Sue

America the Beautiful-fields & trees

November 17, 2015 by Sue Leave a Comment

We made the deciduous tree blocks at our previous session and they went together quite easily. We can sew things up quickly when we already have the blocks all cut out in kits. Because this quilt is showing more of our individualism, our three block units have variations from each other. They are placed in three different spots in the quilt so we decided to have seasons and make a spring, summer, and fall tree unit. Terry found the tulip fabric in her stash and she and I used that for our spring background, but ShaRee wanted to be consistent with her cream backgrounds. Our summer units are different, but we all agreed on that cute fall fabric.

Since everything went so quickly, we decided to begin the Fields Block. We started laying them all out and realized that we had cut greens and a few golds like the pattern suggested, but we all felt the row needed some brown. We decided to bring browns the next week, cut up a few squares, sew up the block and work on our 1930’s quilt as usual. We alternate weeks on the two projects. But those easy squares and triangles ended up taking us two hours to finish! We are nothing if not flexible, so we cut out the next two 1930’s blocks for future sewing and planned our next move on this quilt. Here are our Fields from top to bottom: ShaRee, Sue, and Terry. This block runs along the bottom of the quilt and is the width of the quilt.

All Fields block

2016 Reading Challenges from My Reader’s Block

November 9, 2015 by Sue 3 Comments

I usually do all my reading challenge sign-ups in one big post at the end of December, but since these are now open and I know I will be signing up for them again, I figured I might as well go ahead and do it. As Forrest Gump would say, “One less thing!” These three challenges are hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block.

2016 Read It Again, Sam

I did this challenge last year for the first time and signed up for 8 books. I called the 2015 challenge last month when I hit 30 re-reads which is way past the top level. Most of my re-reads come from audio books I check out from the library and listen to as I do other things around the house. You can get through an audio book quite fast at that rate. So I will sign up for Living in the Past 16+ books.
*Challenge runs from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2016.
Levels:
Déjà vu: Reread 4 books
Feeling Nostalgic: Reread 8 books
A Trip Down Memory Lane: Reread 12 books
Living in the Past: Reread 16+ books

2016 Color Coded Challenge

This will be my fourth year for this challenge and although I did have to resort to the new option in 2015 of a color on the cover for brown, the rest were titles. I try to read my own books for this as much as possible without resorting to library books, but sometimes I do. I’m going to try to stick to my own books next year so I may have to do another cover.

Here are the rules:

*Read nine books in the following categories.

1. A book with “Blue” or any shade of Blue (Turquoise, Aquamarine, Navy, etc) in the title/on the cover.

2. A book with “Red” or any shade of Red (Scarlet, Crimson, Burgandy, etc) in the title/on the cover.

3. A book with “Yellow” or any shade of Yellow (Gold, Lemon, Maize, etc.)in the title/on the cover.

4. A book with “Green” or any shade of Green (Emerald, Lime, Jade, etc) in the title/on the cover.

5. A book with “Brown” or any shade of Brown (Tan, Chocolate, Beige, etc) in the title/on the cover.

6. A book with “Black” or any shade of Black (Jet, Ebony, Charcoal, etc) in the title/on the cover.

7. A book with “White” or any shade of White (Ivory, Eggshell, Cream, etc)in the title/on the cover.

8. A book with any other color in the title/on the cover (Purple, Orange, Silver, Pink, Magneta, etc.).

9. A book with a word that implies color (Rainbow, Polka-dot, Plaid, Paisley, Stripe, etc.).

* Any book read from January 1 through December 31, 2016 will count.

2016 Mount TBR Reading Challenge

I’ve done this challenge every year so this will be year #4. I signed up for Mt. Ararat and accomplished that recently and am hoping to get a few more in before the end of the year to make Mt. Kilimanjaro, but will be conservative and sign up for Mt. Ararat again in 2016. Climb on!

Challenge Levels:
Pike’s Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Blanc: Read 24 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Vancouver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 48 books from your TBR piles/s
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 60 books from your TBR pile/s
El Toro: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile/s

*Challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2016.

America the Beautiful-flag & sun

November 5, 2015 by Sue Leave a Comment

Since we had cut up all those lovely little kits, our first sewing day we got right to the sewing and managed to get two blocks finished. The first block is the Flag block and you can already see our styles emerge. Terry found some fabric in her stash with words on it and some of us used that. This block goes in the upper left corner. Then we tackled the Sun block which goes in the upper right corner. Fascinating fact: ShaRee used 3 different fabrics, I used 4, and Terry used 2 fabrics. We sometimes make completely independent choices, as here, but some of our upcoming blocks will be more similar. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end! Our goal is to have these finished for Alpine Days in August 2016.

blocks by ShaRee

blocks by Sue

blocks by Terry

America the Beautiful-the beginning

November 4, 2015 by Sue Leave a Comment

In September our quilt group began a new project that will run concurrently with the 1930’s quilt we began in January. We are alternating weeks on the projects. The new quilt is called “America the Beautiful” and is published by McCall’s Quilting. It was published a section at a time in the magazine during 2011 and the full pattern can be found on the website and in the Autumn 2012 magazine. This issue featured the original colorway shown below, but also photos of reader quilts that had been sewn the previous year during the sew-along. [Read more…] about America the Beautiful-the beginning

Sue

More reading challenges for 2016

Royal Challenge 2016