The Partner Placemat

For the last Project Quilting challenge I made a placemat for our dear friend John. I’d also started a second one for his former wife, with whom he is still very close. Here it is.

Partner placemats. Sharing similar characteristics but able to stand alone as well, as good friends do.

Like John’s I did the Irish Chain block for Pat’s. Like John’s, hers has stars using the triangle-in-a-square block. They share a common colour: green. They share Cypress but she has Leprechaun. However, you can see that where his used purple for the stand alone triangle, hers used the background fabric and I used green for the side triangles. Same exact block just coloured differently! Pat's favourite colour is red.

Gratitude and Glimmers #82

I have put off writing this post for a month, probably because there is just so much to write, and I knew it would take me some time (and it did, more hours than I care to admit) but mainly because it would be so painful to write. Dayna gave me the idea to write it as my Gratitude post, because when you sift through all of the good (so much good) and all of the bad, it comes down to gratitude and love.

The love between a medium-sized Staffy-terrier mix rescue dog and her humans and fur brother.

May 23 - 27, 2021

This is a tribute to this wonderful little peanut who, much too soon, on February 26, went over the Rainbow Bridge. She taught us so much about patience and trust and compassion in the all-too-short time she was a part of our family. 

Project Quilting 15.6 Irish Chain

For whatever reason, maybe a lot going on this past week, this last challenge for Project Quilting gave me pause. We were to work with the Irish Chain quilt block.

I first played around in my graph paper design book, originally planning a quilt for myself, baby size, as another of my take-to-yoga-class quilts, or else a placemat for my good friend John. I knew I would do a triangle in a square in the alternating squares. I made a quilt with this design in a 9-patch exchange about 20 years ago and I just love the effect. It was a busy week and although I plan to do that yoga class quilt or 'Baby Boomer Blankie', a placemat, hopefully two, it had to be. (Baby Boomer Blankie is a term coined by my friend Rose, and since I am born in the last year of the Boomers, I guess it can apply to moi as well), 

I finally got to my sewing machine on Friday and by Saturday around 10 pm (gulp) I had one complete. 

Of course I had to make delicious soft ginger cookies, a recipe Brady shared with me. Brady also gave me that mug. The cream and sugar pottery is now 45+ years old, a pre-marriage gift from Pat, my SIL. It’s all about the photo shoot right?!

Rainbow Fish SAHRR Complete

It was another fun year of brain work in the Stay At Home Round Robin hosted by Gail of QuiltingGail, along with several co-hosts who gave a directive each week as to what to do for that specific round. My forlorn fish and heart blocks have grown into this adorable baby/toddler quilt and I just love how it all came together.

When I drove down Main Street earlier this week, I spied that mural and thought I think I should use it for a quilt photo of my fishies quilt! Thanks to some ‘rough surface’ tape, I was able to tape it to that wall. Don’t worry: I first checked in a small corner that it wouldn’t harm the mural. Eeee! I did a little squeal when I stepped back to snap the photo. It is good!

Eighth Annual Quilt Along Heads Up!

Happy first full day of Spring to those readers in the Northern Hemisphere where the Vernal Equinox occurred last night at 11:06 EST. Happy first well due to getting this out later than planned, make that the second full day of autumn to my Southern Hemisphere readers, where the Autumnal Equinox occurs at 2:07 AEDT. In both hemispheres the amount of daylight and nighttime is almost exactly equal. The world is totally in sync!

If you are looking for my Villa Rose Designs post, click here.

So today is an auspicious day to announce that exactly two weeks from today marks the kickoff of my eighth annual quilt along, and I am excited to give you a little teaser of what we are doing this year. First of all, here is the graphic:

Feel free to grab it for your sidebar or for other social media. At the end of the post is another graphic to post on your Instagram stories or wherever else you post if you are participating. I appreciate the help in getting the word out about my free, yes completely free, QAL!

Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the hop! I am Sandra of mmmquilts, which came about from the original name of my blog which I started in 2013, Musings of a Menopausal Melon. It was started when I quit teaching because my husband took early retirement, and I was certainly not going to work if he wasn't. Along with that major decision we made a major move across Canada, and the blog (I love to write) became my way of keeping in touch with family and friends afar as I mused about our new direction in life, life in general, and quilting, which led to a whole new journey in and of itself! When quilting became the predominant subject of the blog, I shortened the name to mmmquilts, all one word, lower case. I also design patterns, which have appeared in several publications, and you can also find them in my Etsy shop, SandraJaneQuilts. On April 3, my eighth annual Quilt Along begins, running through June 15 at a nice relaxed pace. This year it is once again free to participants, with some great prizes to be won.

I was thrilled to be invited to participate for the second year of this hop which showcases five fast and fun quilts to make. The one I chose came together from start to finish within a few hours!

Rufus, my quilt model

This design is named Gypsy Rose, but I’ve named my quilt Around the Block for a couple of reasons. Read on for that explanation, as well as to enter for your chance to win some truly fantastic prizes, many of which are open to quilters around the globe this year.

Project Quilting 15.5 Wearables

I actually was excited about this prompt because I felt it would be the impetus to get me doing a little garment sewing again. I still have kept a few pieces of yardage in the thought (hope) I’d sew some clothes again one day. 

Here is the top I made!

A couple of years ago I made myself a pair of pajama shorts using the same pattern as we’d used when Brady was here visiting to make his. I originally had a dress in mind for this fabric but, since I had scads of yardage and I really liked the print, I decided to make the shorts. They turned out great and I thought why not make a top to go with them? A top would be a faster make since I only had from Thursday on to get something together before the deadline.