Using up scraps

A few years ago, I participated in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC), making blocks for a quilt using a designated color each month.  This is supposed to help use up stash, but I think it only just fluffs it up.  A blogger has organized this every year, and RSC20 began in January with bright green.  The color for February is orange, and this morning I got a jump on February by making three 12" blocks.

If I keep making 3 blocks a month, by the end of the year I should have enough for a nice sized quilt.  Usually there is no color designated for December; that's a time to finish up the quilt.   

I spent the morning cleaning up my orange box, ironing the snippets that have sifted to the bottom and straightening the larger pieces.  I cut a bunch of 2" and 2.5" squares from the snippets for future use.  Some of them ended up in the blocks.  At least now I can close the top of the box.  

I did something similar with my purples yesterday because I just couldn't squeeze another thing in.  I made some purple and cream nine patches to go with the swap blocks, too.  I will try to continue this for the rest of the year although some months I'll probably just make the blocks without  doing much "stash maintenance."

Meanwhile, I joined Weight Watchers online (no meetings!) on Monday and am trying to stick to the "green plan," which allows unlimited vegetables and fruits (with a few restrictions - corn, potatoes, etc.).  I lost two pounds in the last two days, and it hasn't been too bad.  I'm also doing the WW plank challenge (a yoga pose) every day since it doesn't take much time.  I have a long way to go!

Swap blocks

The last few days I've been making blocks to swap with an online group.  Each person told what colorway she would like, and each person has chosen one or two blocks to make in the other people's colorways.  I chose to make Traveler (in The Splendid Sampler) and Sawtoothed Star blocks for each person.

Almost all of the blocks were made with stash, which means that I've been going through my stash and cutting 2" and 2.5" blocks for future use at the same time that I've been cutting fabric for the blocks.  This picture is a bit dark (due to a gloomy day today), but it does show the variety of colorways.  One person asked for '30's fabric, which I don't have enough of, even to make a 6" block.  So I bought a little.  The cream background is left over from last year's swap when the blocks were 20".  I bought a little too much then, but I knew I'd need cream sometime.  

The two purple ones at the right are for me, and everyone will be sending me purple blocks in their chosen patterns throughout the year.  I hate to have deadlines looming so I usually get things done fairly quickly.  We are all mailing our blocks directly to each other person, so these will go in the mail as soon as I get a few more international stamps.   The group includes quilters from Canada, Australia, and London, as well as all parts of the USA.

Next on my to-do list is the guild block of the month in jewel tones with a black background.   I'm participating in what we call a block robin and also making a monthly block or two in the same colorway so that the resulting quilt is bigger than the 18? blocks I'll receive in June.  I asked for 9" blocks to be made, so the extra blocks will help.

Happy swap, happy quilt

This summer I participated in a one-on-one swap organized by NQC (National Quilting C....?).  Each week they would publish two patterns for a nine block quilt, and for four weeks, I made a block for me and a block for Linda in Florida.  I made my blocks in black, white, and red, while Linda's blocks were pink and lightish green.  Linda was making two different blocks in the same fabrics.  It was really fun to receive my block each week from Linda and also to see how the blocks looked in the different color ways.  Linda was a great partner, and since she'll be moving to Denver soon, I hope to meet her in person sometime.

I set the blocks in a "Circle of Nine" pattern, based on a class I took several years ago.  I wanted to get away from the standard sashing and cornerstones setting.  It's wild but I like it.   I wish you could see it more clearly, but I really can't take an outside picture at this time of year.  The snow is too deep to stand in the yard with the camera while Paul holds it up on the porch.

I had Marie long arm quilt it in a swirly pattern, and she always does a meticulous job.  Fast and very reasonably priced, too.  I am taking another quilt to her tomorrow.

The binding on this quilt is black with small white polka dots, but I used Minnie Mouse fabric for it.  Luckily, the eyes, ears, and hands don't show that much so that you don't notice unless you look very closely.  This is my first big finish for 2020, and it feels good to empty a project box!

Pineapple blocks

I'm almost finished putting together the elements of the Long Time Gone quilt.  I have "only" 16  pineapple blocks to paper piece out of a pile of scraps left over from other blocks in the quilt.  They aren't hard, but they do take time.  I can make 4 blocks in a day if I'm doing only that, but of course, I have other things to do.   Saturday afternoon, I went to my small quilt guild where we all work on our own handwork.  It's fun to sit and catch up with these women who are smart and funny.

Yesterday we were nearly out of bread, so I made some Honey Buttermilk bread.   I used the dough setting so that I could take it out and shape it for the final rise before baking it in the oven.   The shape baked in the oven is more useful than the one in the machine which makes a cube rather than a loaf.  Having had a slice this morning, I can say that it goes really well with homemade jam.  

Sunday morning was devoted to making mango-raspberry jam.  I haven't tried that yet as we have an open jar of peach melba.  Paul eats jam on his toast every morning, and I gave away quite a few jars at Christmastime, so we were nearly out.

I did discover that the best time to take the paper out from behind the blocks is while watching TV.   I put one small section of the quilt on the design wall and like the way it looks so far.  The Jen Kingwell pattern has you make a bunch of similar blocks at a time, and then you scatter those blocks through the quilt which is especially nice when using scraps.  The pineapples appear in a few places and I'm glad to be using snippets from previous blocks.  

The desire to put this quilt together is strong.  I was going to take a break and put more of the quilt together, but the pile of scraps needed for the pineapples were in the way and well organized by size.  I have only six more to go, so I hope to be finished with them in the next few days.  Then I'll start cutting the 1.5" sashing and make some filler checkerboard strips.  Then, finally, it will be time to put the whole thing together.

Long Time Gone

I looked in the Long Time Gone pattern book (the size of a magazine!) and it looks like I am nearing the assembly stage.  I had been dreading making the courthouse steps blocks with 1.25" logs, but they turned out to be fairly easy.  The half-square triangles were murder, and I am not looking forward to the pineapple blocks.  But I have been working steadily.  Here's a sampling of what I have made in the last week.

These blocks will not be near each other in the finished quilt, and there will be sashing.  I think they look very dark now.  I had thought I'd use a cream sashing, but now I'm thinking of a whiter fabric to tone down the gloominess of it all.  The prints, both blue and beige, are Civil War-like, but there are some other scraps mixed in.  Right now I'm working on a section with 60 degree triangles.  I have paper pieced those because they aren't truly 60 degrees, but rather 53 degrees.   No ruler I have - and I have quite a few - worked.  Luckily, I found a website with free 2.5" ones to print out.

I was surprised and pleased to receive a package from the Netherlands yesterday.  My niece (actually, my cousin's daughter) and her boyfriend sent me two photos they had blown up and framed of our visit last spring and a plaque that reads, in Dutch, You are the sweetest aunt.  

Some peppermints were in the box, too.  I sat right down and wrote a thank you email in Dutch.  My Dutch is pretty bad and stuck in 1952 which is when we immigrated, so I labored a bit and used Google Translate, too.   But Karin will appreciate my trying.  They told me this spring that they always sleep under the red and white sampler quilt I made them.  I wonder if it's big enough, though, since Marco is 7'1" tall!

Double Churn Dash

The sun came out on Thursday and I was able to take a picture of the Double Churn Dash throw I finished before New Year's.

These were swap blocks (I made the center and the orange one beneath it) from my international swap group this summer.  I wasn't wild about them at first, but I like the secondary pattern made by setting them block to block.  There was one extra block which I put on the back along with the signature squares.  Whoever receives this in the Friends of the Library's winter auction will enjoy looking at the swappers' names and where they live - Australia, Ontario, various states.

This particular swap group organizes a few swaps each year, and in 2020 it will be "Anything Goes."  Everyone has chosen a couple of traditional blocks to make everyone else and will receive blocks in their own color choices.  They aren't due until Sept. 30, so I will most likely work on them throughout the year, here and there.  I chose to make "Traveler" (from Pat Sloan's Splendid Sampler) and "Sawtoothed Star" blocks for everyone.  I'll be receiving purple blocks with a cream background from everyone else.

The last few days, I've been laboring over some blue and beige blocks for my Long Time Gone quilt, but I'm taking a breather today and working on a few bright green blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Hope to stick to that all year long, but it means another item for my list of UFOs and another project box or bag to shuffle around.

2019 Quilt Round Up

It was a pretty busy year with trips and health issues to deal with.  Quilting is good "therapy" when times are stressful and some calm is needed.  I keep a couple of straightforward projects around for when "mindless" projects feel good and to take along to monthly Saturday guild sew-ins.  This year I've been appliqueing pink and brown melon shapes onto various 6" cream scraps.  I've made sporadic headway on what will be a small baby quilt.  I also have been cutting and sewing small tumbler shapes in Christmas scraps for something.  A table runner, maybe?  I have a printed piece of dark blue for sashiko stitching this winter, too, and thought it might end up being a center medallion for a blue and white quilt.

At any rate, I finished 14 quilts this year.  Some were in the pipeline for a while, others were made through swaps, and still more were ones I started and finished this year.  My Small World, a Jen Kingwell design, was one of the latter and now hangs in my front hall.  It's is a fun, stashbusting sampler, with really small pieces.

I'm working on another Kingwell sampler quilt in fits and starts now, and I hope to finish Long Time Gone this year.  It has some tiny pieces, too, so I've gotten hung up on the 1" logs for a bunch of Courthouse Steps blocks.

I finished the Bonnie Hunter Good Fortune mystery as well as a mystery quilt in my Tuesday night guild.  Yesterday, I mailed both of those to the Quilters Dream Batting company for their ALS giveway.  I sent a few last year and got the nicest note from a recipient.  

I do enjoy the challenge of swapping with other quilters, so always join in block robins in the Tuesday guild and belong to an online swap group with quilters around the world.  Last year I finished three quilts made with swapped blocks.  Here are my Missouri Star and Ohio Star samplers.

I'll post a photo of my Double Churn Dash quilt I finished yesterday when (if?) the sun comes out.

Besides the quilts, I made a bunch of table runners using guild swap blocks (it was a free for all and they just didn't all go together), some zipper bags, and a mountain of potholders to give as Christmas gifts along with homemade jams.  I was pleasantly surprised to sell a Christmas stocking via etsy and several table runners and Christmas stockings at my local florist/gift shop this year.  Guess I'll be making more in 2020.  Happy New Year!