It's A Flimsy!

 

It's a flimsy!

56 x 70

I'm trying to empty a box of 4 inch width scraps that I have accumulated over the years from others. I usually have a couple of Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) projects going for each width of scraps but sometimes I just have so many odd lengths of different colors so I decide to just see how many comfort quilts I can make to empty the box. 

For this quilt I just used 4 inch squares. All came out of my scrap box. I arranged diagonal rows of colored squares and alternated with low volume squares. 

My box of 4 inch width scraps is a large flat rate USPS size.  

So far I've made the following tops/block sets with scraps in that box:

1. Yankee Puzzle Top

2. Yankee Puzzle #2 block set of 48 blocks

3. Blue/Orange Four Patch Top (also used orange solid)

4. Basket Weave (also used orange solid)

5. Four Patch and Two Rails

6. 29 Wonky Stars (for an ongoing Wonky Star project)

7. This top - Squares on the Diagonal 

I still have pieces in my box of 4 inch width scrap so guess I need to make some blocks and/or another top! 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Monday Musings at Brenda's Songbird Designs

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I'm still mostly in gardening mode and have been spending most of my time out in the gardens. 

I've been harvesting lettuce, spinach, mustard greens for salads. One of my fav salads has mixed greens, candied pecans, feta cheese and dried cranberries tossed with a little balsamic vinegarette dressing. Sometimes if I have left over chicken breast I toss that in too. 

  I also harvested some sugar snap peas and had them lightly steamed for dinner along with a sweet potato and pork chop.

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While out in the gardens I found another critter I've never seen before.  I guess it is an Eastern Eyed Click Beetle. I guess it is a good guy so I let it go on it's way. 

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I finished a book! Mercy Falls is the sixth in the Cork O'Connor mystery series by William Kent Kruger. Most of my reading takes place in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. Sometimes I get up to go to the bathroom and can't get back to sleep and other times I talk in my sleep and wake myself up and can't get back to sleep. 

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Oh gosh, I have a bad case of poison ivy!

Because I Have A Lot Of Six Inch Squares

 

Because I have accumulated a lot of six inch squares I decided to pull out the purple, orange and red ones to make a simple comfort quilt top. 

55 x 77

And sew on...

Surprise Lilies (Lycoris) are up here and there. 

They are also called Resurrection Lily.

A clump of leaves appear in Spring and then the leaves slowly die back and disappear and then a few weeks later the flower appears.

Surprise!

And sow on...

Hollow Nine Patches

Hollow Nine Patches

10.5 finished

Made with 4 inch squares

I made 35 blocks and now have another complete block set for the SAR (Some Assembly Required) bin.

Completed quilt will measure 52.5 x 73.5

I recently received a lot of 4 inch squares and I already had a few on hand. So that is why I decided to make these blocks. I first kitted up squares for 35 block sets. I figured it would be easy to grab and make a block or two when I had short periods of time in the sewing space. I started with making the orange and yellow blocks since orange is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month. 

But lately it has either been way too hot or way to wet to be outside working in my gardens so I have been spending a little more time in the sewing space.

The rest of the blocks.  I actually think I made 37 blocks which means there may be 2 for the orphan block pile OR I may take a couple of blue ones apart so I can use the squares in something I'm working on.

Going where the scraps take me and enjoying the journey!

And sew on...

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A few posts ago I mentioned that I made garlic scape pesto from garlic scapes I harvested from the garden. I've cooked with garlic scapes in the past; however, I've never made garlic scape pesto. Yesterday I used it on homemade pizza. When there was more than just me in the household to feed I used to make my own pizza dough (and bread) but this time I bought one of those ready made crusts that you just top and bake. I added my garlic scape pesto in place of a tomato sauce and added lots of mozzarella cheese and a three cheese blend of parmesan, asiago and romano and some oregano from my herb garden. Oh, gosh, was that pizza delicious!

I finished a book...Deadly Equation by Gary Gerlacher. It is the fourth book in the medical thriller series featuring ER doc AJ Docker "Doc" and his dog Banshee. He follows through on a dying patient's last wish and ends up battling all sorts of evil folks bent on finding the research notes of dead patient who has left clues to it's whereabouts for his twin sister.  The research could be the cure for all sorts of diseases by altering DNA or it could be used as the ultimate weapon. AND, a large (and crooked) investment group is trying to take over the staffing and management of the ER but "Doc" doesn't let that happen.     I see a new book in the series will be released in Oct. 2025 and I'm looking forward to it. 

As I mentioned previously...it has been too hot and/or too wet to work outside. I'm itching to get out there because I know the weeds love this type of weather and run rampant through my gardens. I have been starting some perennial seeds under lights in a corner of my sewing space for setting out hopefully in August.  And I've been looking at sales for bulbs to be planted in the Autumn. LOOKING for now but I've been dreaming and making a list. 

 

Three Little Finishes

Three Litle Finishes

Little Baskets

36 x 36

Cindy sent me this one last year along with the backing and binding and thread. All I needed to do was add batting and quilt! 

Look at all the sweet fabrics. One has a little fairy in it. 

And there's a little fairy in another basket.  I quilted it with three petaled flowers on my sewing machine in light pink thread. 

I had to give this one the Dawn and hot water soak. The purple border fabric bled into the muslin in places but I think it's all fixed now. 

Blue and Yellow Squares

40 x 48

I made the top last year after someone sent me some 4.5 inch squares. A lot of them were blues and yellows. After adding in a few yellow squares of my own I made this top last year. 

This year I finished it by quilting on the diagonals. I used a piece of navy blue gingham for the binding. 

Two backs. 

The floral is the back of the Little Baskets.

The blue Cheater Cloth Log Cabin is the back of the Blue and Yellow Squares quilt. 

Surf and Turf

44 x 52

This is one of several quilts I made back in 2023 after someone gave me a box of fishy fabrics. I had a few of my own. 

In this quilt I added some sand I had on hand.   

The squares in the quilt are 8.5 inches. 

I quilted it with swirls in a variegated blue thread.   I didn't notice until I hung it on the line that the blue in the sandy areas is not the result of blue variegated thread but the result of the backing bleeding through to the front in places. 

Now I guess this one needs a Dawn/hot water bath. 

The binding is a sandy color all around. 

The bleeding back - a batik with frogs on blue and a little piece of blue with white flowers. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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

I've started winter sowing some seeds...

The first batch...five different kinds of milkweed, a couple of different kinds of sea holly, a couple of different kinds of blazing star, a mix of columbine, bottle gentian, aconite, obedient plant and ironweed.  Most of these seeds need a period of cold stratification. 

In past years I have winter sown in milk jugs, gallon baggies and small pots covered in plastic.  This year I'm trying a new method in addition to my old methods- larger pots covered in shower caps. I've had the pots stored in the barn for a long time so might as well put them to use. I bought the clear disposable shower caps on line last year. I think I bought 100 of them for $8.  I just had to put slits in the shower caps so rain or snow can get into the pot. 

I will be planting several more batches and then there are seeds I start inside under lights in a corner of my sewing space. 

And sow on...

WITB #7 - Unchained Melody

It's a top!

Unchained Melody 

(I like that song as sung by the Righteous Brothers)

55 x 70

The other day I posed the question WITB? 

(What's in the box of 3 inch width scraps?)

This is comfort quilt #7 ! 

And I still have some scraps in that box!  

For this one I used the cream, tan, brown 3 inch width partial strips and squares. 

I did a rough sketch of a quilt to use those scraps. 

Then I cut 616 (22 across and 28 down) 3 inch squares from the scraps in the box.   I also collected triangles in all colors of the rainbow from my box of crumb pieces. 

I sorted my squares into light, medium and dark. Then I made one row at a time keeping in mind that I wanted the rows to transition top to bottom from lighter to darker squares.  And the little triangles sewn to the corners of the squares I kept in rainbow order across the rows to form chains across the quilt. 

When I got to the darker squares I tried to keep the reddish/rust browns at the beginning of the rows and the darker squares toward the end of the rows. 

And sew on...

*****

CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

Sept.. 17 - A beautiful harvest moon which was also a supermoon. I didn't stay up late enough to see if I could see the partial eclipse of the moon. 

Sept. 18 - Finished a book! - Damage Control by Robert Dugoni. It's a mystery thriller.. A woman has quite a few problems going on in her life yet finds time to help a detective solve the mystery of the death of her brother. She also manages to resolve a few of her problems before the end of the book. 

Sept. 19 - Onions! In between fictional books I've been reading a little bit now and then of Herbal Antibiotics; What Big Pharma Doesn't Want You To Know by Mary Jones. In Chapter 6 - Top 45 Wondrous Herbs Onions and Garlic is listed as #1.  "The sulphur compounds in onions and garlic are a key ingredient in antibiotics. They destroy bad bacteria and kill off infections."  I remember reading elsewhere that during the Spanish Flu epidemic it was recommended to eat more onions to ward off the flu.   Not sure if any of that is true; however, I do eat a lot of onions and garlic every day and don't remember the last time I've had the flu or a cold. (I've never had a flu shot and only (regretfully) had the first two covid vaccinations and will not get anymore. I'm not totally against vaccines - just flu/covid for me)  Well, anyway...I do grow my own onions too. A few years ago I started growing them from plants (not sets) I purchase from Dixondale Farms.   Since hubby no longer is able to eat garden produce (he has a G-tube) I cut down on the number of onions I plant. I tried a long day onion sampler this year of Walla Walla, a white onion, Ringmaster, a yellow onion, and Redwing, a red onion. I ate a lot of them as green onions. I should have watered them a little more than I did to produce larger onions but I'm pleased with my harvest that should last me through the winter.   Oh, and one last thing about onions...did you know that white onions are usually sweeter and the best to eat raw? They have less sulphur content.     I keep a pot of canola oil on my stove and make myself some onion rings almost every other day. I love them! 

Sept. 20 - Quilts Beyond Borders!   The latest blog post shows some of my donated quilts and the places they are going -- Comfort Cases and Jeremiah's Hope.  (My quilts show "Cathy L" as the maker in the blog post). 

Blue And Yellow Squares

It's a top!

40 x 48

Someone gave me a big bag of different sized squares so I picked out the 4.5 inch squares in blue and yellow to make this top. 

There weren't quite enough yellow squares so I cut a few squares from scraps to add to the mix. 

And sew on...

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CELEBRATE! (My word of the year)

May 27 -  Last night I had lettuce from the garden on my BLT and I had strawberries from the garden on my bowl of ice cream.  While outside working on a beautiful day I saw Tiger Swallowtail, Skipper and Red Admiral butterflies.