Someone else gave me some crumb blocks that just happened to have a Sock Monkey in one block. 

They were meant to be together so a Strippie was born. I had enough of the green stripe fabric to add some strips to the mix. 

I assembled the top in November 2025.

I quilted it on my sewing machine with some loops and squiggles. 

There's another green stripe on back and I had enough of that for the binding too. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

A little quilting marathon is going on here in March . Soon I will have boxes of comfort quilts to send off to two of my favorite charities that provide quilts for kids  - Wrap-A-Smile  (WAS)  and      Quilts Beyond Borders.  (QBB).

Wrap-A-Smile (WAS) partners with Rotaplast International.

 Rotaplast International, Inc. is committed to helping children and families worldwide by eliminating the burden of cleft lip and/or palate, burn scarring, and other deformities.

Quilts Beyond Border (QBB) quilts go to many different initiatives both foreign and domestic...foster care, refugees, Indian reservations, orphanages, women's recovery centers...you will just have to go read the QBB blog because I can't remember them all.

****

FYI - Yesterday's blog post was about some quilts I made with some patients of the Feb. 2026 Rotaplast mission in Chattogram, Bangladesh. 

 

I've Been Working On The Railroad

 

It's a finish!

36 x 46

Someone gave me a big pile of 6 inch finished Snowball blocks with red corners. I divided them up into themes and made 3 quilt tops. This one has a train theme. I happened to have that piece of train fabric for a Strippie center. Since most of the Snowballs were blue and the corners were red I decided to go with a primary color scheme.   I made the top back in October 2025. 

I quilted it on my sewing machine with swirls.

The train theme continues on the back. 

And sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

A little quilting marathon is going on here in March . Soon I will have boxes of comfort quilts to send off to two of my favorite charities that provide quilts for kids  - Wrap-A-Smile  (WAS)  and      Quilts Beyond Borders.  (QBB).

Wrap-A-Smile (WAS) partners with Rotaplast International.

 Rotaplast International, Inc. is committed to helping children and families worldwide by eliminating the burden of cleft lip and/or palate, burn scarring, and other deformities.

Quilts Beyond Border (QBB) quilts go to many different initiatives both foreign and domestic...foster care, refugees, Indian reservations, orphanages, women's recovery centers...you will just have to go read the QBB blog because I can't remember them all!

Another Small Top

It's a top!

Sock Monkey Strippie

36 x 45

Some time ago someone gave me some wide strips of the Sock Monkey fabric. I set it aside for some future Strippies. The other day someone gave me some six inch crumb blocks. When I saw a Sock Monkey in a Crumb block I decided it needed to join up with some other Sock Monkeys. 

So I made a Strippie of Sock Monkeys, Crumbs and dark green striped strips. 

It probably won't get quilted and donated until next year. 

And sew on...

I'm Finished With The Elephants In The Room!

Elephants on Parade

42 x 60

It's a finish!

The elephants are in the room because it is too darned cold outside (14 F/windchill 1 F) to go take pics of the elephants hanging on the clothesline. 

Last year someone gave me that 24 x 42 piece of elephant fabric that was just too nice to cut up so I decided to use it as the center of a row quilt. 

I made some rows of 10 inch elephant blocks and the top was completed back in May 2024. 

I quilted it on my sewing machine in swirls of pink thread. The backing is a pink and yellow stripe and the binding is a multicolor stripe. 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

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

I've enjoyed doing a little creative writing off and on since high school. This year I'm trying to gather the writings I can find and put them all together in a notebook. Writing is way I have learned to deal with stress and grief and disappointment and sorrow and loss.  I also write to tell stories about me, others, life, joys and things I'm passionate about. 

My husband was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer back in 2004. In 2009 I took an online creative writing class and one of our assignments was to tell a story with an index.  The story I wrote follows. 

Index to “Ringside at the Big Fight.  Hubby John vs. The Big C”

A

AC/DC – “play it at my funeral”, you said.

“Acid-reflux”, dr. said. It wasn’t.

Advanced.

A scratchy throat,

Anger,

A year gone by.

B

Bandages, gauze and tape.

Base of tongue, biopsy of.

Battle. Hang in there. Struggle. Win the

Big Fight

Bills, piles of.

Blood tests, too many.

Bravery.

C

Cancer.           

Can’t be true.

Can’t eat.

Can’t swallow.

Carcinoma.

CBC  (complete blood count)

         , hct

         , hgb

         , mcv

         , mchc

         , plt

         , rdw. Does the dr. speak English?

Chemo, 5FU, (flurouracil)

           , CDDP, (cisplatin)

           , drugs, who makes up names for?

Cleanliness, importance of.

Crushed pills. 

Constipation, from pain killers. 

                    “Try coffee”, dau. said.

D

Death?

Dehydrated. Rehydrated. 

Depression.

Despair.

Diagnosis – 141.0.

Doctors: Neil,

              Palumbo,

              Rajput,

              Sy,

              Tomek,

               Zaentz.

Don’t die!  Please don’t die.

E

Energy depleted.

Ensure you get enough Ensure.

           You liked generic better. 

           Only vanilla flavor, please.

Ethyol injections -Save the salivary glands. Maybe.

Esophagus, stretching procedure.

                , swallow test.

Every day:

Examinations and

Exhaustion.

F

Failing.

Family worried.

Feeding tube. Food pump. 

Fevers.

Funeral planning? Catholic? Or what?

G

G-tube, aliases - Gastric tube, PEG.

           , dressing wounds

           , falling out

           , flushing

           , giving meds

           , hole

           , protecting

           , problems

           , second one

Gauze, squares. (See bandages).

Google-IT, All of the “its”. 

Grandchildren, angels

                      , born during battle

                      , five weeks apart

                      , miracles

                      , two of them.

H

Helpless.

Hopeful.

Hopeless.

Hospital, in on Halloween.

Huber needles.

Husband, I love you.

I

Incisions.

Infections.

Injections.

In 2003 there were 277,000 new cases of oral cavity

             and pharyngeal cancers

             and 7200 people died from this disease in the U.S.

IVs.

J

Jabbed with needles.

Jackets in warm weather. You, always cold.

Jalapenos, you won’t be able to eat them.

Jargon, doctor’s. Foreign terms spoken with foreign accent.

Jaw, can’t open too far.

Jello. 

Jerking constantly, your body.

Just get through this, please.

K

Keep from crying, me.  Put up a good front.

Keep from dying, you.  Put up a good fight.

Kill cancer cells, with chemo.

                        , with radiation.

Kill pain. 

Kindness, of many.

              , of nurses.

L

Lack of sleep, mine.

                    , yours.

Lettuce. “Don’t eat”, said doc.

Leucopenia: reduced leucocytes, low white blood count.

Life?

Lingual tonsil, left. Take it out.

Love. “I love you” “We love you”.

Lymph nodes. “IT has spread there too”.

M

Malignant neoplasm tongue base.

Mask, bolted to a table

         , primitive looking

         , scary, stiff, netted, white

         , worn during radiation.

Medications, many.

Metastasized.

Minister : “Let’s have coffee”.  I wouldn’t.

             : “Let’s pray”. I couldn’t.

Miracle, wanted..

Misery, mine.

          , yours.

Morphine, liquid. 

N

Nausea.

Needles.

Nonsense you babbled.

No solid food.  Then no food and then

Nutritional supplement.

Nurses.

O

Odors, Smells and Stenches. 

Ologies: Hematology, epidemiology, oncology, radiology, pathology.

Opsies: Biopsy, Endoscopy.

Operations

Oropharyngeal.

P

Pain.

Pain patch.

PET scans.

Phlegm, gagging on

           , choking on

           , drowning in

           , thick

           , side effect of radiation.

Port.

Prognosis?

Q

Quality care.

Queasy feelings, causes of mine.

                       , causes of yours.

Queries, mine.

            , theirs.

Quit hoping, never.

R

Radiation, 5 days a week. 6 weeks.

Recliner, where you slept when you could

            , it kept you sitting upright

            , so you wouldn’t choke.

Risks.

S

Saliva, lack of. 

Salivary glands, blasted.

Sick.Ailing. Ill. 

Silence &  Reflection. 

Skin, aloe lotion for

       , burnt

       , dry

       , flaking

       , radiated

       , red

Squamous cell,

Stage IV.

Statistic: Cancers of oral cavity and pharynx account for 3% of all cancers in U.S.

Struggles.

Suction machine for phlegm.

Supplements, nutritional.

T

Tatoos, purple, for radiation.

Teeth., destroyed by radiation.

Throat, sore, from radiation.

Tonsillectomy, lingual tonsils. Operation leads to diagnosis.

U

Until death do us part.

Uselessness, my feelings of.

                  , your feelings of. And how they differ.

Utter despair.

V

Victory.

Visiting nurses.

Vomit, mine at seeing

          , yours.

W

Waist pack, portable pump, for chemo.

Waiting, I hate to.

Wan.

Weak.

Weight loss. (The Cancer Diet).

Winner. You.

X

X-ray, showed nothing.

Xanax. (Alprazolam).  Anxiety.

Xerostomia: dry mouth experienced when body doesn’t produce enough saliva.

XXs tattooed in purple ink by dr. on your neck.

Y

Yahoo!

You pulled through.

You won.

Z

Zapped, with radiation.

Zero cancer cells.

Zest for life.

Let's Talk About The Elephant In The Room

A new top! 

42 x 60

Someone gave me a 24 inch piece of elephant fabric. 

I made a few 10 inch elephant blocks to add to it. I downloaded the free pattern for the Elephants a long time ago from Milk and Honey Quilts but now I see the link for the pattern is no longer active. 

And sew on...

****

CELEBRATE! (My word of the year)

May 21 -- Blueberries! They were on sale at the grocery store so I bought some and they are huge.  I love blueberry pancakes and blueberry muffins.  I have tried growing blueberries a number of times and they have been eaten by deer and rabbits. Two years ago I put in four blueberry bushes - two different varieties -  and put up a piece of snow fence around them. Well, then a groundhog tunneled under the area and killed one blueberry plant. So now I'm down to three bushes. So far so good this year but they sure are slow growing! Wonder how many years before I get a home grown blueberry. 

 

Little Cowhands Moving Along

Little Cowhands

42 x 45

It's a finish!

This top (and the back) are pretty old. I made it and three others back in March 2020 to use up a lot of cowhand fabrics.  I thought this smaller size would be good to quilt toward the end of this month to use up a lot of batting pieces. 

I quilted in some lassos.

And there are cowhands at work on the back too.  Binding is a navy and white stripe. 

 The theme this month in my sewing space is March Madness (Quilting) Marathon.  I'm going to concentrate on finishing up a lot of the small tops I have in the TBQ (to be quilted) pile.  They will then be donated to:

Fostering Crossroads

Wrap - A -Smile 

Quilts Beyond Borders

And sew on...

***

CELEBRATE! (My word of the year)

March 26 - Oh, joy! I received a box of scraps in the mail. I'm so ready to use them. I need to make more tops! 

Four Top Roundup

 Back on February 6 I blogged about some Little Cowhand fabric I found on sale that I wanted to use for backings. I also mentioned I had a large flat rate box of cowhand themed fabrics, pieces and parts I could use to make the tops.   Four tops have been made, the backings are ready and the cowhand fabrics are almost gone. 

 #1 top is 42 x 56. 

I had a bunch of 6.5 inch squares already fussy cut and ready to use but needed to cut a few more for this quilt. Then I made six inch Hourglass blocks in red and blue fabrics to use as an alternate block. I was inspired by Julie's post in January to make this top. 

 I cut pieces for my Hourglass blocks from 3.5 inch strips of fabric using the Companion Angle ruler.  You will see later that I cut my fabric exactly the same way to use for Flying Geese Star points.   I didn't want the beginning of the strips to go to waste so I started off cutting HSTs with the Easy Angle ruler. Then I cut several Hourglass/Flying Geese points and then I ended the strip by cutting more HSTs with the Easy Angle ruler. 

That left me with a pile of HST parts I also used up in these four tops. 

 Back to the top...I found this a quick and easy make and I really like it as way to use some big print novelties.  

 I'll be making more of this style of quilt.

And now it is paired up with the backing. 

 #2 top is 40 x 56.  

I had some odd scraps of different sizes of red gingham I used for the star points.  The sashing and some background came from a piece of leftover wide backing. The rest of the backgrounds are bandana prints from that large flat rate box of cowhand fabrics.  

 For the Star centers I used a couple of Little Cowhand fabrics I bought as remnants long ago. It's a different Little Cowhand fabric from that backing fabric I recently purchased. 

 At the top and bottom I added rows of HSTs. I cut some HSTs from red gingham scraps and paired them up with those HSTs I had leftover from cutting the background Flying Geese bodies. 

And here is the top paired up with the backing fabric. 

 #3 top is a 40 x 60 Happy Block top.  I already had 18 of these Happy Blocks in my large flat rate box. They were from a long ago swap.  So I only had to make six more blocks and assemble. 

 So this has basically been a UFO for a long time. 

I didn't have enough of that Little Cowhand fabric for a backing for this one but I did have this nice horse print in my stash - a gift from a quilty friend. 

 #4 is 42 x 45 and made use of leftovers. 

 I had two different Little Cowhand fabrics 12.5 inches x 42 inches in that large flat rate box. One has little cowboys and the other little cowgirls.  I didn't want to cut them up so made a type of Strippie quilt with them.  I used a bandana print and more of that leftover wide with star backing for the alternate strips.

And at top  and bottom I used more of those leftover HSTs and combined them with a red bandana print. 

And for the backing of this one I've pieced together the last piece of Little Cowhand backing fabric and on top and bottom I've added more of that red bandana print. 

Four tops and four backs are ready for some quilting but they are now at the bottom of a big pile of other flimsies waiting to be quilted. 

 And the leftover scraps???...well, I cut up some into a variety of different sizes of squares and are now in the Squares scrap bin.  I had some 3.5 and 6.5 inch pieces that are less than a square so those will get sewn into a strip and combined with other strips someday for a Chinese Coins quilt or two. 

 I had some longer strips I put into different bins I keep by width size. Those usually get made into Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  These are 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3.5. 

 The remaining HST parts got made into HSTs and then into Broken Dishes blocks. I've been making Broken Dishes blocks from 3.5 inch scraps as one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects and have quite a pile of them now. 

 This is all that is left in that large flat rate box of Cowhand fabrics. Well, actually the box is empty now. These fabrics are now in the miscellaneous kid's novelties box. 

 While I was out taking photos I thought they might be filming a remake of The Birds around here somewhere. The noise from thousands of grackles was almost deafening. At times the sky was black with them. 

They would sit in the trees for awhile and squawk away. I felt like they were eyeing me as a food source.  Then suddenly there would be a big swooping noise as they all took off at once and flew into trees in the front yard. Back and forth they went for awhile and then they were gone only to be back another day.  Creepy!