Pink Pizzazz

It was a slow and lazy day yesterday. The only thing accomplished was sewing-related. Since there are leftovers for the next three night's worth of dinners, I expect the remainder of the weekend will be spent similarly slothfully.

First, I stitched up the front of the latest barn.

Now I've moved the hoop a little lower to capture some grass and flowers at the bottom. Those should stitch up pretty quickly, and then I'll be ready to move to the left to capture the remainder of the barn. This one isn't as densely stitched as some of the others I've done. It might be finished in the next few days.

After that, I moved on to the second Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt for 2019. These are the pink blocks for the Paintbox Pizzazz quilt. Four blocks require 16 half square triangles that have been trimmed to 5-1/2 inches. (These blocks could be made in any size.)

Those are sewn into pinwheels.

Then paired up with 3 1/2-inch blacks and whites...

to make snowballs. And then they are finished. This is a great scrap quilt. The blocks go together quickly. It might be fun to make this one in mixed colors with a solid for the corners.

After that, I pulled out this poor quilt that has been waiting, literally, for years to be patched. Quite some time ago, I made this flannel quilt I call Salt Water Taffy.

It was made with scraps from many sources. Each time I wash it, different pieces fray apart. I've patched it twice before. When it came apart for the third time, I had run out of the fabric from the backing, and so I set it aside while I thought about how I was going to patch it. That was about four years ago. Yesterday, I was digging around in a box of scraps when I came across another large piece of the backing fabric. Well, I could have patched it before now, but it seems a good enough excuse that I've waited this long while I looked for the scraps of backing fabric. And so I fixed it. The quilt was tied in the beginning, and so just for fun, I put a little tie in the middle of the patch too.

It's sewn on by machine, and here's how it looks from the back.

It has five patches now, giving new meaning to the word "patchwork." Or maybe there's nothing new about that usage of the word at all. The quilt is still as cozy as ever. I think I might like it even better with its patches.

I made another quilt like it called "My Stars and Garters." It too was made with scraps from various sources, and I've had the same problems with it.

In this old blog post, I talked about how I patched it. And here's how it stands. I expect I'll be patching it some more in the future too.

With that finished, I moved on to my last "monthly." These are the July blocks for the Garden Sunshine sew-along. I have the background blocks sewn together with their flying geese. Today I'll add some applique flowers to each.

My kitty was my constant companion and resident expurrt during yesterday's sewing session.

Today I'll finish off the Garden Sunshine blocks, and then I'll get a start on quilting the Solstice to Solstice quilt. I'm hoping I can finish it off this week. We have a camping trip planned next week, and hand-sewing the binding would be a good take-along project. Also, I should probably start working on the next block for the Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs quilt. It's next on my embroidery list, but I need to make up the applique block first.