What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

In the early morning, you can find me enjoying my coffee 

and adding more stitches to my current project.

The question this week for 

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is "Are you a Morning Person or Night Owl?"

In truth, I can be either or both.

Many a midnight in the past, I would be sitting at my sewing machine

while Mr Scrapatch was working a late shift.

Now I can still occasionally be up stitching

long after Mr. Scrapatch has gone to bed for the night

as he is an early to work man these days

and ...

The question for us today for 

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is  "Amusement Park or Day at the Beach?"

I am a beach person. 

Coast to Coast.

Above is the Atlantic ...  in Maine.

Below is the Pacific ... 

... at Huntington Beach, California.

I feel that I am lucky to have put my toes in the ocean

 on both the east and the west coast.

In my younger days, I could walk the sands for hours,

end to end and back again on any beach, anywhere, 

any time of day or year,

knowing I have never put my toes in ...

Maestro, 12 weeks, and me.

The prompt for today for

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is 

 "If you could choose any baby animal to be your pet, 

what would you pick and why?"

I would choose a kitten,

as I have done so over and over in my life.

My pet does not have to be a baby animal.

They are all my babies.

Why?

For the unconditional love,

on both sides.

Today my purple flowers are made of yarn.

I am late adding my post for

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

because I have spent all day making these

 five rows of crochet stitches.

This is the Jasmine stitch.

This is the most labor intensive

 and yarn consuming crochet stitch

crossing my hook in recent memories.

I like learning new things,

making new friends in the crochet along,

playing with the pretty yarns.

in part because it had to be adapted to this row stitch along.

This stitch is normally ...

Spring in in the air!

Today when I was sitting and working on my

Spring Crochet Along with Any Day Crochet

I had the windows open on the south side of the house.

Dorian @ Ridge Top Quilts

You can see the sewing in progress on this zipper bag in the link above.  I love how Dorian takes her smallest scraps and adds beautiful hand stitched touches to make such beautiful and useful things. I am ...

The first week of March has been blustery, rainy and busy.

There has been plenty of fun with fabric and threads stitched in.

Temperature Quilt 2024

The pieces for the shamrock block are cut slightly oversized and

trimmed to size to make a 5.5" square 

with narrow border strips on top and bottom.

I now have four rows done and the fifth begun. 

I have also been working on the next block ...

My first flag block for the 

United Block Exchange 2024 @ Olie & Evie

 is sewn and ready.

The swap closes tonight at midnight, Mountain Time, I think.

but I did now to follow the guidelines for this swap.

I washed, dried, then soaked my fabrics in a 50/50% solution

 of Best Press and water and hung them to dry again.

Tuesday was warm enough to hang them outside that day.

This is my first ever hand appliqued block.

I learned a lot making this first block and think my work improved

by the end of making this block.

This is the Strawberries Block from the

I am using prints from her pretty 30's fabric lines for this quilt. 

I actually made two sets of templates, 

one for me and ...

United.

I saw this quilt and a block exchange on Instagram yesterday.

I have not done a block exchange in many years.

I still have many lovely blocks from many fun block swaps over the years

 that are waiting to become finished quilts, 

so I had thought I was retired from swapping.

Then I saw this ... 

For all the information to sign-up and participate click on the link below: 

United Block Exchange 2024  @ OlieandEvie

Contact Person: Rhonda @ OlieandEvie

I follow

OlieandEvie on Instagram

which is where I heard of this fun block exchange.

Participants must make 50 small flag blocks ...

I like adding little hand stitches to my projects.

My stitches may not be perfect but they make me happy

This is my Scrappy Heart Block 

with the Chained Feather embroidered edge 

that I found on the video in the above link.

 showed the view from my favorite stitching chair

in my living room.

I shows some of my favorite quilty things.

It is one of the first seasonal wall quilts that I remember making to warm my ...

I like learning and trying my hand at new things. 

One of the skills of quilt making has always eluded me ... Hand Applique.

By trial and error I leaned to do a nice machine applique.

Now it is time to apply the same effort toward hand stitched applique.

I want to make my own templates, too.

 Today is Thursday, 

so, therefore,

the day each week when I ruminate

 on that which brings me joy

and all those things, 

great and small,

for which I am grateful 

everyday. 

Today has also been one of those days,

when all of those things are in a muddle,

or a frozen puddle,

and nothing feels quite right

and the pieces to the puzzle do not fit

or go missing.

My mind gone wayward toward "what next?"

A day of mischances,

Mishap.

my sewing corner,

sewing my easy little tree block,

I found myself reaching for ...

Tilda Bit by Bit Stash Builder from Serendipity Woods

which is one of my fabric treasures.

I have had this Fat 16ths bundle in my stash for a long time now

and I have had difficulty unrolling and using it.

I have a nice collection of Tilda fabrics in my stash.

I admit to being a bit of a collector.

Jubilee ~ Tilda Fabrics is celebrating 25 years!

with a special new collection to be released soon.

Your know what this means ... many wonderful new free patterns also coming soon ...

I am Cassian and I am thankful for me furrever home.

I have been living here in my forever home for a year now

 and had my annual check-up at the vet last night 

where I received my three year shot for rabies and distemper, 

so I am feeling a bit sore and sleepy today. 

I was not even a year old and all on my own on the streets and it was getting cold.

I was named for some handsome ...

The last rose of the summer of 2023

The leaves are falling quickly now.

There are a few on my big red rose in the driveway 

and one on my coral one tucked in a sheltered place,

 but this little pink rose is by itself, 

high on a branch waving goodbye to the sky. 

Goodbye, summer.

Goodbye, Autumn.

The cold is here to stay for winter.

We decided to play with the thread colors in our ...

Katniss is helping me choose.

The fabric is some I purchased on a sale at my local quilt shop awhile ago.

This "Be Thankful" cross stitch has been on my to-do list for a long while. 

Several years ago I bought this as a kit that included Aurifil Floss and 

Vintage Cloth 10 count Aida in Burlap.

The pattern is still available in the link below. 

Be Thankful by Country Cottage Needleworks @ FQS

I think I want to add orange and aqua pumpkins to match ...

Happy Thursday!

I am having a happy day playing with the fabric and threads.

Yesterday was 

Moda Blockheads ~ Block 2 Release

This block was designed by Joanna Figueroa

so I followed here cutting and sewing suggestions in the link below: 

Galaxy Star ~ MBH5 ~ Block 2 @ Fig Tree Quilts

I played with the colors and prints awhile before I chose to sew these fabrics.

I had to use my seam ripper after I had thought the block was done,

 because I found that I turned one of the Quarter Square Triangle units

 when I sewed. 

I like the finished block.

The sun is shining and the sky is blue!

"It feels like years since it's been here."

Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison, Abbey Road, 1969

Today is a brief respite from the unrelenting rain and storms

 we have experienced this summer. 

A few days ago a city a few miles west of us experienced very damaging flash flooding during what seemed like just another day of rain.

The ground is saturated. 

My feet squish into mud under the wet grass when I go out in the yard.

Mr Scrapatch is having to try to dry ...

Happy Thursday!

I am happily settling into my newly renovated quilty corner.

Please join my friends and I as we celebrate the good things in life or

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color 

I am so happy to be back to sewing. 

Here are my first blocks for my new start.

I made both sized blocks.  The large block is the Autograph Star Bonus Block,

which is intended as a label block for the back of their quilt plan.

I also made the smaller variation version as a classic Sawtooth Star Block.

Below is the link for Main Page ...