Rainbow Scrap Challenge - End of the Green

In spite of the fact that it was a short week, I was more than ready for Saturday to get here.  But it will be a short weekend for me.  I have a business trip next week and I have to leave tomorrow for Denver.  So laundry will be a priority this morning, but I'm hoping to get back to the sewing room for a bit this afternoon.  

The 4 day Memorial Day weekend allowed me to get in some significant stitching time.  Six more of the green blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler were finished.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

That leaves two more green blocks to finish up today.  Here's what the whole set looks like. 

The green Inverted Star block also got finished last weekend.

Inverted Star
by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

I'm really happy with how these blocks are turning out.  

I'm looking forward to playing with my yellow scraps.  I have lots of those.  To see more scrappy fun check out the other posts over at Soscrappy.

Let's Book It Challenge - May 2014

It's nearly the end of May and time to report progress for the  Let's Book It Challenge hosted by Vroomans Quilts.  

The challenge is all about pulling out those books and magazines we all adore and actually making something that's in the pages.  Back in February I started working on Poinsettia's Allure from the December 2013 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.  

Poinsettias Allure designed by Judy Blok
from the December 2013 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting

This has been my leaders and enders project since February, so it's not on the fast track to being completed.  Though the blocks are starting to add up.  

There are 42 half square triangle blocks completed, plus 12 of the other blocks.  I need 72 of each of these blocks for the quilt.  There are 6 different sub-units that need to be made.

This month I started cutting the pieces for Unit 1 and Unit 4.  I'm going to cut the pieces for all the units this month and mix it up a bit.  I'm ready to see some blocks materialize (making just Unit 2 got boring even as a leaders and enders project).  

That's it for my Let's Book It progress.  Check out all the other paper to fabric transformations over at Vroomans Quilts.      

Monday Design Wall - Fixing Puzzle Pieces

It's been nice to have some down time this weekend.  Yesterday we took off for Tulsa to do some much needed summer wardrobe shopping.  Unfortunately Drama Teen wasn't feeling her best, I think she's caught a summer cold.  Thankfully she doesn't have to be anywhere for the next week, so she can just rest.  Which after the madness of finals week, is probably exactly what she needs.  

I've made some progress in the sewing room this weekend.  I finally got back to working on Jigsaw and pieced three more blocks.  Then  I realized why the project had gotten stalled.  There was puzzle piece that just didn't seem to fit.    

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

It's the block marked with an X in the photo. It's too light for the row it's in.  It looks even worse with the addition of the next blocks (which I completely forgot to photograph).  After staring at it for a couple of days, I realized it might fit better in the row below. 

I think that works much better.  I've un-sewn the 5 blocks affected by the move. I'm waiting to sew them back together until I get in some lighter batiks for the next row.  There's another fabric that just doesn't work and nothing in the stash works any better.  Jigsaw's not getting finished this month, but at least there's been good progress.  

That's my design wall for this week.  I'm going to grab another cup of coffee and check out all the other design walls over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 21

This is day three of our holiday weekend.  It's been relaxing.  We got most of our running around done on Friday and have just enjoyed the rest of the weekend.  I hope to spend some more time in the sewing room this afternoon.  

The stash has grown by leaps and bounds the last few weeks.  I ordered some green half yard cuts for the Rainbow Challenge Sampler project. Green is not a go to color for me, so there's not much in the stash.  

I like scrap quilts, so it seemed silly to not just bite the bullet and order a few half yard cuts so I had some choices to work with. 

I have another batik quilt in the planning stages, so I took advantage of a Hancock's sale on to order a few new cuts to play with. 

I have a few more batiks coming next week.  Those are to finish up Jigsaw.  I have one fabric that needs to be replaced in the bottom row, it's just too dark.  

Here's the damage for the week.

Used last week:  0.39 yards
Added last week:  29.5 yards

Used in 2014:  8.26 yards
Added in 2014:  219.55 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  211.29

Now I'm officially on a fabric diet.  The one good thing that's come of all the new acquisitions is that it helped me get back into the sewing room. Though the end of club volleyball season helped with that too.  

Judy hasn't posted her stash report for this week when I posted this report, but when she does you can find it here.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Greening Up

The holiday weekend started yesterday for me and My Guy, we took our 19/30 day.  It wasn't a lazy day though.  We took care of oil changes for two of the cars, renewed all three car tags, cleaned up the living room and kitchen, then hosted a end of school year party for a few of Drama Teen's friends.  The girls hung out in the living room, watching movies, talking and snacking.  It was a pretty low key gathering, but a there was a lot of  laughter in the background while I caught up on this month's green blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

First on the list of green blocks was the butterfly block.  Picking the fabrics for these blocks is one of my favorite things to do.  So many options, but I'm happy with the set that's up on the design wall. 

 Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

This month's Rainbow Scrap Sampler blocks are all finished and up on the design wall (before the end month for a change).  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I added a few more greens to the stash earlier this week and some of those made it into the blocks, but there's a lot of the old scraps in these blocks too.  

The only block that's not done is the green Inverted Star.  But all the HSTs are made, the block just needs to be stitched together. Hopefully that will happen sometime this weekend.  

For those in the US, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and stay safe if you are driving or boating.  We are doing neither of those things this weekend, so I'm going to go grab a second cup of coffee and check out all the other fun scrappiness going on over at Soscrappy.  

Tuesday Archives - My Christmas Quilt

I've been enjoying participating in the Tuesday's Archives over at Val's Quilting Studio.  

It's been fun to look back at older quilting projects.  I'm still surprised when I find a project that I've never blogged about.  I feel like I've been blogging forever, (Is that a good thing or a bad thing?) so all my quilts should have showed up somewhere on the blog at some time or another.  However, I'm finding that's not the case.  

This week's archive topics are Chevrons and Christmas Quilts.  I've yet to make a Chevron quilt, though I've seen a few that have sparked my interest.  There are a couple of Christmas quilts in the portfolio, the first of which I kept for me.  

The pattern is How Charming by Anne Dease for Quilt in a Day.  The local quilt shop was going to offer a whole day class to make this quilt.  But not enough people signed up for the class.  I'd already selected the fabrics and was already to go when the class didn't make.  So I just had my own solo class.  The quilting is a simple meander with green thread done by Lesa Foreman.  Lesa used to own a small quilt shop not far from me, but due to family circumstances she needed a more traditional job with benefits, so she had to let the shop go.    

I didn't start out intending to make a Christmas quilt, several other fabric selections were considered before deciding to make use of some Christmas fat quarters that were sitting in the stash and pair those with one of the cardinal fabrics I was hoarding.  The green and red paisley border was one of those fabrics I didn't really want to cut, but it works so well with the rest of the quilt.  

  

This was the first quilt where I ended up working with diamonds. The cardinals needed to be cut on the bias in order to get them to sit right in the blocks.  That's when I learned you are supposed to starch the fabric before you cut the pieces.  There were a few problems getting the blocks to lay flat at first.   I finally ended up cutting the red framing strips a bit wider than specified and trimmed the cardinal blocks to size afterwards.  

This quilt was finished in August of 2010.  I didn't start blogging until September of that year.  Another thing that became obvious as this post came together is that my quilt photography skills have improved a bit (or maybe it's that I take more pictures now).  

For more on Chevrons and Christmas quilts, check out all the posts over at Val's Quilting Studio.  

Design Wall Monday - More Rainbow Scrappiness

It was such a nice weekend, it's hard to get enthused to go back to work today.  At least it's a short week.  My Guy and I are taking our monthly day off on Friday so we'll get a 4 day holiday weekend.  

Since we had no running to do this weekend, quite a bit of time was spent in the sewing room.  I finished assembling the purple Inverted Star block.  

 Inverted Star
by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

I'm really liking how these stars are coming out.  These blocks will probably be sashed, maybe with some scrappy corner stones.  No decisions need to be made now, I have till January to figure out what to do with these. 

Purple was April's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler quilt.  I finally finished all of those blocks up on Saturday.  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I played with the layout just a bit trying to work the blocks into diagonals.  I'm not quite there yet, but like the Inverted Stars, there's no rush on figuring out a final layout.  The pink looks out of place.  We've mainly been working with the cool colors so far in the challenge. I'm hoping that once we get to red and orange, the pink won't stand out so much.  This month's green blocks are in the works, but none are ready for the design wall.

There's also been progress with the current leaders and enders project, Poinsettias, but those blocks are just going into stacks not up on the design wall.  

You can check out more design walls over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 20 of 2014

I really need to get into the sewing room more and stay off the computer.  Or I need to delete all the links to the on-line fabric stores.  It's a good thing that fabric doesn't have an expiration date.  This week's stash report is excessively loaded with acquisitions.  I fell in love with is Butterfly Garden panel.  

I love the bright colors in this one, besides the fact it's got big, beautiful, bold butterflies on it. So how could it not come to live here for a while?  If I can find a worthy pattern, this is getting converted into a NewFO this month!  

Then I made the mistake of clicking on the Connecting Threads email to look at something (thread I think) that was on sale.  But across the header was their new fabric line, Hometown Summer.  

Photo from Connecting Threads

 This line would be absolutely perfect for a QOV.  There is one on my bucket list for this year, so how could I not bring some of this home?

My final, and biggest mistake was clicking on the Fat Quarter Shop email and following the 24 Hour Flash Sale link.  One day last week, they had Michael Miller's Krystal line on sale for half price.  My stash is still really week in large cuts of tone on tone to use as backgrounds.  At that price it just made sense to order some larger cuts.  I ordered a few one and two yard cuts in a few of the really bright colors to use as accents.  

I haven't even had a chance to get them out of the box yet.  

Though I did mange to spend more time in the sewing room this week than I have in the recent past, no way is completing a couple of blocks going to compete with my recent purchases.  So here's the damage.

Used last week:  0.47 yards
Added last week:  75 yards

Used in 2014:  7.74
Added in 2014:  190 yards 

Net stashed in 2014:  183.31 yards

I don't mind being positive most of time, but maybe not quite this positive, because now I'm way negative in terms of stash numbers. I'm sure you can find some much better examples of good stash management if you check out all the other links over at Patchwork Times.   

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Progress of a Sort

Another weekend at home.  I'm going to be pretty spoiled by the end of the month.  It's nice not to be up at the crack of dawn, making sandwiches and filling coolers.  The weekday evenings are still busy.  Though Drama Teen is done with volleyball practice till June, we still needed to grocery shop one evening.  One evening we had to run back to school to get DT her physical so she can play school sports next year.  Though that was definitely worth the time.  She got a complete physical in 20 minutes for just twenty dollars.  Definitely faster, cheaper and less frustrating than trying to get it done in her doctor's office.  Last night DT and two of her friends from the volleyball team went out to dinner to celebrate having made the team and the end of school.  Everyone has plans for next weekend, so they wanted to do it last night.  

It was late by the time I got home from taking the girls to dinner.  They had a sleep over at another friend's house, so I came home to an empty house.  But there was still time to run up to the  sewing room and print out the patterns for this month's green Rainbow Sampler blocks.  After that was done, I scoured the scrap drawers for any green pieces. It appears that green isn't one of my go to colors, I don't have a lot of green scraps.  

Nor do I have a lot of fat quarters in that color.  Looks like another gap in the stash.  I'll just have to work with what I have this weekend.  But I've added a mental note to look for a few green fat quarters the next quilt shop trip that I make.  

I'm still finishing up the purple blocks from last month, but hopefully a few green blocks will make it to the finished pile in time for next week's update.  Till then check out the posts of greens over at Soscrappy.  

Spring 2014 Bloggers Quilt Festival - A QOV

Wow, it's Mid-May already!  Which means it's time for this year's spring installment of the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side.  

Thankfully this will be a relaxed weekend at home, so I'll have time to "ooh" and "ahh" my way through the festival posts.  

I only have one finish for this year, but it's a quilt I've really come love. 

I'd been wanting to make a Quilt of Valor for a while, but just hadn't found the inspiration to start one.  I bought a fat quarter collection from Connecting Threads called "Firecracker".  They were just perfect for a QOV.  These fat quarters just sat in the stash until I found the pattern "Mon Ami" from Miss Rosie's Quilt Company.  But this pattern was for a mini, which is too small for a QOV. So I redrafted the blocks to finish at 9" and started cutting.  

The quilting was done by Trudy Lindermann.  The pattern is a meander interspersed with shooting stars.  

The backing is left over yardage which includes a red and white strip that I could never work into one of the blocks, the stripe just stood out too much. 

The binding is the same red tone on tone used in the blocks.  

The finished quilt is  67" X 76"

Mon Ami
Modified from the pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company
Started December 2012/Finished January 2013

Unfortunately, one of the reds bleed a bit during the final wash.  It's very, very faint, but I know it's there.  Hopefully, I can make that go away and then get this on the way to it's new home.  

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my entry for this year.  Enjoy the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  

Tuesday Archives - The Almost Charm Pack Quilt

This week's Tuesday Archives was a hard one.  This week's themes over at Val's Quilting Studio are "charm pack" and "chicken quilts".  

I've never made a chicken quilt.  Making one isn't even on my bucket list, though I've certainly seen some cute ones. So that leaves my history with charm packs as my topic for today's post.  The only problem is, there's really not much history.  I've never made a quilt using charm packs, though I fully intended to.  Like many of my quilting adventures it started off with something Drama Teen wanted.  Drama Teen's Girl Scout Troop made a very small quilt from charm packs when she was about 9.  The quilt was put up for silent auction to raise money for the DT's school.  We ended up with the winning bid much to DT's delight.

However, I got a phone call late that evening from one of the auction organizers.  The quilt was never intended to have been put up for auction, there had been a huge misunderstanding and the owner of the quilt wanted it back.  Drama Teen (who was just Kiddo then) was absolutely crushed.  It's hard to explain things like that to a 9 year old, the quilt really needed to go back.  I promised her we'd make a quilt and we'd use pictures of her friends along with the charm squares.  I was really quite proud of her, she handed the quilt back to the owner herself and told the owner that she understood how much the quilt meant. 

I got as far as mocking a photo-charm quilt up in EQ using some example pictures and EQ fabrics that were similar in color to the charm packs in the stash.  

DT OK'd the design and the charm packs, but before I could get started on it, she saw a mock up of another project I had been playing around with for a class I was taking.  She asked me to use those fabrics and a similar layout for her photo quilt. This is what we ended up with.  

Friends Squared
self designed

 So what started off as a charm pack project ended up using yardage instead.  I tried to use the charm design for the class auction project I blogged about last week (here).  But that photo quilt also took a turn somewhere along the way and ended up as a medallion quilt instead. 

That's it for me this week.  Check out more "historical" quilting efforts over at Val's Quilting Studio. 

Design Wall Monday - A Few New Blocks

It was a quiet weekend for a change.  The laundry piles are noticeable smaller, that took most of Saturday.  Most of  Sunday was spent in the sewing room except for the time spent helping Drama Teen with her biology project. 

I've gotten behind on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler blocks, so yesterday I worked on getting caught up on those.  All the purple blocks (last month's color) are all cut out now and mostly assembled.  Three of the purple blocks are completed and are up on the design wall with the rest of the scrap blocks. 

I'm not sure that I'll set the blocks together this way.  In the final setting, the blocks will likely be sashed, probably with white.  Though I'll probably play a bit to see what else might work.  

Not much else going on with my design walls.  Once I get caught up with the RSCS blocks, I need to get back to The Jigsaw quilt.  

For more design walls check out Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Weeks 18 and 19 of 2014

For Mom's Day my family is giving me a sewing day, which I fully intend to claim today.  My Guy just left for Montana and Drama Teen is still in bed.  So I have a couple of hours of quiet time this morning to drink my coffee and hang out with the web.  

Club volleyball is over for another year.  Drama Teen has try outs for the JV volleyball team next week.  But work outs for the high school team won't start till June and those will be during the week. So I'm hoping to have a few more weekends at home over the next few months.  It seems like we've been gone a lot lately.  

My sewing room is a lonely place, I've not been in it much this year. Drama Teen's schedule will slow down once school is out (In 10 days.  We've reached the point were she gives us an updated tally each morning).  I'm hoping the fact that I'm not running her here and there for practice will mean that I have more energy to spend in the sewing room.  

Unfortunately though I've not had the energy to climb the stairs to the sewing room, I have had the energy to push a few buttons on the computer.  There have been some really good sales lately, so I've splurged a bit on buying fabrics.  Most of it has been large cuts (4 or 5 yards) of tone on tone basics in colors the stash is lacking.  So my stash report looks pretty lop sided.  I didn't post last week, so this week's report is for the last two weeks.  

Used last 2 weeks:  0.20 yards
Added last 2 weeks: 40 yards

Used in 2014: 7.27 yards
Added in 2014: 115.05 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  107.78 yards

I'm way in the hole, but that's OK.  With the cost of fabric these days, it's hard to pass up some of the really good sales.  I've decided to consider these purchases as enhancements to my retirement stash and just quit worrying about it.  

That's it for me this week.  For more stash stories, check out Patchwork Times. 

Tuesday Archives #10 - Cat and Charity Quilts

It's late Tuesday, but I think there is still some time to write a brief post for Tuesday Archives.  

This week's topics are Cat and Charity Quilts.  I actually have at least one of each.  Last year I made quilts for several of Drama Teen's middle school teachers, one of which was made from a pattern called Fat Cats that had been on my bucket list for a few years.  

To read about the start of what became my Keeler's Cats project, check out this post.  The finished quilt can be seen here.  

I just recently finished a Quilt of Valor, but it's not been sent off yet, so I'm not sure it counts as a charity quilt yet.  My first and second charity quilts haven't ever shown up on the blog. Both quilts were donated to the annual fund raiser at Drama Teen's school.  The first was part of the silent auction.  

Oklahoma Reds started as as "save my sanity" quilt.  We were in the process of moving back to Oklahoma and were living in a hotel during the week while we worked, but staying at my sister's over the weekend so we could do laundry and get away from the hotel. For a couple of hours each weekend, I'd work on these blocks.  When time came for the auction, it seemed like a good option to find this project a good home.  

The second charity quilt was the "class project" for the year. 

The auction theme that year was "Growing", hence the green and brown color scheme.  The art teacher worked with the kids to make the tree in the center of the quilt.  I collected photographs of the kids at various school functions from the parents.  Each child is in at least 2 photographs.  One of DT's classmates promised to give up her allowance for a whole year if her parents would bid on this quilt.  Her parents were the ones that ended up winning the bidding war.  

To see more Tuesday Archives, check out the links over at Val's Quilting Studio.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge- Butterflies

After last weekends solo stitching retreat, I had high hopes for making some progress this week.  That lasted till Tuesday night when I came home from work with a sore throat and a slight fever. It went downhill from there.  After pretty much sleeping through Wednesday and Thursday, I went back to work Friday.  Friday evening was spent in the recliner asleep before Drama Teen got me up to go to bed.  So needless to say, there's not been a lot of progress made on much of anything.  I finished the purple butterfly last weekend.  Here are the 5 completed butterfly blocks:

Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

Now to pick out the fabrics for the green butterfly, finish the HSTs for the Inverted Star and finish up all the purple blocks for the sampler.  Maybe one day I'll get caught up.

Check out Soscrappy for this week's crop of green blocks and projects.  

May UFO Progress

It's the beginning of a new month so Lynne over at Never Too Hot to Stitch has her monthly linky party for the Something Old, Something New challenge. 

Not that I really have much to post in terms of progress for the month of April.  Jigsaw grew by a few blocks. 

 Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

I didn't start anything new this month.  With so many WIPs and UFOs, I don't really have space for a NewFO this month.  

I'm hoping that May is a better month.  I was doing really well this week until I came down with a cold Tuesday night.  After two days of pretty much round the clock napping, I'm finally feeling better this evening.  

What are my plans for May?  I do hope to finish Jigsaw and get it shipped out for quilting.  I'm not planning to start anything new in May.  Once Jigsaw is done, I'd like to move on to Scrappy Stars.

 Scrappy Stars

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

All the stars are made, I just need to cut the plain squares and setting triangles, then sew the rows together.  This is my oldest UFO, so it would be nice to get if off the list.  

Those are my plans for May.  Hopefully things will slow down enough to let me make a bit of progress in the next 3 weeks.