Projects Old and New

Good morning, my friends. We've been having some beautiful spring weather for the past several days. Occasionally it leaves us and rains for a few days, but then the sunshine returns. It's a hopeful time of year. We're expecting rain to begin again today and last for a few days, but spring is just a little over a week away. Don't worry, my friends. It will come.

There was plenty of kitty help in the sewing room yesterday. The Lightframe quilt was ready to receive its next row of blocks. Each row starts with six half square triangles.

Sadie helped me trim those to size.

From there, I went picking through my scraps for strips to finish them off. Sometimes I cut these as I go, but I cut them all ahead of time yesterday. They go together fast once all the strips are cut.

Smitty is my scrappy cat. He helped me pick those fabrics.

And then I went to work sewing them into quilt blocks.

When that was finished, the only thing left to do was to orient them properly and sew them to the rest of the quilt. 

There's just one more row to finish on this quilt. Probably I'll add a border from that dark green fabric, but I'll decide when I get there.

It was about this time that Mike brought in the day's mail. Y'all have probably been waiting on tenterhooks to see if the floss would be right right color. Certainly, I was. And YES!!! It's the color I need to finish it off.

So I spent the next half hour or so finishing what remained of this. It ended up being not as tedious as I'd feared. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have it finished. 

Stitching both rows from left to right was my goal for March's

I'll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month. Today I'll make a template from freezer paper and that will be my guide for cutting the two rows apart and then to the size I need to use in the Girls' Getaway quilt. 

And that was the last embroidered section for Girls' Getaway. It's moving quickly to being ready to be sewn into a flimsy. I believe there are still two more pieced blocks, but that should be all that's left. In addition to the "lace" section above, these are the sections I have for this quilt so far.

Finishing off the embroidery for Girls' Getaway left an open slot on my embroidery dance card. So I asked Mr. Random to choose my next project. Mr. Random went back to the beginning, choosing #2 on my list. It turns out to be a pattern called "Le Jardin." 

Now, this is a very old pattern created by Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolly. You'd have to have been reading blogs for a long time to remember her. Searching the internet, I found she'd stopped blogging way back in 2017 and put everything on hold while she dealt with a life-threatening illness. I'm not sure whatever happened with her, but her final Facebook post said she was doing well. I'm kind of surprised she never returned to her website or her Facebook page, and so that makes me wonder if she's still with us.

In any case, I can no longer find this pattern online. It was originally free to download or print. The patterns I'll need are all printed out. Checking Pinterest, I found several pictures of the completed quilt. The one pictured below was created by Bev, who blogged at Blossom & Bev at one point. Her most recent blog post was from 2016. So thanks, Bev, for the picture of the finished quilt.

So that will be my next embroidery project. I'll probably need to find a background fabric before I can start tracing the first block. It looks as if it might include applique as well.

In the meantime, I'll start on March's block for The Sewing Room. This is Jennifer Reynold's 2025 BOM. These usually take about two days to stitch.

When the stitchery is finished, I'll need to make three more pieced blocks. This is what I have for this quilt so far.

After that, I'll start on a new "Short" project. Recently, Mr. Random selected this "Kitchen Herbs" pattern from my list of short embroidery projects. Apparently this is my month to be selecting patterns from designers who have disappeared from Blogland. This one was originally created by Country Garden Stitchery. I couldn't find anything about the pattern or the designer except for this Etsy page. The links go nowhere, and so I can only assume this is no longer available.

It's shown as a grouping of four mug rugs, but I'll sew it into a single quilt when all four stitcheries are finished. These are small designs, and so I'll do all four as my "short" project this time around. I've selected a background fabric, and so I'll trace those today and get to work stitching them when I've finished March's block for The Sewing Room.

In other sewing, next up will be to make another row for the Land & Sea quilt. Here's what I have so far.

So that's a good day of sewing. With so many new embroidery starts, it feels like a sewing room revolution is underway.

Okay, so before I do anything else, I need to get tonight's dinner started in the slow cooker. I'll be making a macaroni salad today too. I'm giving myself the day off from workouts, and so it'll be a mostly sewing day once my dinner things are finished. And right now seems like a good time to get started.