Scrap Dance Waltz

 Today I'm sharing another UFO that's been hanging around for a while. In 2016, I stumbled upon a quilt along over at My Carolina Home and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to use some of my 30's fabrics and I paired them with Kona Snow. Heaven knows I've got a healthy stash of 30's! I wonder how many quilts I need to make before the bin will close. LOL.

Well I gave it the old college try with this quilt. The blocks were such fun to make:

I can't believe it's taken me 6 years to finish this quilt. I made 81 blocks and finally finished the top in 2018. It's impossible to be grumpy when sewing with these happy fabrics

I was so delighted when I started laying the blocks out that I'm pretty sure I stood back and clapped my hands. LOL. 

Carole, you knocked it out of the park with this design! 

                                                 

I backed it with one of Lori Holt's wide prints 

and pulled an orange from my stash for the binding. I rarely use orange, but it worked well with both the front and the back although with a scrappy quilt, anything goes.

Jackie laughed when I dropped it off because I told her I had enough big quilts, and this one is 92 x 92. She quilted it with another perfect design called Chantilly Lace in a white thread:

As I was stitching on the binding, I realized what happy fabrics these are. I haven't made a quilt with these fabrics since and I think it's time to make more quilts with them. My bin does close now, but there's nary room for a 2 1/2" square.

But as for now, I get to enjoy this one! I love the movement the combination of blocks creates throughout the quilt:

I checked Carole's blog and it looks like the Quilt-along posts are no longer available, but she has converted the Scrap Dance Series to patterns and Scrap Dance Waltz is available here:

Scrap Dance Waltz Pattern

It feels good to be celebrating another happy, finished quilt

                                    

Under the Needle - August

 July and August are supposed to be our rainy season. We're still waiting...and praying. I've only had the mower out once and that was just to cut one little part of the yard where I've been watering the trees like mad in an attempt to keep them alive.. but hope springs eternal and today I am happily stitching as the rain puddles outside my window:

We've had a lot going on around here, but a girl that loves to make quilts will always squeeze in dabs of time to work on them. After I finished our Girl's Sequoia Quilt for her Birthday, I stitched up a couple of puppy-inspired drawstring bags to send flea and tick meds for her hound puppies. It's less expensive at our vet clinic than anywhere else:

I also finished piecing all the blocks for my Scrap Dance Waltz quilt and it is now a top waiting to be pressed:

It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that it's already August, but August it is. I was craving some mindless sewing so I have been sewing HSTs for a pattern using a layer cake:

It took me 4 days to draw my lines and get the squares trimmed and starched, and and then my mom called and asked if I could make a baby quilt for a friend of hers. Of course! I was tickled that she asked. The theme is woodland critters. She told me that the invitation was cute so I asked her to have the neighbor, who is also a friend of ours, send me a photo of it:

Yep, cute! And I remembered this fabric a friend has used for a baby quilt a few months ago:

Perfect. And then the dilemma began. Settling on a pattern is often the most time consuming part of the quilt making process for me. This fabric is sweet, but it does not play well with others. Plan A looked promising:

Until I laid it all out:

No. Plan B:

No. On to plan C:

Better, but not quite and I did a lot of ripping to add that brown. Then I thought of another tweek, but I just did not have the heart to rip it all out again and remake those QSTs. So I thought about using 9-patches and commenced to making those.

Still not loving it. That was plan D. Sigh. I'll be back with plan E. Sheesh.

Under the Needle - July

The day our girl came home, I had been texting with a friend and fellow ranch wife who has made quilts. She said she hates sewing - she just loves making quilts. I told her that no one had ever even suggest I sew anything but a quilt these days. Even mending requires an act of Congress and even then it's iffy.

Then our girl walks in and asks if I would mend some britches. I laughed and I sent my friend this photo along with this text:

So, I ate my words and cheerfully set about mending a couple pair of britches:

It was fun having company in the sewing room:

And look at Huck's reaction to the sound of the sewing machine:

When I would stop, he would look away and when I began stitching, we would get this face. We got so tickled.

And I don't have anything cuter to report than that, but I've been sewing more blocks for my Scrap Dance Waltz quilt:

I cut more fabrics for it and have spent some time making HSTs

I am of course making it bigger and I'll need 90 blocks if I do a 9 x 10 block setting. I've got 45 sewn so I ought to be ready to piece the top in another month or so. I've also been working on my EPP project. It's grown from this:

To this:

I am just smitten with those little stars.

I also made the binding - 11 strips - for the Sequoia Quilt I made for our girl and I started stitching it down yesterday. I rarely take time to do that during the day, but yesterday I did. Notting Hill was on so I spent an hour and a half binding:

It's 90 x 110 so it'll be a while. When I looked outside, I saw this:

Praise God! We're dry again so every drop is a blessing. We really need to grow some winter feed. Today is a no-sew day unless we get more rain...praying for rain. :)

Under the Needle - June

I haven't been spending any time in the sewing room lately. It's either feast or famine around here when it comes to sewing. I could have sewn a little on Saturday, but I think I needed a day to recuperate from those 19 hour days last week and I really needed to scrub my stove and floors. However, Sunday found me stitching up some blocks. Our Quilt Squad group is making this quilt:

                                               

We had our monthly meeting on Saturday, but I didn't make it in. We're all making 13 blocks using 30's prints. Yes, that's an odd number, but that's how many members we have. Our Captain 😊 told me that some folks are making extra blocks and we will exchange them in August. I'll probably make a few more too. It'll be fun to see how we all set our blocks. I know for a fact that I'll not follow the original layout. Not that I don't like it - I just want to play around and see where that leads.
Blocks complete:

 On Tuesday I dug back into my Scrap Dance Waltz project bin.These were put on the back burner last year, but I had a hankering to play with these 30's prints again:

                                          

I've also needed to come up with a backing for my Buckaroo Plus Quilt. The only fabric I had enough of is pretty dark. It's the top fabric in the photo below:

                                           

I looked around online, but I really want to use something I have and an idea came to me as I was washing dishes yesterday. I'll still use the dark print, but I'm going to mix it up a bit. For now, all you get is chicken scratch, but I'm hoping it'll all pan out.

                                             

 I also made the binding and stitched it to the front of the Honey Man Quilt today and will work on getting it stitched to the back as soon as the temps fall below 110°:

                                              

And that's a wrap from my sewing room for the time being. I'm missing ya'lls comments! I sure hope Blogger finds a fix soon, but I'll still reply to your comments if I have your email.

What I've Been Up To

Before I jump into today's post, I need to apologize to ya'll. I hope no-one made my Cornpone Pie recipe yet. There's nothing wrong with the recipe, but there is a mistake in the cornbread  recipe. There is only 1/4 C of vegetable oil...not 1/2 C as I originally posted. I'm so very sorry.

And an anonymous comment came in saying they couldn't find a link to print my recipes. I'm sorry, but I have no idea how to add that. I'm in the process of moving over 34,000 photos from my ancient computer to an online source and it's taking forever, as in I've been working on it for over a week. Slowly, but surely and once I get through all of those files, I'll look into adding a recipe link...if it's free. :)

I've been able to sneak in a little time here and there and get some sewing done during the week. I've made a few more blocks for my Scrap Dance Waltz quilt:

And after work on Monday, I popped into Hobby Lobby to pick up a card and I ran into my quilting co-worker who is really my partner in crime when it comes to quilting and she dragged me into the fabric where she spotted this from afar. I think she has cute fabric radar:

A pretty, new addition to their collection as well as my stash, but it never even made it into my stash because I cut it up and started piecing yet another baby quilt. Such fun colors and I found fabrics for backing and binding in my stash:

The center came together in stolen moments too:

                           

But most of my time has been spent bouncing over ranch roads with DH doing this:

                           

We've been blessed with miles and miles of green grass in the pastures this summer, (almost makes us forget that we're in the desert)

but mineral runs still factor into our weekly list of things to tend to and it takes multiple days to get around to everything. The other day we were in town running errands before a board meeting and the lady at the vet supply store asked if we were on a date night. We laughed and I told her we were on our way to a board meeting, but any time with my sweetie is a date night and that includes mineral runs. That's a date night, ranch style. :)  And it's probably going to include some plumbing

But we also get to discover new islands

 spray mesquite and cockleburrs

Watch the native wildlife

Check in with the locals

Who seem to be pretty content these days

 Crash a pool party

And soak up the blessings

It's a good way to spend the day