Rainbow Scrap Challenge: So Blue There Is No Orange

Work held some surprises this week. Nothing bad, but stuff that's going to add to the work load over the next few months.  Life is definitely interesting these days.  Unfortunately interesting means more home work in the evenings and less stitching time.  

I'm still playing with my blue scraps this week.  That bright pile of orange fabrics just sat by the sewing machine.  The last large blue fan block did get finished.  So that set of four is done. 

These are the last of the big fan blocks.  The rest of the blocks for this project will be the 3.5" squares.  I've gotten a start on the small blue squares, but it's hard to make a lot of progress in just 15 minutes a night.  Weekend's have been busy too, so things are probably going to stall a bit.  It's just one of those phases, it too will pass at some point.  

Linking up with Soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge today and with Oh Scrap on Sunday.  

September One Monthly Goal Wrap Up/2017 Finish Along Progress

Just two days left in September!  How does that happen?  Well now that it has, it's time to check in with the One Monthly Goal over at Elm Street Quilts

The goal for September was to get a start on a new quilt for the Scientist in Training's dorm room.  My start date for any quilt is when I start cutting the fabrics.  And that has happened, there are even a few blocks up on the design wall.  But I can't show any of these as the SIT follows my blog.  So you'll have to just take my word for it that there's been a start. 

There is one more day in the quarter, but not enough time to get another finish in for the 2017 Finish Along.  

I didn't do too badly for the quarter.  There were 4 quilts on the list to be finished. I managed to finish two. 

 It's a Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs Mystery)
By Cheryl Brickey of the Meadow Mist Designs Blog

It's a Mystery was last year's Meadow Mist Designs Mystery.  The first clue in this year's mystery came out in September.  So for once last year's mystery was finished before starting this year's.  

The second finish for the quarter was Blooms and Butterflies.

Blooms and Butterflies
 Back Porch Bloom block by Lea Anne Brummett, 

Another quilt along from Lea Anne Burmmett who blogs over at Podunk Pretties.  This one wasn't a mystery, but a challenge to come up with your own pattern using her Back Porch Bloom block.  This is my new snuggle quilt.  
  
The other two quilts on the list for third quarter didn't make it to the finish line.  But there was good progress on both.  Scrappy  Coffee Cups made it to finished flimsy stage and has been sent out for quilting.

Scrappy Coffee Cups

Block patterns from Karen F. Srebro and Janet McCarroll

published in Block Magic and Block Magic Too by

Nancy Johnson-Srebro

Actually, I heard from Trudy last night and the quilting is done.  So these coffee cups will definitely be on my list to finish before the end of the year.  

The last quilt on the "to be finished" list for third quarter was Christmas Angels.  Though it didn't get close to being finished it went from just block units to finished blocks.  

 Christmas Angels
Pattern by Kate

Actually all the blocks are finished, but I don't seem to have a photo of all of them up on the design wall.  So even though I didn't get this one all the way to the finished stage, it's ready to have the blocks sewn into rows.  That's pretty good progress.  

It's been a good year for finishes, there have been six.  My record is seven finishes in one year.  I'm likely to tie that for sure.  As far as working down the UFO list, I'm pretty much where I was when the year started.  But at least it's not getting any bigger.  I'm finishing up my new starts, just not getting to the older projects on my list.  but I've moved a few along this year.  That should make it easier to get a few off the list next year. 

Now to start thinking about what will be the October One Monthly Goal and what's going on the list for the fourth quarter of the 2017 Finish Along.   

Weekend Stitching - Vintage Dresses Back on the Design Wall

We had a nice visit with the Scientist in Training this weekend.  We spent yesterday morning drinking coffee and hanging out.  She probably won't be home again till fall break later in October.  

After the SIT left, I headed to the sewing room for a bit.  On the agenda was to get started on setting the Vintage Dress blocks together. There are three different dress blocks in the set.  I'd forgotten that one of the dress blocks is wider than the other two. That became obvious when I started pulling the blocks out of the project box.  

The only way to get all of the blocks the same size is to add coping strips.  So my original plan for how to assemble the sashing wasn't going to work.  But after a few minutes in EQ, a new assembly plan was worked out and I started adding coping strips to the blocks.  

Vintage Dresses
by Charise Randell

I didn't get very far, but two blocks are completely done and cut to a consistent 9.5" x 12.5".  I made a start on the next two.  There will be some other changes to the sashing pieces to accommodate the larger size of the blocks, but that will actually simplify both the pieces and the overall assembly process.  But since the "framing" of the blocks is added with the sashing, the final placement of all the blocks will need to be worked out before the sashing strips can be made. It's doubtful that this UFO will get finished this month, but at least all the assembly problems are worked out.  The plan for this year was to move each UFO forward.  Finishes would be great, but I'm grateful for any progress on these projects.  

Linking up with:
Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Monday Design Wall 
BOMs Away

Stash Stuff for Week 38 of 2017

The Scientist in Training has been home this weekend, which has been fun.  This weekend was our company picnic and she's always enjoyed going to that.  She got to hang out with some high school friends who were also home from college and see some of the scientists that have been mentors to her when she was in high school.  It was a nice afternoon. 

With the SIT home, there was no sewing time yesterday unless you count the time I spent in EQ working out how to assemble the sashing for the Vintage Dress blocks.  The only thing of note I did was spend some time coloring while the visiting with the SIT in the kitchen.

I don't color very often, preferring to sew instead.  But I finally finished these two pages.  It was fun to just hang for a bit.   

I've had to bring work home with me several times the last week and that really cut into my sewing time.  I did manage to find 15 minutes to stitch every day but one.  For 2017, I've managed to find at least 15 minutes to stitch 89.5% of the time.  My goal is to get this above 90% for the year.  It's going to be a struggle the next month with all the work stuff going on.  

The lack of stitching time didn't help with the stash usage this week.  

Fabric used this week:  0.33 yards
Fabric used year to date:  47.50 yards

At least being busy means that I don't have time to hit any buttons on those sale adds.  No fabric in always makes for a good week.   

We'll hang out with the SIT for a while this morning.  She's got to be back at the dorm by noon today, she has to cover an event for the school newspaper this evening, plus she needs to study this afternoon.  She gets paid for each article they publish, so it's how she's making a some spending money this semester.  I'll get in some stitching time after she leaves.  

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Playing in Orange

Sewing time has been at a premium this week, I've gotten to the point where work's been coming home more evenings than not.  So there's not been a lot of stitching time.  That makes it hard to make much progress on this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  I'm still working on the blue blocks from July.  But I did find time one night this week to pull out all the oranges and decide on the pairings for the 16 small fan blocks. 

These are going to be bright blocks.  Not sure when I'll be able to make a start on them, it may not be till October at the rate I'm moving.  The Scientist in Training decided to come home for the a bit.  She has to head back before lunch on Sunday, but we'll get to hang out for a bit today.  My Guy is going riding, but I think the plan is for the SIT and I to go get breakfast at the local coffee shop, hang out there for a while this morning and study/work.  The annual company picnic is this afternoon, so I doubt much stitching happens in my sewing room today.   

Happy stitching this weekend.  There's more bright and fun stuff over at Soscrappy.  And linking up with Oh Scrap on Sunday.  

Weekend Stitching: Not Much To Show

It was a busy weekend, with not as much stitching as normal.  Saturday was just busy with a bit of work stuff that had to get done.  Sunday, My Guy and I made the trek east to see our Scientist in Training.  She's doing great with the college transition, but didn't think she'd get home for a few weeks due to her test and work schedule.  We had a fun Sunday, even met up with an unexpected play mate from the SITs youth. 

Finding Optimus Prime on one edge of town was a bit of a surprise, but the girls had fun with it.  SIT's two roommates went out to lunch and then on a tour of the town with us as none of them had been off campus much during the month since school started.  

So it was a nice, but busy weekend.  There was some sewing time, but there's not much to show as most of the progress has been on the SIT's new dorm room quilt (which is under wraps till Christmas). Other than that,  I've made a start on the HSTs for this year's Meadow Mist Design mystery. 

There's 20 of the seventy something HSTs needed for this project.  So far, I'm really liking my fabric choices.  So lots of stitching and trimming without much to show at this point. 

Linking up with:
Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Design Wall Monday

Stash Stuff for Week 37 of 2017

It's been a slow weekend in the sewing room.  More fabric cutting than fabric sewing.  Though a bit of that has happened this week.  I did my part to support the local quilt shop.  These fun fabrics somehow jumped on the cutting table and came home with me. 

These are just half yard cuts for my rainbow scrap stash.  I don't have much pink, plus I'll need red violet fabrics for my last round of fan blocks for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  The yardage has dutifully been added to my spreadsheet.  Wish I could have made as much go out of the stash, but this week's outgoing numbers are a little anemic. 

Fabric used this week:  0.45 yards
Fabric used year to date:  47.17 yards

Actually, this is more than went out last week.  So it's not been a bad week for stitching.  I found sewing room time 7 out of the last 7 days.  My average for the year is a 89.6%.  I'm hoping to get back to the 90's before the end of the year.  Even if I don't get my average up, this is still way better than I did last year.  

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.    

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: No Orange Yet

It's been an incredibly long week on the work front.  I think it's the time of year, just lots of stuff to get a handle on going into fourth quarter.  Unfortunately it will get worse before it gets better, lots of stuff to do in October/November to wrap up projects before the holiday vacations start.  

I've been getting in about 45 minutes each evening in the sewing room.  It's been a great stress reliever.  Wish I had more time to play, but I'll take what I can get.  This year's RSC project is still in catch up phase.  One more large blue fan block is finished. 

The fourth large fan block has been started. Then there are 4 small blue fan blocks to make before I'm caught up to September.  I did find all my orange fabrics. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I'll at least have the parings all picked out for those blocks.  

There's also been some progress on last year's RSC project.  Vintage Dresses is my September UFO project.  All the blocks are done and the final setting had been worked out.  The challenge came when figuring out the measurements for cutting the setting pieces. The setting adds a colored frame around each block, figuring out the corner sizes wasn't as easy as I'd hoped.   

Vintage Dresses
block pattern by Charise Randell

The hang up was figuring out how big the triangles needed to be for the corner stones.  The inner white frame will be 0.5", the colored frame will be the same.  After playing with some trial pieces I've finally got the sizes needed to make the corner blocks. 

Not the best fabric combination, but these were all sitting in my scrap pile, so I considered them fair game for my experiments.  Though my math skills aren't bad, I like to confirm my calculations in a mock up before trying it on the actual blocks.  Less un-sewing that way.  

Linking up with Soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and with Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap on Sunday.  

Weekend Stitching: A Bit of This and That

Weekends it seem always go so fast and end way to soon.  I certainly ran out of weekend before running out of things I wanted to do.  Though it was nice to be home for a change, we did a lot of running around in July and August. 

Sunday afternoon was spent in the sewing room, but you certainly can't tell that from the design wall.  The big design wall has the Scientist in Training's quilt on it, but to be honest there is not much to see at this point.  The last three blocks needed for En Provence are up on the small design wall.

  En Provence, A Bonnie Hunter Mystery (2016)

En Provence has been my leaders and enders project for most of this year.  Just a few more 4 patches and hour glass blocks left to make and I'll be ready to sew the rows together.  

Most of the time in the sewing room on Sunday was taking up in prepping Scrappy Coffee Cups for quilting. 

Both the back and finished flimsy have been de-threaded, pressed and folded for shipment to Trudy for quilting.  Unfortunately, as I was packing the shipping box I realized that there was no batting in my stash that was the right size for this project.  So I had to order some.  At least the part I tend to stall on is done, it's ready to go once my order comes in.  

That's it for me this week.  Check out all the other project progress over at:

Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Design Wall Monday

Stash Stuff for Week 36 of 2017

My good intentions backfired yesterday.  I did get to some of the yard work, but paid for it the rest of the day.  After about 3 hours of cleaning up the front flower beds, I just couldn't take it anymore.  Spent the rest of the day in bed with a sinus headache.  There's still a bit left to do outside, but I'll wait till next weekend (and defintely pre-dose with some Benadryl before beginning work).

I did get some stitching done late in the evening, which was good as that produced the only fabric going out this week. 

Fabric used this week: 0.18 yards
Fabric used year to date: 46.72 yards

You'd think there would be more going out as I managed at least 15 minutes of stitching every day this week for a yearly total of 225 out of 252 days (89.3% success rate).  But most of the time was spent prepping and cutting pieces for the Scientist in Training's Geek Chic quilt and making a start on the piecing for the Magnolia Mystery.  I won't be showing any progress on Geek Chic, I found out over the weekend that the SIT was planning to follow my blog so she could keep up with what was going on at home while she was off at college.  She promised not to look at last week's post, but now she knows she's getting a quilt for Christmas.  

It was fun having the SIT around last weekend.  This is my favorite photo from the weekend. 

I love the geeky T-shirt with the butterfly wings.  Quite the fashion statement as always.  

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Still Playing Catch Up

Wow, this week went fast!  How is it you can be so busy and yet get nothing done?  Thinking about it, that may be the wrong question.  Maybe it's more, how/why do others think of so many things that need to be added to my to do list?  

Since August's Rainbow Scrap Challenge was all about using up neutrals and neutrals don't fit in my project for this year, I was hoping to do a bit of catching up.  There definitely was progress, all the yellow blocks from June were completed.

The blue blocks from July are at least started. 

Two of the four large blocks are finished.  The quilt plan needs two more of these large blocks, plus 4 small blocks.  I'm hoping for a stitching only day tomorrow.  We'll see if that works out.  There was a lot of going here and there last month, we weren't home much.  The yard needs attention and so does parts of the house.  I'm hoping to make major progress on the yard today.  The house can wait another weekend right?  

Praying for those in Florida, this storm looks so bad.  Wishing our hostess for the weekly Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Angela, a very safe weekend.  Linking up with Oh Scrap on Sunday.  

Stash Stuff for Week 35 of 2017

It's been a busy weekend so far.  The Scientist in Training is home for the weekend, she's finishing off her diving certificate.  So we've been hanging out at the pool for that. Today it will be the lake so she can finish her open water dives.  So not much machine sewing going on, but I did get to spend some time with my long term embroidery project.  The second butterfly is almost finished.

I hope to finish off the rest of the wing while the SIT is diving this morning. 

We did a little shopping yesterday while we were out and about.  I wrangled a visit to the quilt shop as my stash of grays didn't yield anything that could be used as the background for Geek Chic.  I found that and a couple of fun patterns too. 

I'd have been in good shape except for ambling into the mark down room.  Since I had just decided to use a white with red print for alternate star blocks for the Red, White, and Blue Star quilt, I couldn't pass up these red and white goodies that will help finish off that project. 

Since I've decided to concentrate on the positive part of this year's stash management goal, we'll just look at what went out.  

Fabric used this week: 3.96 yards
Fabric used year to date:  46.54 yards

The backing for the Scrappy Coffee Cup quilt helped a lot with the stash numbers this week. In terms of finding time to stitch, this week there were 6 out of 7 days with stitching going on.  That brings it to 214 out of 245 days for 2017. That's a 87% success rate. I'm hoping to get back to the low 90s by the end of the year.  This summer has been insanely busy.  I'm hoping that autumn will proceed with a much more mellow pace.  

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.  

Managing the UFO List: What Happened to August?

The first day of September was outrageously busy.  Work was an absolute zoo, the new position is still a bit overwhelming.  I'm hoping it gets better in the next month once I can hand off all my previous responsibilities.  The Scientist in Training (formerly known as Drama Teen) is home for the holiday weekend.  So we've got lots of family time planned till she has to go back on Monday.  Probably not a lot of stitching is going to happen, except maybe some slow stitching here and there.  

August was not a great month for stitching.  A couple of the weekends were taken up with college prep and the eclipse trip.  The focus for the month was getting Scrappy Coffee Cups to the finished flimsy stage, which was my August One Monthly Goal.  Getting it finished did get it off the UFO list, it had been the newest addition to the UFO list.  The oldest UFO, Red, White, and Blue Stars is the oldest on the list and was the UFO-2017 project for August. 

I didn't expect to get any stitching done on these blocks, too much weekend stuff going on.  But I had never really decided on a final setting for these blocks, so it was hard to know how many I needed to make.  So the goal for August was to figure out a final setting plan.  After playing around with alternate blocks and background colors, I think this is close. 

The alternate star blocks need to be adjusted a bit so the star points match up with the other stars. But this layout is pretty close to done. Hopefully, I've got enough of the blue background to make it this way.  Worst case, I'll drop off the last two rows and make a square quilt.  Not sure when I'll get back to this project, but at least now it has a solid plan to move forward with.  

The September UFO project is number 4, which on my 2017 quilt plan was Blooms and Butterflies which I had substituted for number 7, last years Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, Vintage Dresses. 
 

Vintage Dresses
by Charise Randell

So based on my convoluted substituting I've done this year, this will be September's UFO project.  There is a setting plan drafted for these blocks.  So there's a good chance progress will get made on this project in September.  My goal with the UFO-2017 projects is to make some progress on each project on the list.  They don't have to get done.  Any progress now, means a project will be that much farther along when I next pull them out.  Not ideal, but slow progress is better than no progress.  

Linking up with Patchwork Times for UFO-2017.   

September One Monthly Goal: Constructing Chemistry Geek

Wow, it's September already!  It always seems like the end of the year speeds up once we get to this point.  It will be December before we know it.  I'm stopping there with that train of thought.  But that thought pretty much decided what September's One Monthly Goal would be.  

A couple of weeks ago I walked into the local quilt shop so I didn't have to deal with an empty house and found this fabric. 

It's Geek Chic by Studio E Fabrics.  Do you believe in kismet?  The Scientist in Training is studying chemistry.  What could be a more perfect activity to deal with an empty house than to make her a new quilt the actually fits her twin XL dorm bed?  I've got a couple of other chemistry related fabrics that could be added to the mix to add some variety.  But the challenge has been to find a pattern that fits the theme, but won't take me a lot of time.  I'm notoriously slow when making quilts, so to get it done by Christmas it needs to be an easy pattern.  I made a few stabs at designing a pattern in EQ, but didn't come up with anything thing that said "Yes, make me!".  So it was time to pull out the books for inspiration.  I finally found it here:

On page 80 there is a project called "Under Construction".  After mocking it up in EQ, I'm sold. 

Geek Chic
Pattern is Under Construction by the Missouri Star Quilt Company
found in Missouri Star Quilt Company Block Idea Book (Summer Vol 4 Issue 3)

 It's a pretty simple pattern, but it will work with the directional fabrics in the line.  I'm considering one alteration to the pattern, but I need to play a little before deciding if it will work or not.  So the goal for September is to get this quilt started, which in my lexicon of working quilting definitions means to start cutting the fabrics.   I'm hoping to get all the blocks made this month, so the quilt can be assembled next month and sent out for quilting before Thanksgiving.  That would give me time to get it finished off before Christmas.  

What's your OMG for September?  Linking up with Patty over at Elm Street Quilts for the September One Monthly Goal.  Hope to see you there.