Gratitude and Glimmers #84

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise.

It is not that we seize them,

but that they seize us.

--Ashley Montagu

I like that perfect description of a glimmer. Welcome to my post for May where I share things that have given me a glimmer of joy over the past month. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1. I like this story on the CBC website which fascinates me. Animals are amazing, but even more so are our closest relatives, the great apes.

Source: CBC.ca

Beaucoup de Bags

Over the past month and a bit I sold four of the makeup bags I sell in my Etsy shop. So I decided to finish up the two shells sitting in the drawer, and make two more to replenish the stock.

These are a fun and satisfying make.

Luminous Layers Quilt Along. - Assemble the Top

In some ways it feels like this year's QAL has been going on for a while, yet in other ways, I am surprised that here we are at the flimsy stage. Again, I apologize for the delay in getting this post to you, but real life butted in once again. Both good and not so good. More on that in a minute.

I promised you a slick method for assembling quilt tops. I learned it many years ago when I took Judy Villett's 'Shady Corner' watercolour class at Earthly Goods in Edmonton. We needed a foolproof way to keep all those 2" unfinished squares in the order they'd been placed on our design walls. I used it for pretty much all my quilts and have shown many others the method. Many lightbulbs have lit up in quilters' brains!

Dancing Stars

This project was one of three I worked on throughout 2023 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge that Angela of soscrappy hosts each year. It is one of two RSC projects I did last year from the August/September 2022 issue of Quick & Easy Quilts. The designer did black stars on a grey background whereas I chose to do mine in rainbow colours on grey.

Like the original, I did colourful background squares. I’m pleased with how it turned out. It did, however, have its growing pains. 

Luminous Layers Quilt Along - Make the Medium Stars

I find it very rewarding and heartwarming that several of you just couldn't stop at the small stars from last week and made the medium stars, and now you have your 36 blocks all sitting on the design wall! And I am thrilled that Diann had the idea to chain sew as leader/enders the bigger simpler blocks that have been sitting on the design wall for a few weeks as she pieced the small stars... As a result, I have a little more than half of my quilt top sewn up and it felt like someone else did it (well, almost).

So all that is left now are four blocks. The good news is that you have 5/16 of these last four blocks already done. So let's get cracking at making the four medium 8" (12") star blocks!

Luminous Layers Quilt Along Make the Small Stars

We've had two weeks of making star points; this week we will make entire stars. There are five small stars. Four sit in the centre of the medium stars, and one is in the very centre of the quilt. These babies are 4" (6") finished so the HSTs for them will seem really tiny after making the giant and large ones.

I posted my large star points on Instagram @mmmquilts but for those who don't have it, know that first of all, you can easily go on it and look at any public account. Mine is public. For those who don't have Instagram and don't care to even go there (I hear you - that's me for the most part wrt FaceBook) I've added that photo to the previous post where we made the large star points.

Rainbows

Rainbows symbolize many things: hope, wonder, peace, the LGBTQIA+ movement. When I'm working on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, I am happy. I love the variance in just one colour, and I love the joy I get when I start putting my blocks together. It helps calm my mind and soothes my spirit when I see and feel the plight of the Palestinians, the current bombing of Rafah—again, where the people were told to go for their safety ends up corralling them so they can be murdered and hospitals bombed yet again. The amount of war crimes Israel has committed and continues to commit are heinous. Kudos to the universities, kudos to the protesters and may all of us who condemn Israel and are doing everything we can, be it signing petitions, writing emails, boycotting Israel products, finally be heard. 

Up until April this year I have had just one RSC project which is unusual for me. Well, I now have two! Here are May's pink blocks for Project #1, the bricks quilt.

These are 10" finished, so I am making two of each of nine colours which will give me a 40" square quilt.

Luminous Layers QAL Large Violet Star Points

Hope everyone had a very relaxing sewing start to this year's quilt along. Make eight giant HSTs, put them together with eight background squares and four gold squares and poof! more than half of the quilt is done. 

Sweet!

Four people linked up their progress, and I am happy to report that Brady chose #2 in the linkup, and that means Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts wins her choice of one of my patterns. 🥳🎉  I do know there are more than double that out there sewing, or even finished sewing their tops, so can't wait to see them all popping up. Remember you can email me a photo for any of the linkups and I will happily link you up for prizes. No blog or Instagram or social media of any kind is necessary.