Final Finish Up Month and Goal Setting for 2014~

Have you been "elfing" for a while?

Getting everything ready for the holidays?

It is a busy time of the year!

One of my goals is to get the final block finished and 

in the mail for our

Color Adventure.

Here it is half-way done.  

I love it more with every added month.

I hope you get time for yourself
to enjoy

and absorb

this special time of year!

I am linking up

for the final month

with 

Melissa and Shanna 

at a

Lovely Year of Finishes.

Please stop by and check out the other projects!

An October Goal~

I have a pattern picked out,

and three colors chosen

from the Kona cottons in my basket.

Did you notice the frost underneath it? ;-)

It is time to get October's blocks done 

for our 

Color Adventure!!

Since the person who will receive one of the blocks

reads this

(Hello!)

I will have to wait to show the details.

But that set of blocks

is my goal.

Time to get back to stitching.....

October's Goal Setting Party 

can be found here ~

Come check out what everyone is doing

now that summer is over!

August's Colors~

For us August is a time of 

back to school and birthday happenings.

In honor of our birthday girl,

I used greens and orange.

The Kona Kiwi and Honeydew greens represent

August's birthstone, Peridot.

School Bus is for the orange..

one of the current favs

of someone back at college to finish one more SemEstER!!

I chose a paper-pieced pattern

(yes, I really did) 

from Fresh Lemons,

Whirling Star.

She did an excellent job with her directions

(thank you..PP makes me

so nervous!)

By time I did both blocks,

I think I was doing better with the process.

Does anyone else feel like they 

are working backwards,

sideways

and upside down

with paper-piecing?

It is a great brain exercise!

Anyway, I was happy with most of the results.

Just need to practice,

practice,

practice...

One block has whirled its way to Oregon,

and 

that leaves just four more monthly blocks 

to go.....

July's Color Adventure From Alaska~

Ever get an idea that you really want to try,

but it challenges your brain..

a lot?

For my July block, I wanted to make something resembling

fireworks.

The way they shoot in the middle,

then radiate out.

After some playing around,

and lots of little blocks,

this is what I came up with.

I made my triangles by stitching around the squares,

and cutting diagonally in both

directions.

It is an easy way to make four identical ones.

I cut, pressed and trimmed all of the sections..

then arranged them for piecing.

 Two Firework blocks for July!

One has been delivered to Oregon 

before this posting.....

Six Months of Color Adventure~

This is 

six months 

into our Color Adventure.

Can't wait to add more blocks and colors!

And then ..

a.. 

layout.....

Our June Colors~

In June we were both inspired by flowers!

Tammy, by her beautiful over-flowing roses..

Her block is Georgetown Circles

with

Bright Pink, Clover, and Chartreuse

And my inspiration were the late tulips

blooming in Idaho.

I decided to make the June block,

Teach,

since Tammy and I both do that!

My colors were:

Tangerine, Leprechaun,

and

Lipstick 

 Flowers among the leaves.....

May's Little Adventure~

We remained on schedule in May as well.

I was in a water mode and wanted to do a block in all water colors,

but it was too blah, so 

I tried to spice it up with a splash of spring color, pink!

For the block I use components from two of my favorite

Sugar Blocks

with

Water

Breakers

Bright Pink

(That is ice breaking up in the background)

Tammy chose to make a

Morning Star

using 

Medium Pink

Crocus

Wasabi

Five months down, seven to go.....

Color Adventure - Our April Blocks Together~

I am a little behind on posting,

but here are our April blocks together.

Tammy created a block to represent 

a cross for Easter 

using royal, mulberry and citrus.  

Her block is called Blackford's Beauty.

Her husband thought it looked like a 

stained-glass window.

Mine is from the Sugar Snow quilt.

Again, we have similarities!

I am still loving this adventure.....

April's Block for Our Adventure in Color~

Like always, there were many things left on my

To Do List

before I hopped on the jet a month ago.

That seems so long and about 50 degrees different!

One of the things on the list was to snap a picture of my April blocks

and send them off in the mail.

Originally I planned to make this for February,

then I went all Valentines-ee and made them for April.

Our days are getting longer and our shadows are growing.

The excellent pattern is the Star and Pinwheel

from the Vintage Quilt Revival's Sugar Snow Quilt.

I have several more blocks to make from the book.  

If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it.

Seeing the book online definitely inspired our Color Adventure Project!

The colors I used are Kona Peacock, Citrus and Pomegranate. 

April's Sugar Snow~

finished and mailed before flying.....

And Then There Was March~

We had that month called March.

Do you remember it blowing by?

I chose the shade of early spring for this block.

Having the wheel spin on the branches

as the wind blew

seemed to put them in motion.

And Tammy sent her beautiful block.

I love her color choice!

And here is what we have so far!

All completed on time ;-)

April is in the mail.....

February's Colors~

I realized I didn't post our finished February blocks

for the Color Adventure.

That month sure flew by, didn't it!

Tammy's pretty "springy" one arrived with its soft colors.

It is a bit of Oregon's spring palette!

Our January and February blocks

are blooming against the winter's snow.....

Half of February's Color Adventure~

For my February Color Adventure block, I wanted to do something

"Valentine-ish".

It is the Valentine month after all ;-)!

So I scrapped the block I  had started and pulled out three Kona colors;

mulberry, cardinal red and candy pink.

Finding a pattern that was Valentine-ish was harder than I expected.

I wanted arrows or flowers or???

but no hearts.

Through an online search I found about.com.quilt

and the Flying All Around block.

But it had a chunky 6.5" piece of fabric for the center...

I pulled out my BrANd New (thanks, Jane) 

Farmer's Wife book

and found Wild Roses and square to fill that spot.

My idea of a valentine..

Arrows of Love circling a bouquet of flowers.

(note- those are fox prints above)

I was so tickled to finish, and skipped out to take pictures before the sun disappeared.

And discovered I had a problem..

 (hear the music change?)

Oops!

So back to the machine and ripper I went.

Problem solved.

The wind was beginning to blow,

and this block set to fly off to Oregon!

I can't wait to see what the mailbox delivers this month.....

Color Adventure~

My friend, Tammy, and I have embarked on a new 

adventure.

It is different than anything we have done before.

Each month we will make two identical blocks 

using Kona Solids

and a 12" pattern of our choice.

We both have sewn for years,

but this was a bit of a stretch and, surprisingly,

very intimidating for us both!

One of the monthly blocks will be mailed

by the end of each month to each other.

A Deadline.....

This block of mine was sealed and flew away.

Then, one lucky day this block arrived in my mailbox!

I was so excited, I hung it right up for a picture,

without even pressing out the fold.

It made me laugh when I opened the envelope and saw Tammy's work.

I think think this is going to be a great adventure

together.....