Bonus day - Old Town sashing; Dawn's E.Light strings, and Friendship Chain started

We were given a "bonus day" up here in NW Wisconsin.  Actually, most of Wisconsin and Minnesota were put on stand-by today due to the extreme cold; numerous schools across the states closed.  What about your area?  I caught the nightly news and the USA weather map showed state after state in extreme cold temps -- did anyone else have a bonus day?

I used mine as best I could, certainly!  The brainstorm session for Old Town's sashing yesterday was successful, and today, all of the units were prepped and placed on the design wall.  

The units have yet to be pieced, so there's a slight disconnect in continuity in the photo.  All of the units appear to be aligned correctly; I think it's a GO for piecing. 

A partial collection of the blue string blocks were trimmed to size on and off all morning between trimming units for Old Town's sashing.

Much of the day, however, was spent in contemplation-mode.

Years ago, the school's Community Ed program inquired with me about offering some quilting classes.  I haven't offered a class since 2009.  My goodness, time has flown! And I've learned sooooo MUCH since then.   Heavy consideration is once again afoot about teaching a beginner's course of quilting fundamentals.  

The jury's still out, but a simple little pattern was brainstormed and fabrics chosen that could duo nicely as a crib quilt for Quilts for Kids.  We'll see where this leads in the next few weeks.

Design Wall Monday - Old Town mystery

I'm thankful for the space to hang a design wall.

Some brainstorming on Bonnie's Old Town mystery needed to happen; and it's NOTHING against Bonnie's pattern, it's merely because of my color choices with hers.  The sashing in Bonnie's reveal calls for pinks in mine....eh.... as stated on an earlier post, I'm not interested in having a quilt that reads so much 💞pink💞.

There are also a bunch of scraps set aside from the making of this quilt.  The green-pink HSTs pictured lower right actually had me confused for awhile.  I had forgotten they were BONUS triangles made from double-sewing units from step 5, remembering only after searching earlier posts, wondering why they weren't present in Bonnie's reveal anywhere.  

A few scrap units were grabbed, trimmed, pieced... and played around with in the layout...

Hm... pink-in-green square in a square with some neutral-green-brown HST/QST star-like scrap blocks surrounding.

Or perhaps green-in-pink square in a square.  This seems to keep the diagonal trend better, but those pieced 'HST/QST star blocks' seemed wrong.

A little twisting later - duh!  Of course, the extension of the neutral sashing into the star block will fit better with this chosen layout.  

Again, THANKFUL for the design wall space to play around with units until they decided to play nicely together.

ALSO thankful for having so many acrylic rulers to aid in design.  
The Companion Angle* (by Darlene Zimmerman) joined my ranks in early 2000s for one mystery quilt or another.  Some excess neutral/green 1.5" strips were cut and pieced.

I don't recall which step of Bonnie's mystery it was when we needed some brown QST units, but I do remember grabbing the Easy Angle ruler* to trim off some brown ends before using the Companion angle ruler.  The spare brown HSTs would find a use someday, I figured, rather than waste them.

The Easy Square* (by Sharon Hultgren) has been in my collection pretty much since the beginning of my quilting hobby.  The already-trimmed down BONUS HSTs were trimmed up again to 1.5" for piecing into a square-in-a-square center block.

Mostly, this complete run-down is as a reminder of my design decisions. 
Seeing it come together brings another level of excitement!  Busy... but still very clearly showing a pattern; I'm a sucker for those diagonals!

I'm stepping away for now to de-paper the remaining blue string units for the Dawn's Early Light border.

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts - Design Wall Monday.

*affiliate links

Productivity on a school night; Old Town quilt ... and TAXES!

Whether it was motivation or discipline... or maybe a little of both, after arriving home from school and after dinner, I parked myself at the kitchen table with the plan to crunch some tax numbers and grind out all the tax paperwork.  Mark it on the calendar!  Mid-February, and taxes are ready to be finalized;  that's a first.  We're typically pushing early April, but ... ugh, I didn't want it to loom over my head this year.
What about you - how late do you all wait before taking care of taxes?

Once the table was reorganized and cleared of piles, it wasn't even 7:00 yet.
Therefore, with some energy left if the system, time was spent up in the quilting loft.  The last of the 25 Old Town mystery quilt blocks were wrapped up and laid out on the design wall.  The color-way was chosen from what was available on my shelves, and the greens, pinks and browns have blended nicely in Bonnie's mystery layout.

With a 3-day weekend looming, I'm certainly looking forward to some quality, relaxing time in the loft. 

On the ledge at the top of our loft stairs, there are a few different holiday cactuses (cacti?) that have been collected in recent years.  One of my favorites is this large Christmas Cactus that was rehomed to me during the summer of 2023 from a former student who no longer had room in her house.

Part of it blossomed during December; the first time since I had claimed it my own.  And now, another large section of it decided to bloom.  Silly thing!  I'm glad she's starting to feel at home and happy in her location; and I can't WAIT until the entire thing decides to blossom at one time.

Keep on keepin' on.

Happy Thursday.

Linking up with Alycia Quilts - Finished (or not) Friday

UPDATES: Rainbow Scrap '25 (DEL); Emme Groomed; Old Town; and SMART goal

Meet Emme, the sweetest cockapoo ever!  Her owner struck up a conversation with me at Friday evening' basketball game, which led to me spending some JOYFUL time bathing, fluffing and grooming her yesterday morning. Seriously, JOYFUL!

There are some dogs who are cute, and then there's EMME! Her demeanor is top-notch; happy puppy. 

And once all dolled up, she and my Bailee played outside in the fresh 4+ inches of snow that fell overnight.  This is the first real snowfall we've had up here in Wisconsin this winter.

My goodness - seriously!  This much cuteness should be illegal!  She's sooooooooo soft, and huggable, and LOVEABLE!

After she departed, and a quick lunch... and the snowfall keeping me from running outside...
... the afternoon was left wide open to simply putz-putz-putz.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge was 100% in mind.  So, two-birds-with-one-stone:

The Dawn's Early Light red-star piles have been growing as my leader-ender.  However, with those units nearing completion, time was spent organizing the next unit.

PERFECT TIMING!  Blue strings!!!💙

Years and years ago, Bonnie's scrap system was implemented in the quilting space, so grabbing the bag of blue strings allowed me to get cookin' on these units straight-away once the papers were cut.

About an hour of late afternoon time was also devoted to assembling a few more Old Town quilt blocks;  half of them from the reveal step have been checked off the list.

What a gloriously 'putzy' afternoon in the loft!

And theeeeeeeeeen, the tiny voice in my head started saying, "just get on the treadmill.  C'mon, you have a streak underway of hitting those 10K steps daily; don't let this weather (and a small groin-muscle annoyance) break the streak!"

7:30 PM reality:

SMART Goal achieved:  8:15 PM

I'm nursing a small strain from a run earlier this week with Bailee.  Old age... what'cha gonna do?!?!  So this was nothing fancy; no running... but a good powerwalk for about 40 minutes on the ol' treadmill helped me check off Day #27 of 10,050 steps (cuz 10K would simply be too boring). 

#SmartGoals - you've got this!

Today's plan:  putzing, and an attempt at a 5K, groin-permitting.

Happy sunshiny Sunday morning.  

Linking up with SoScrappy '25 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Rainbow scrap, Old Town mystery, Walker Wedding quilt... and all the rest

 The weekend run-down...

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - breaking into February's BLUE.

The 1.5" strip bin was sifted; and there weren't a LOT of blues available, so the Dawn's Early Light pile was sifted as well in order to find a nice mixture of blue pieces for 4 of these scrap blocks for the Rainbow Scrap challenge.  I'll be linking up with SoScrappy; be sure to head over there to see what everyone is up to at the start of February's blue month.

Putzin' - putzin' - putzin' along with Bonnie's '24/25 Old Town mystery.  Definitely not in any hurry here, unlike earlier years, so taking my time to trim up each block unit to assist in a neater assembly.  The matchy-matchy of seams CERTAINLY makes assembly much nicer; much more stress-free (err... much less stress might be a better description) ... regardless, piecing the blocks will be MUCH more enjoyable.

... and the first block was pieced this afternoon, waiting on the design wall for the rest.  Clearly, I've changed up the colors of the mystery, choosing only to use what's on the shelves.  Overall, I'm super pleased with how they've been arranged and are playing quite nicely together.  This block almost reminds me of the Hawaii Sunset a few of us pieced back in the years 2012-2014 (give or take).

And PROGRESS on Walker's Wedding quilt.  Whoop-whoop! The top center is pieced!  Next up, to figure a plan of borders;  plain, intricate, pieced, combo...? All these thoughts will be on the docket next weekend.

I've decided to part with the Juki TL98Q.  She certainly gave me many great years paired with the Grace Company GMQ Pro quilting frame, but since the upgrade to the Q'nique 15 almost two summers ago now, I simply haven't touched the Juki.  Therefore, mindset shift; why have it sit in storage when someone may find use from her??

A few other goings-on around the ranch:  time was spent with Bailee girl this morning. 
Bathed, fluffed and groomed in my basement grooming center (ie: former bedroom of one of the girls). 

She's once again a soft-n-fluffy CLEAN golden-doodle who can pretty much beg for anything using those puppy-dog eyes of hers.

The Christmas tree was also finally cleared, and in its place, one of the portable mini-greenhouses was set up in hopes to give my Alocasias some new life.  Additionally, starting up one small tray of 4-6 tomato plants is on my mind.  Just a few; nothing of surplus quite yet.

Livin' the life as best we can with our new-found empty nest household.  
#GrowinOldTogether

Let's do this! Old Town & Walker's Wedding quilts on the docket (& a photo-dump)

 

Behind-the-blogging scenes, Bonnie K Hunter's Old Town 24/25 mystery quilt has been seeing some leisurely activity recently...

But today, Walker's Wedding quilt needs to be #1 priority.  Tick-tock, tick-tock... #OnADeadline!

... a photo-dump from this past week's FRIGID week; #NoSchool on Monday nor Tuesday. 
Whoop-whoop.

Sure... looks like a great morning for a run!

DECEIVINGLY beautiful sunshine

The struggles of long-runs in Wisconsin;  after mile 5, no more hydration - LOL.

no running outside for Monday, though!

YouTube to the rescue!  A 45 minute run through Arizona ensued

Tuesday - #anothersnowday (*cold day) - Wine bottled and racked

Sampling is a given!

Three different flavors bottled; kept them all dry for a change of pace.

Root/Wine cellar restocked