Rainbow Scrap Challenge - 2014 RSC Sampler

I've been MIA for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge the last few weeks. Last month's green blocks still aren't finished so there are no light blue/teal blocks to show for this month. The only progress has been on last year's RSC sampler.  I've been showing hints that last year's RSC sampler project was nearing completion.  The label showed up on a post back in May. 

The 2014 RSC Sampler is now Flame Test, named for a classic elemental analysis test that can produce a rainbow of colors depending up the chemical elements exposed to the flame.  The name was Drama Teen's suggestion.  I finished sewing on the binding a couple of weeks ago but didn't get photos until this week. 

The fabric for the binding came from the scrap pile.  This rainbow stripe fabric was used as the backing on a quilt for Drama Teen a few years ago.  It was absolutely perfect against the black border.  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler, By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm really happy with how this project came together.  The black border and sashing really makes those brights just glow.  Trudy Lindemann  did a beautiful job with the quilting.  She matched the thread color to the color of the blocks.  You may have to blow up the picture to see the color differences between the blue, purple and black.  

Drama Teen requested something swirly for the quilting and Trudy nailed it.  Speaking of Drama Teen.  I'd no more than gotten the pictures of the binding when she grabbed the quilt and put it to use in her favorite spot so far this summer. 

It's warmed up a lot this week, but last weekend it was still cool enough in the morning to be covered up a bit.  It's nice to know that Flame Test is likely to be just about as well loved as the rainbow quilt that's on her bed.  

Thank you Angela for such a fun challenge project. I've been following along with Angela's monthly color choices since 2012.  Flame Test is the first RSC quilt that I've finished.  There are still three sets of rainbow challenge blocks that need to be set together (not counting this year's Twinkle Star project). One of these days I need to get busy with those.  For now, I'm going to go check out all the other rainbow pretties posted over at Soscrappy.    

Getting Somewhere on a Snowy Friday

It was 13 F when I drove Drama Teen to school this morning.  It was 19 F when we went to lunch.  It started snowing about an hour ago.  Thankfully, I'm taking the day off.  So other than those two outings, I've been able to stay home and hang out in my warm sewing room.  

This morning the last border was stitched to the  2014 Rainbow Challenge Sampler.  My usual border is to just find a matching print and add that as the border, but I wanted to do something different on this quilt.  The sashing is black and I didn't want to just finish the quilt with black borders.  In my search for inspiration I came across one of those books in my quilting library that had set on the shelf for who knows how long.  

  

I remember buying this book, it was supposed to inspire me to make more pieced borders.  Mission accomplished (finally!).  To be honest, I didn't make the exact same border as shown in the book, but made a slight variation so I didn't have to paper piece the blocks and narrowed the border from 6" to 4".  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

There is still a lot of black in the borders, but they are not solid black.  It was an easy border to modify as I didn't have to deal with coping strips and figuring out what block size would work best.  Now I just have to make the back and get it sent out for quilting.  This was one of those projects that I wasn't sure would come together but has become one of my favorite quilts.  My Guy on the other hand made the comment at lunch that it looked like "something where  miscellaneous blocks that were blowing down the street were collected and then stuck in one quilt".  He has never been a fan of sampler quilts. 

Getting the borders made were my February goal for a Lovely Year of Finishes.  It feels good to make this goal since I failed miserably last month.  Since the border was inspired by one of my quilting books, I'm also linking up with Vroomans Quilts for this month's Let's Book it Challenge. 

We are supposed to get snow, followed by freezing rain, then rain between now and Sunday.  I'm hopeful that means lots of sewing time this weekend.  If you live in North America, stay warm, stay dry, drive safely.  

 

Design Wall Monday - Back off the Wall

The rain held off till almost dark last night.  It was a wet weekend, though it wasn't as cold as last weekend was.  It's still drier than normal so the wet weekend was welcome, well My Guy would have been more welcoming if he hadn't been on his way home from a bike ride.  Thankfully he got home before the sky really let loose. 

So what do I have to show for my weekend?  Just the back of Scrappy Stars.  It's too big to put it up on the design wall, so it's draped over the cutting table. 

I used up a lot of the left over fabric in the back, including a few fabrics that were bought for the project but ended up not being used.  This quilt is all pressed and packaged to ship to Trudy for quilting.  It always amazes me how long it takes to press everything and get all the loose threads off.  That took most of the afternoon, so not a lot of stitching this weekend.  But I'm off all week, so I should get a bit more done than normal.  

Check out all the other design walls over at Patchwork Times.  

Design Wall Monday - Front to Back

It was a relaxing four day weekend.  Sunday afternoon was spent in the sewing room, but I did a lot more cutting than I did stitching.  That's OK, all the cutting sets me up to be able to do a lot of stitching during the week when the time in the sewing room is typically a lot shorter.  

Scrappy Stars is finally off the design wall, it's a finished flimsy now.  

Pattern is Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

I'm happy with how it turned out.  Scrappy Stars is my oldest UFO, started 11 years ago.  It will feel really good to get this one off the list.  

The design wall isn't empty even though Scrappy Stars is a finished top, I've got the pieces of the back up there now.  

  

The reds, blacks and greens were used in the top, the light fabrics were originally intended to be the backgrounds for the star blocks.  But after making a few blocks, I realized the printed backgrounds would muddy up the stars.  At that point I switched to tone on tone neutrals for the star backgrounds.  The back will use up a lot of the left over fabrics, so other than a few scrappy strips, these will be out of the stash and into a quilt.  

That's it for my design wall this week.  Check out Patchwork Times  for more design wall Monday fun.  

Design Wall Monday - More Borders

I'm not ready for it to be Monday. The weekend was so nice, it's hard to gear back up for the chaos of the work week.  We didn't do much, which was pretty much what we had all decided the weekend should be before it got here. 

It certainly seems like not much got done even though I was in the sewing room most of Sunday.  However, most of that time was spent at the cutting table not the sewing machine.  That will pay off this week, but for now there's not much to show off.  The third border for Scrappy Stars has been completed. 

Folk Art Christmas Stars

by Robyn Pandolph

The first side of the fourth border is cut and pinned to the quilt.  I should at least get both vertical sides of that border on tonight.  

I've been calling this quilt Scrappy Stars for years, but that's not the name I want to put on the label. This quilt is intended for my mom, so I'd like to name it something a bit more elegant.  Any suggestions?  

That's it for me this week.  Check out all the other design walls over at Patchwork Times.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - From Orange to Brown, it's Definitely Fall

Everyone at my house was ready for a weekend.  I asked Drama Teen what she wanted to do this weekend, the response was "absolutely nothing".  Since this weekend is homecoming, the teachers took pity and didn't assign much homework.  After 4 weeks of playing catch up due to her surgery, this is the first weekend in a month that she won't be spending the better part of Sunday on homework.  

We are only three days into the month, but I've managed to get 15 minutes in the sewing room each day so far.  That's my goal for the quarter, to spend at least 15 minutes in the sewing room every day for the rest of the year.  

All of the last month's orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler are finished.  

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm still working on all the half square triangles needed for September's Inverted Star block.

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

This one should be finished by the end of the weekend and the brown one for October started. 

All the brown fabrics have been gathered up; now to decide which ones go into this month's butterfly block.

I'm looking forward to a weekend of fun stitching.  Hope you are too.  For more scrappy fun check out all the links over at Soscrappy.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - A Little Orange Finally

It's been a month since my last Rainbow Scrap Challenge Post.  I knew I was behind, but hadn't realized by just how much.  My mental health day yesterday was pretty productive.  All the orange scraps were dug up, cut up and sewn back together until two of the blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler were finished.

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

The third orange block is partially assembled and I've gotten a start on this month's orange Inverted Star.  As for the butterfly block, orange was the one color that got made as part of last year's challenge. 

Scrappy Butterflies
Block is available in EQ 7 Block Library

I'm hoping to finish all the other orange blocks today.  Hard to believe it's almost October. I've not spent much time with this month's color, but still I'm looking forward to seeing what color we'll be playing with next month.  

Check out all the fun orange projects posted at Soscrappy.  

Monday Design Wall - November 18th

This week is off to a rocky start.  Drama Teen woke us up at about 1:30 this morning with some type of stomach virus.  She's been throwing up and is running a slight fever.  We'll have to see how she's feeling when it's time to get her up for school, but I'm pretty sure she's probably not making it in today.

It was a nice weekend otherwise.  We did some much needed cleaning in Drama Teen's living space.  We still need to tackle her closet, but I think we'll wait till Christmas break to do that.  Even so I still got in a solid evening of stitching on Saturday and then was able to stitch most of Sunday afternoon.  The bits and pieces I've been working on the last few weeks finally amounted to changes you can actually see on the design wall.  All the 8.5" Log Cabin Blocks for Back to Square One are done and clue 9 was finished off by adding another border to that project.  

Back to Square One
by Judy Laquidara (pattern available here)

It's almost too big for the design wall.  Next are the star blocks that go with all those Log Cabins. 

Back in September I started a Scrappy Trip Around the World block, which I didn't like.  So I decided make a few more blocks using a controlled palette of green, yellow, and purple. 

Scrappy Trip Around the World
from Bonnie Hunter's Tutorial
(which can be found here)

I like this much better, so I'm going to make a two more and see how that goes.  I've only got one yard of that dark green.  If I like the resulting set of 4 blocks, I'll make blocks till I've used up the green.  That should give me enough blocks to make at least a throw sized quilt.  

Only two new puzzle pieces made it to the design wall for the Jigsaw quilt. 

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

So this one is coming along, just not as fast as I'd like.  This week isn't nearly as crazy as last week was schedule wise, so hopefully there will be more time to stitch.  

That's what is up on my design walls.  To see more of design wall Monday, check out Patchwork Times.  

An Old Fahsioned Mystery - Solved

Finally, a finish to celebrate.  This afternoon I managed to get the label sewn onto the mystery quilt from last year!  So one more quilt off the UFO list!

I really wanted to try a mystery quilt.  I was just discovering the quilting community on the Internet last year,  but had not really discovered blogs.  I came across a shop in Monument, CO during an afternoon of Internet shop hopping on FabShopHop.  The Homespun Hearth sponsors Agatha & Sherlock's Mystery of the Week, with new mysteries every quarter. So I signed up.  I got my packet of floral fabric, the first couple of clues and I was off sewing.   

The shop called this mystery "Parties at My Place".  When I got the fabric packet, my husband commented that it looked like "old time" fabric.  So I  named my completed quilt "Old Fashioned Mystery".  The pattern is by Debbie's Creative Moments, INC. I didn't get a good picture of the quilting, but it's a lovely floral pattern done by Trudy Lindemann of Keepn' You In Stitches.

I enjoyed getting the clues each week and trying to guess what the final quilt would look like.  It did get a bit nerve wracking a couple of times because you really only get enough fabric to finish the quilt.  There is not much extra if you mess up, which thankfully I didn't. 

If you've never done a mystery quilt you should give it a try.  I've since learned that Bonnie Hunter also posts mystery quilt alongs, as has Judy over at Patchwork Times and Planet Patchwork will be doing it's annual New Year's Day mystery again this year.  I did Planet Patchwork's summer mystery quilt and it was a lot of fun.  Though I did find that I can't sew and instant message at the same time!

Thanks for stopping by and helping me celebrate my 7th finish of the year.  I'm still hoping to bind and label two more quilts, but with just two more days of 2010 to go, I'll be lucky to get just one finished!

Christmas Vacation

Just 2 more days of work and then I'm off work for the rest of the year!   Lots of Christmas stuff to finish up, but there will be time for quilting, especially the week after Christmas.  What's on the top of my list?

Sew the quilt label to the 2009 mystery quilt (No I still haven't managed to get that done!).











Finish block 4 in the Layer Cake Quilt Along




Finish the center block and assemble the Seeing Stars BOM.  It also needs a back pieced so it can be sent out for quilting.




Bind the 2008 BOM and the 2010 mystery quilt.


 

I've also been working on my quilting goals for next year.  I'm down to 5 UFO's, also known as PhDs (projects half done).  I'd like to get all 5 of those done next year.   Last year I participated in monthly UFO challenges on Connecting Threads Quilt With Us community and that helped keep me motivated.  For next year, I looked at participating in Judy's UFO challenge, which looks like lots of fun.  But I was afraid that trying to finish any one of these UFO's in a month would just frustrate me.  Mrs. Pyjamas over at Quilting in My Pyjamas had linked up to Myra's PhD Challenge.  I'll have till June to finish up the 3 projects I selected.  This challenge looks more my speed.  My challenge projects are posted here. 





So the UFO's (PhDs) are under control.  I'm going to look at stash management plans for next year (Note I did not say stash reduction).  Plus, 2011 may be the time to look at my PIGS (Projects in Grocery Sacks).  You know those projects you bought the fabric or the kit, have a pattern, but just never started.  At least that's my definition.  I'm not sure how many of those I have.  So that may be my after Christmas assignment, find the PIGS and decide if I want to work on any of them for next year. 

So what are your quilty plans for the holiday?  How are your 2011 quilting plans coming along?

Favorite Things Friday - December 10th

TGIF!!!!  On the other hand, Christmas is only 2 weeks from tomorrow!  How did that happen!  For the moment, let's forget all the holiday stress and concentrate on Favorite Things Friday over at Quilting in My Pyjamas.  I could definitely use a coffee break and a brain break to check out all the cool Favorite Things everyone has posted. 

I have a confession to make.  My name is Kate and I'm a quilt book addict. 

  
I love quilt books (don't ask me if I love quilt books more than fabric, I'd have a hard time choosing between those two).  A cup of  coffee and a few quilt books to ponder over is for me better than a long soak in the tub.  I couldn't pick just one favorite book from my library.  The one book I've probably actually used the most is Sharyn Craig's Setting Solutions. 

It outlines a number of ways to set blocks together.  When I was first starting out and wanting to design my own quilts, this book was a great help.  

I love BOMs.  For the 2008 Brown bag quilt I had to come up with my own blocks (the story of that 2008 BOM is posted here, here and here).  Though I pulled a number off the Internet, I also used a number of "block" books to find blocks for the BOM. 

I also have a number of quilt designer's that I follow fairly religiously.  That includes Carrie L. Nelson, Kaffe Fassett, Judy Laquidara, and Lynette Jensen. 

I also have quite a collection of fat quarter and scrap quilt books.  If I had to force myself to choose a favorite category, this would be it.  I'm working on my first scrap quilt using Bonnie Hunter's Leaders and Enders technique.

I do use my books, though if I were to take stock, only 2 projects have been made from patterns in a book.  Though there are a lot that I would like to make.  So many quilts, so little time!  

Thanks for letting me share some of my favorite quilting books.  Do you have a favorite quilting book?  

Design Wall Monday - November 22nd

Not much sewing this weekend due to kiddo's out of town swim meet.  She did well, taking time off almost every event she swam.  We also had the opportunity to see my Mom and Sister for dinner on Saturday, which was nice since we are spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws. 

So what's up on the design wall?  The Seeing Stars BOM is still up and so is the purple/yellow scrap quilt.  But no progress to show on either of those projects.  Last weekend I made the binding for the a mystery quilt I ordered from  Homespun Hearth in Monument, CO.  They have a quarterly mystery quilt program called Agatha & Sherlock's Quilter's Mystery of the Week.  I ordered one of the kits last year and had a lot of fun with it.  I'm still hand sewing the binding to the back of the quilt.  Hopefully I'll get that done this week and I'll be able to post about a finish which takes one more quilt off the UFO list! 

I decided on my fabrics for the Layer Cake Quilt Along going on over at Moose on the Porch Quilts.  The squares are all cut, so hopefully that block will come together tonight. 

The pattern calls for 4 colors, but I couldn't make that work with the layer cake I'm using, so I decided to just use two fabrics.  \It's a good thing they don't give grades for these blocks because the block definitely will not look like the one given with the instructions! 

Check out all the other design walls over at Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Charming Christmas Cardinals

Nina-Marie over at Creations..Quilts, Art....Whatever has linked up to an online Christmas Quilt show at  SewGalCal's.  Lots of beautiful eye candy to check out.  Just click on the button to go have a look (But not before you check out my entry!). 

So here is my entry.   Last year, before the local quilt shop had to cut back on hours due to family changes, they were still offering classes.  I signed up to take a class based on the Quilt in a Day pattern "How Charming".  I played around with 3 different sets of fabrics before I finally decided on a Christmas theme.  Then the class was canceled because no one else signed up. It's not a hard pattern and I had signed up for the class mainly as a reason to start a new project.  So I had my own all day class on the same Saturday as the canceled class.  I didn't follow the layout guidelines exactly, but really liked how the quilt came out.



I did learn one very valuable lesson when making this quilt.  In order to fussy cut the cardinals, I had to cut them as diamonds, on the bias.  I had heard that spraying pieces cut on the bias with starch reduces stretching.  But you are supposed to spray on the starch before you cut out the pieces not after!  Thankfully I had not cut the strips for the red frames yet, I just cut them a bit larger and then cut the final square to size, that worked really well and kept everything the right size. 

I collect cardinal fabric, I just love the deep red of those birds.  This was the first project that seemed to be just the right place to use that fabric.  I don't do my own quilting, this one was quilted by Lesa Foreman at the Corner Sew and So.   

Thanks for letting me share one of my favorite quilts.  It's almost time to pull it out of the closet and enjoy it during the Christmas season.  Hope you get a chance to enjoy the rest of the Christmas Quilt Show. 

Off to Be Quilted

The 2008 BOM top was sent off yesterday to be quilted by the very talented lady at Keep'in You in Stitches.  Over the last week, I posted the story behind this top (here and here).  For some reason getting this sewn together seem to stretch out forever!  Maybe it was that I didn't just sash this one, but actually added other pieced blocks?  Here is the completed top. 

Other than a couple of UFOs that need to be bound, I think this is the last quilt from the UFO list I'm going to tackle this year.  I'd like to spend time catching up on some current BOMs, plus some time working on new projects. 

What are you going to work on for the rest of the year?  Meeting your UFO goals, finishing Christmas gifts, or non quilting stuff? 

Design Wall Monday - September 27th

The 2008 BOM project is still up on the design wall (well the floor actually).  I  determined the final layout and started sewing it together.  I almost have all the rows sewn together.  I still need to cut and piece the borders, but hopefully I'll get this all assembled next weekend. 

I think it's time to start something new after this quilt goes off to be be quilted.  I've completed 5 quilts from the UFO list this year and that has made a significant reduction in the numbers.  Plus I have all those new blenders I've been buying so maybe a stash busting project is in order.   Still uncertain if I'll make a quilt for my daughter's teacher who is leaving.  I don't think I have enough time to actually finish something by the end of October.   

See what everyone else has on their design walls over at Judy's Patchwork Times.