All Is Well

 

Just an update to say all is well with me and mine 

in my snug little home.

Sending Hugs All Around. 

Summer Blooms and Stitches

 Good Morning!

Summer has been blooming in my scrapatch.

I have been having some ups and downs, 

but life is good.

I have been doing a lot of sitting and crocheting.

I have been carrying my yarn bag and hooks wherever life takes me.

Last fall we had to cut back the big purple clematis

 because it had suffered a lot of winter kill last year. 

It is growing back green and beautiful. 

Life can be like that. 

Sometimes you need to regroup and carry on ...

... and bloom.

 The wall of rhododendrons in our driveway have also bloomed.

My kitties and I finished our Spring Crochet Along Blanket.

I added wide side borders of my own design to make it bed size.

Nutmeg loves this one. 

Then I added the lovely yellow shell edging from the crochet along. 

Cassian helped. 

 Our big boy stray cat has become quite domesticated

and loves this blanket, too.

This is the start of my new crochet along with 

Any Day Crochet on TikTok

More soon! 

I hope you are having and happy and healthy June!

I Like Thursday ~ Good Morning and Good Night

 

In the early morning, you can find me enjoying my coffee 

and adding more stitches to my current project.

The question this week for 

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is "Are you a Morning Person or Night Owl?"

In truth, I can be either or both.

Many a midnight in the past, I would be sitting at my sewing machine

while Mr Scrapatch was working a late shift.

Now I can still occasionally be up stitching

long after Mr. Scrapatch has gone to bed for the night

as he is an early to work man these days

and gets up and feeds the kitties before me.

When he leaves for work, the kitties are napping

and the sun shines in or the rain taps at the windows

and I am stitching. 

Here are a few of the new rows in my Mystery Spring Crochet Along:

Jacob's Ladder

This is my favorite stitch in this crochet along so far.

The last time I laid out the work in progress,

it measured over 4 feet long.

Here are a few of the most recent additions.

The Strawberry row is really cute.

The stitch above it is another rainbow stitch,

this one is a Mosaic Crochet Stitch.

Nutmeg loves this and wants to claim it as her own.

So when the row of the day was a Cat Stitch,

I changed the color to orange just for her. 

My stitching lasted into the afternoon today

as it called for the Drunken Granny Stitch.

My fingers could almost make Granny Squares in my sleep,

so they kept making regular granny clusters

and I had to pull them out and start again a few times.

By the afternoon, it was time to relax with a bit of 

Bailey's in my afternoon iced coffee to get in the spirit of the stitch.

Now here it is night and I am updating my blog a wee bit late this week.

Good Morning and Goodnight to all my Thursday blogging friends!

I Like Thursday ~ Beaches

 

The question for us today for 

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is  "Amusement Park or Day at the Beach?"

I am a beach person. 

Coast to Coast.

Above is the Atlantic ...  in Maine.

Below is the Pacific ... 

... at Huntington Beach, California.

I feel that I am lucky to have put my toes in the ocean

 on both the east and the west coast.

In my younger days, I could walk the sands for hours,

end to end and back again on any beach, anywhere, 

any time of day or year,

knowing I have never put my toes in exactly the same place.

The beach is ever changing.

The tides are ever flowing.

Each moment is unique,

a once in a lifetime experience ... and, yet, eternal.

It is a return to winter here today.

The kitties and I are snug and warm inside,

stitching our crochet,

and dreaming of the beach.

May your Thursday be happy, my friends. 

I Like Thursday ~ My Kitties

 

Maestro, 12 weeks, and me.

The prompt for today for

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

is 

 "If you could choose any baby animal to be your pet, 

what would you pick and why?"

I would choose a kitten,

as I have done so over and over in my life.

My pet does not have to be a baby animal.

They are all my babies.

Why?

For the unconditional love,

on both sides.

I Like Thursday ~ Jasmine Crochet Stitch

 

Today my purple flowers are made of yarn.

I am late adding my post for

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

because I have spent all day making these

 five rows of crochet stitches.

This is the Jasmine stitch.

This is the most labor intensive

 and yarn consuming crochet stitch

crossing my hook in recent memories.

I like learning new things,

making new friends in the crochet along,

playing with the pretty yarns.

The first cluster row stitch was the most difficult,

in part because it had to be adapted to this row stitch along.

This stitch is normally starts with clusters instead of a chain.

I think I may have made a scarf with it many years ago,

but do not recall it being this tricky.

Maybe my fingers were just younger and more able.

 It was the young and able fingers of this 

Spring Crochet Along

 designer who did the adaptions.

Her excellent instruction video

may be found at 

Any Day Crochet on TikTok

There the trick to holding the loop of the working thread

as it feeds through the cluster can be learned.

For two rows, there were 19 loops on the hook for each cluster stitch.

I tried this stitch last night and could not get it started.

This morning I started with my morning coffee

and kept at it all day,

with occasional necessary rests for my hands.

My finished Jasmine Stitch row is far from perfect

but I am feeling very happy and accomplished tonight.

My Wordless Wednesday photo showed some of my crocuses,

the first flowers of spring in my yard.

Yesterday it was cold and gray and they were closed up tight.

Here are some more of my crocuses.

It was sunny today but very windy and bitterly cold.

My crocuses were closed up tight.

Hopefully it will be warmer soon so they may spring open.

Happy Spring to all,

whatever your weather or season of the year.

Wordless Wednesday

Just Sewing Along

 

Time to catch up with some blogging.

I have been sewing, just not taking lots of photos or posting. 

Here are my first six blocks for the

Made & Found Quilt Along

This sew along is from the fabric designers for

 Andover Fabrics

The free block patterns are available by email 

and are released on Thursdays.

I have been sewing every Friday.

This is Block 4.

I have been using some of the fabrics in my stash,

some solids, some prints by Alison Glass. who is one of the block designers ...

... and these lovelies by Anna Maria Horner. 

I finally found a selvage in this stash of smaller cuts.

These fabrics are from Folk Song, circa 2015.

I have used these to three other quilts,

two of which are in my WIP boxes.

I love her use of color and design. 

Here is my Block 5.

Last week they also released this Bonus Block 1.

The print in this one is from the Trinket collection by Alison Glass.

 I believe I read  somewhere that there will be 36 blocks, 

or maybe 36 weeks, in this sew along.

I have no thoughts  as to what these blocks might look like together in a quilt.

There may be layout suggestions in the end

which I may or may not follow.

I am just sewing along each week,

playing with the fabric,

using up some of my stash

and that is all good by me. 

Do you ever make blocks just for fun? 

I Like Thursday ~ Spring in in the Air

 

Spring in in the air!

Today when I was sitting and working on my

Spring Crochet Along with Any Day Crochet

I had the windows open on the south side of the house.

My Wordless Wednesday photo this week

 was of this lovely spring looking zipper pouch 

sent to me as a gift 

from my online Quilty Bestie,

Dorian @ Ridge Top Quilts

You can see the sewing in progress on this zipper bag in the link above.  I love how Dorian takes her smallest scraps and adds beautiful hand stitched touches to make such beautiful and useful things. I am sew blessed to be the recipient of this lovely. I have tucked my crochet needs like small scissors, yarn needles and markers and extra hooks into this pretty pouch and tucked it in the top on my yarn bag.

Thank you, my dear friend, Dorian!

I am up to date on Day 11 of the Spring Blanket Crochet Along

with the cute blueberry bobbles on top of the orange basket stitch rows.

See the adorable purple and blue iced cupcakes row?

Tulips and Bunny Ears and Dragonflies, oh my!

I think the Carrots row is my favorite. 

Maybe. They are all so cute!

As you can see, it is bright and sunny 

but there are no flowers outside my door yet.

I am also up to date on my Temperature Quilt Tree Blocks.

As you can see, this week the trees are all pink,

which means the day temperatures 

have been in the 40s and 50s, Fahrenheit.

The night has dipped into the 20's though and it has been windy.

As you can also see, Nutmeg has approved these blocks.

Time to sew them into the row!

~~~

Although it getting warmer is much too early in my corner of the world 

for spring flowers as each night it goes below freezing.

The I Like Thursday question of the week is what are my favorite

spring flowers.

Though they are not blooming yet, I have two.

In my yard, I love the brave little crocuses 

which will be my first garden blooms.

I also love to fill my window boxes and hanging planters

with spring pansies.

There are not available to purchase yet at the garden centers yet.

Soon.

For more Thursday fun, visit all my friends at

I Like Thursday @ Not Afraid of Color

Happy Thursday! 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Slow Sunday Stitching ~ Spring Crochet

 

Day 7 is complete for my 

Spring Crochet Blanket Started Here

This is a free crochet along.

All information, patterns and tips can be found  at

Any Day Crochet @ TikTok

Nutmeg is my ever helpful crochet kitty.

Her favorite part of the job is testing our crochet blankets for comfort.

Nutmeg and I are linking up today with all of the lovely creations at

Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts

It has been a weekend of heavy rain and now clearing skies

 in my corner of the world.

The forecast is for more spring like weather.

We were able to start a little yard cleanup and found 

our crocuses and tulips are sending up green shoots.

No spring flowers yet.

Soon ... very soon ... :) 

I hope your weekend has been full of good times and happy stitches.