Color Challenge Block for April And Cranberry Salad

Hi ALL!!! This is my month to make and blog about April's block! And this year we are posting a recipe to go with the block!!! How fun! 

To get the pattern for this and all the blocks head to Jen's blog. But don't leave me yet!!! This months block is red and the theme is cherries. Yes I know my title says Cranberry Salad, but it uses cherry jello! So let's get started...

Here is my block.

I love how easy it was to put together and how nice it turned out! Since I used two shades of red I used Aurifil #2265 Lobster Red when piecing it together. This way I don't see the Dove grey thread (Aurifil #2600) I usually use when piecing peeking through here and there.

Here are the other bloggers. Make sure you head to Jen Shaffer for the blocks instructions!

 

Jen Shaffer    Patterns By Jen

Kathy Nester     Penny For My Thoughts

Kris Driessen     Scrap Dash

Joanne Hubbard     Everyone Deserves A Quilt

Raylee Bielenberg     Sunflower Stitcheries

Andi Stanfield     True Blue Quilts

Crystal Drummond     Day Brook Designs

Sarah Myers     Quilted Diary

Ashli Montgomery    Quilt 2 Endalz

Join the fun and don't forget to visit all the wonderful sponsors!  

For some reason I'm having issues loading  links, but if you to

Jen's blog she has a complete list of the sponsor HERE. 

And now for the Cranberry Salad recipe! My mom made this every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas to have with our turkey. I don't know about the rest of the grocery stores, but I buy the jello in October because I can never find cherry jello in November or December! Maybe because this is a small town or this is a more common recipe than I thought!

Cranberry Salad

Ingredients:

1 small box Cherry Jello

1 can Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

3/4 cup Hot Water

1/3 cup Cold Water

1/2 cup Chopped Celery

1/2 cup chopped Walnuts

Directions:

1. Mix hot water and jello until dissolved. 

2. Add cold water and let it cool. 

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Put it in the refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes then stir and return to the refrigerator for another 15 to 20 minutes. Continue to stir every 15 to 20 minutes until it thickens.

4.  It's best to make it the day before so it has plenty of time to set and chill!

I hope you join in and get a chance to win these great prizes! Don't forget to visit Jen's blog for this months block, all the other bloggers to see how they made the block and get their recipes and of course visit the sponsors!!!! And I hope you have enjoyed my post, take a look around (many post with dogs!), stay awhile and I would love if you followed my little blog!

See ya soon!

Sheila

My OMG Progress

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - March Finish Link-up

It doesn't look like I will be completing my snowflake quilt in time to use this winter, because my long arm has been giving me fits this month! I broke 2 needles and it's out of time again! I barely got started as you can see here...

This is the topside

And this is the bottom

I finished my son's space quilt though and I just need to bind it. That will be after hiding all the threads from the problems my machine was giving me!!! I love how the border quilting turned out! I used Sew Steady 1 1/2" spine ruler and put washi tape on it, lining up the edges of the border as seen here...

and here are some other pictures of the quilt, mostly of the back with inspector Mittens!

I love the happy moon face in this block!

A view of the quilting on the back

More quilting on the back. I like how the rays look with the ripples!

Inspector Mittens. Everyone's a critic!

I think he approves! But then he is a cat and it is a quilt!

When I get the binding on I'll post the full quilt. Hopefully that will be sooner as opposed to later!

 

I'll have another post coming out after midnight...sorry for bombarding your email! I don't usually post that close together!!!

Sheila

March's OMG, Block Count And What Is My Latest Finishes

First my OMG for this month is to finish my Jelly Snowflake. I have the binding made and the top, back and batting sandwiched together. I just need to quilt it and bind it and then we can use it! Hopefully we will be able to use it this season...our weather has become a little warmer lately. I'm sure we will have at least one more snow before the weather changes for spring, at least that's what I hope! 

 

I highly recommend joining in on the OMG! It's a great motivator and you have a chance to win some awesome prizes!

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal March Link-up

 

I'm also linking to Quilting Gail and her PHD, another great project completer motivator! I didn't complete any projects in February, but I'm set up to have at least 2 finishes this month!!! I'm very excited about that!!! One of the projects I will be completing this month is the Jelly Snowflake (above) and I'm currently finishing up the quilting on my son's Out Of This World quilt that he will be taking to college this fall...yes my baby is heading for college this year! A whole lot of mix emotions going on there! 

Here is the space quilt under the needle. I used Aurifil 40/3 #2110 Light Lemon and 50 wt #2783 Medium Delft Blue in the bobbin. For the outer border I switched to 50 wt #2780 Dark Delft Blue since the material was so dark.

and this is the back of the quilt. It's my first time using Minky and I love the feel and the look of the quilting on it.

And here are my bullet journal pages and my sweet model Duke!

Here he shows the projects I started this year...well I haven't actually started The color challenge yet, but I will this month!

 I am also counting my blocks and posting them with Prairie Moon Quilts. This month I only finished 23 blocks. That gives me a year total of 55. Spending time quilting the above quilt took time away from making blocks, but you have to get the projects done!

That and I think I need to either fix one of my sewing machines or buy a new one. I'm using my hand crank one and while it does stitch nice and help me keep things straight, it does stitch slow and my shoulder blade has been aching. 

Isn't she a beauty! I took this when I first got her in 2019. She is a Singer model #99 and was "born" on Nov. 28 1928. To the right is Sigmund my sea green sea monster! I call him a monster for a reason...He's a heavy machine!!! He is a Singer 185j and was born sometime in 1954. I loved sewing on him, but I wore him out and now I can't get him to sew past a certain point without having to push the wheel, then it will stitch until he gets to that point again. I need to get him up and running again, he stitches beautifully and I miss sewing on him.

Here is a breakdown of my block totals...
Five blocks were from the Jelly Snowflake, six blocks are from Home Is... QAL and 12 are from my Star Dancer quilt. I hope to get caught back up this month. I think I'm on target so far, but then it is the beginning of the month anything can go wrong!

These are who I'm linking to...

Elm Street Quilts  OMG

Quilting Gail PHD

Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing Free Motion Mavericks

Prairie Moon Quilts The 350 Blocks Projects

Check out these blogs and play along... It's a great way to get projects done, be inspired and have fun meeting new people!

See ya later!

Sheila

My Finished OMG!

 Yes I finished my OMG again! Woohoo Two months in a row! I finished it about the middle of the month and even have the backing pieced and binding about done. I just need to spray baste it and quilt it. I figure a simple quilt design and I should have it done in no time. 

I finished it up when we were having all the snow and ice storms so I was able to take a photo of it in the snow. I wish I would have taken the picture on the little hill out front, it would have been perfect. But I didn't want to go out in the horrible mess so I just took the picture on the deck. 

 

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - February Finish Link-up

I changed a few things like the center. I wanted a little more so I made a churn dash instead of leaving it plain. I'm very happy with how it turned out and can't wait to get it quilted! 

I'll post more later!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sheila

My Month In Review, Counting Blocks, Phd Finish and OMG

 I feel pretty good about what I got done in the quilty part of my life, not so much in the packing and getting rid of part! And that stresses me! But onto my block count and project finishes and what is in store for February.

First I'm linking up with Prairie Moon Quilts to keep track of my block count. And I'm happy to say my count is 32! Most of the blocks are from my new/first pattern! Sorry no pictures at this time. I hope to start writing up the pattern this week along with continue to make more blocks and completing it. I made 4 blocks from Pat Sloan's Home Is... QAL and 2 of the Merry Mini blocks more on that below. I posted them on my last blog post. I think I have to figure out a better way to get my posts scheduled!

 

I'm also linking up with Quilting Gail who runs the PHD on her blog. PHD stands for Projects Half Done...LOVE IT! And I'm happy to say I actually finished one of my projects from 2019! I know I posted it yesterday, but I'm posting it here too otherwise I'll have nothing to show!!!

This is the Merry Mini quilt from The Fat Quarter Shop. You can still access the pattern here.

Here is one way I'm tracking my Projects.

The first project on my list, Out Of This World quilt has it marked that I quilted it, but I just got carried away when coloring it in! I will work on that next along with #12 Jelly Snowflake.

Here's my Jelly Snowflake that I have done so far. The four corners are complete and all I have are the fourth section and the center block to do, then quilt and bind and it's a finish. Hopefully in time to use it this winter!!! And to help me get it done in time for us to use this year, This is my OMG for February! I want to get the top pieced and ready for quilting.

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal February Link-up

 

 

I thought I would share my tracker for sewing everyday. I don't put a time limit on how long I have to sew, I just have to sew. I set this up the beginning of the year with the date in a box. That is the most extensive time I put into this. Then all I have to do is color in that date. 

It may not be pretty, but it works for me and makes me feel good about staying on track.

Another way to track your progress on your projects is with TRELLO. If you like apps and doing things digitally this may be the way for you. I use it to keep track of my projects, what quilts I finished and what quilt books I own. I have it on my phone and I can access it on my computer. I like that I can work on it on more than one device and I can actually post my pictures in it. I'm a visual person and like to see what is going on, besides the colors always cheer me up!

This is my Trello quilting page, called boards. I can click on the project and it will open up to let me see what I have done, needs to be done and if I need to add anything like a completed block or new photo. The other nice thing about this program is when I complete a project, let say The Out Of This World quilt, I just move the "card" to another board...The finished quilts board under the list for 2021 finishes. You can also share sections if you are working on a project with others. I haven't done this so I can't give you much info on that. I thought this was a nice way to track your projects if you like digital instead of the manual nature of a journal. Or like me want another way to look at your projects. The section I have on my quilt books helps me NOT buy the same book! I'm sure no one ever does that!

That's all for today!!!

Sheila

Getting Back In The Groove

  And getting projects done! 

First my OMG for January... I'm so happy to say I finished it!!!! 

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - January Finish Link-up

 

Here is a close ups of the quilting. I did a swirl with snowflakes/stars.

 

I used Aurifil 50 wt #4655 Storm at Sea, a variegated thread of blues and light grey. I can't tell you how happy I am to have this done and hanging on the wall! I've linked up with Free Motion Mavericks.

I was going to start on the Valentines heart everyone is working on, but it's a little larger than my quilt shelf and I don't want to put a lot of time in figuring out how to make it smaller.  

Did you get any UFO's done? Are you working on the Valentines heart? 

I am staying caught up with Pat Sloan's Home Is... QAL, but it's early and I usually do good until about the end. Mainly because I put off doing the setting blocks. Here are my blocks so far...

The first two are 14.5 x 14.5 and the third is 12.5 x 12.5 square.

And this past Wednesday has to be my most favorite! She has an applique template for a dog or cat and when I saw the dog template I thought immediately of Indy. 

He loved to sit on his hill, so I made my own template for the block.

This block measures in at 16.5 x 16.5 and went together very easily. I will add more detail to Indy either with fabric markers or thread, maybe both. I've been wanting to do thread painting and this may be the perfect project to get my feet wet. So we will see!

My next UFO I want to get done is the Jelly Snowflake. I believe I only have one round and the center, possibly 5 blocks. It would be nice to get that done while it's still cold out! I also would like to get my Out Of This World quilt quilted. It's for my son and it'll be the first one that I have made with minkie type material on the back. 

I have to post this pic...

It snowed! And Duke was enjoying himself. This picture makes me laugh and thought it would make you smile too.

I'll be posting in the next couple days, maybe tomorrow. I'll be linking up with The 350 Block Project, OMG, Free Motion Mavericks and PHD and I'll be posting more from my journal. I'll see you then! 

Sheila

January's OMG, Latest QAL and More Bullet Journal

 Can you, as a quilter think of anything more exhilarating than the possibilities that a new bundle of fabric holds. Even more thrilling is the start of a new project, the fabric uncut, the placements of the fabric in that first block and in the case of a QAL, a mystery of what the future blocks may hold...

That's what I was feeling Wednesday morning! Pat Sloan's new QAL started called Home Is... I'm not much for applique, but if I want to grow as a quilter I have to work on building my skills. Her first block has a small applique heart on it and if you really don't want to attempt it you don't have to put it in. I chose to challenge myself! Here's my block 

 

and a close up of the applique heart.

I used Aurifil #2425 Bright Pink to stitch around the heart and I'm using Edyta Sitar's Sweet Sixteen fabric for this QAL. Don't you just love those little birdies!

Now onto my OMG for January...

Since I didn't complete my OMG for last month I'm carrying it over. I'm happy to say that I finally finished the third block! Only one left, then quilt, bind and done!

 Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal January Link-up

And that's my OMG this month it is the same as last month, complete the Merry Mini wall hanging... Get it quilted and binding on! I'm feeling pretty good about getting things accomplished this month. I hope it lasts all year! 

I had a few comments and interest on my bullet journal last post, so I thought I would talk more about how I use it with my quilting. I don't spend too much time drawing in it or making it too fancy. I need it to be a way of organizing my thoughts. I get overwhelmed if too much is swimming around my brain and have always found jotting down a To-Do list help settle me. But I would end up with post-it notes and scraps of papers getting lost which doesn't help keep my brain settled. I started to use a journal a few years ago and I'm still working on ways to make it work for me. Here is last years page of how I keep track of what needs to get done or what I decide not to work on or just save the patterns to.

Sometimes it helps remind me of upcoming QALs or let's me see I have way too much I want to do! I can also look at my list and figure out what I have to work on next. I use this along with the Project List that I shared last post. This breaks down the projects into how many blocks are in the quilt or when the next one comes out.

You don't need a fancy journal to keep track like this, just a notebook will do. I started out by using a binder with pages I printed out. It helped me figure out what I want to keep track of, what I don't and how I want to set things up. Last years journal was a little less artsy than the previous year, but I did use it to think up quilting ideas or blocks I'd like to try. I do like looking at some of the drawings I did in 2019 when I had a moment to play. Maybe I'll do more of those too!

If you have any questions I'd love to help! If you are interested in more of my pages let me know and I'll post them next time. I keep everything in my journals...dinner ideas, sew everyday tracker, yoga tracker, and my daily happenings along with quotes and whatever is interesting me at the moment. 

Until next time!

Sheila

For all the animal lovers...                     Me and Duke,

He has helped me heal with his gentle soul.