Catching Up

It's been four months since I last blogged.  I just haven't done much in the  way of quilting.

A friend's son was headed off to university and he needed a quilt for his dorm room and that was inspiration enough to get me moving.  I don't have a picture of the finished quilt but here's the flimsy.

I went for a modern manly type of quilt - lots of big blocks of green and blue.  My friend, Mary, did the quilting on her long arm - closely spaced straight lines, both vertically, diagonally and horizontally.  It finished up beautifully.  I did an improvisational, scrappy construction for the backing and wouldn't you know it, he preferred the backing to the front of the quilt.  I'll have to get him to take a picture of it in his dorm room so I can share it.

That led to checking out the columns I made for the 2016 So Scrappy Challenge.  I wasn't very happy with the butterflies in purple and yellow so I remade them.

I like these so much better.  They are a lot less scrappy.

Then I finished up the teal and lime green blocks.

And the purple and grey blocks

And the rose and gold blocks

So now I'm all caught up.

Early in August I went on a quilt retreat with some quilting buddies. We brought along some charm squares and sashing in two shades of grey and came up with these rainbow like blocks based on the Paint Chips block found  in the latest 100 blocks magazine.  We had some extra blocks and included them as a column on the back.  The finished quilt has been donated to our Quilters'Guild Community Outreach and will be donated to the Sexual Assault Unit at our city hospital.

It's been slow getting back to quilting but I'll be participating in a few workshops in the next two months and my quilt groups are starting up again so hope to be blogging on a regular basis again.  

Going Green

It feels so good to be able to post again.  They say everything happens in threes and April certainly had it's share of bad luck.  First on April 11 my sister's car was hit by a young man who ran a red light.  Her car was a write off.  Then my computer crashed.  I had it repaired and it crashed again so had to go shopping for a new one.  Finally on April 21 my car was hit when a young man took a turn too quickly and lost control of his truck. The side air bags and curtain airbags deployed and the car was deemed to be a write off.  Visits to the doctor and chiropractor have both of us on the mend but all the calls to the insurance company and looking for a new vehicles have taken up so much time.

But now it's May.  My sister has her new car on the road and I finally got mine on Thursday.  My new computer has Windows 10 and I'm becoming acclimated to the new system.

Amid the turmoil I was able to get a few pieces done.

I finished up the April orange, black/brown blocks and the green and brown May blocks for the 2016 RSC quilt.  In selecting the fabrics for the Geese Blocks I decided to make the column look like chevrons and I think that turned out okay.

I've decided that it's time to make fewer large quilts and work on a few minis instead.

This one was fun to make and used up a few of the pink and brown scraps in my buckets.  (I must apologize for the photo but I haven't loaded photo shop on the new computer so what you see is what I snapped.)

I also made a few Maverick stars in orange for April and green for May.  There isn't enough difference in colour value on the green block so I may have to scrounge for a few darker brown scraps or some brighter green bits and try to make a few more.  

It's the long Victoria Day weekend in Canada and that means doing some gardening so I'm off to dig in the soil and put in some spring colour.  The tulips, grape hyacinth and donkey's ear were lovely but it's time to put in some annuals now that the threat of frost is gone.

Hop over to soscrappy and see what other green has sprouted.

No April Fool

Yesterday was April Fools' Day and I may have started the day like a little fool but thanks to friend Mary slowly learned a bit about thread painting birds.  Here's the start of a cute little nuthatch.

He needs a bit more highlighting, the tail needs a little more length and his beak is missing but he is beginning to look like a nuthatch.  Mary does some wonderful landscape pieces.  Check her out here.

March was a very busy month and I didn't get much quilting done but the purple butterflies are finished and because I was running short of time they were the traditional butterflies.  I have to check my 1/4 inch seams.  This column is a tad longer - that's what happens when you switch machines and don't check.  (Big sigh.)  Here are the columns finished so far.  I see I haven't fixed the little oopsy in the pink and brown column.  That'll get done this afternoon.  Can't leave it like that!

After a run to the library to pick up my book club set of books for April I'll be digging into the orange and brown/black scraps.  Angela's thinking of Monarch butterflies for colour inspiration this month.  Wonder what I can find to join the fun.

 

Ooh!  Almost forgot.  Thank you Angela for drawing my name for the March fabrics.  I'm so looking forward to adding to the stash.    I went to check the mail after picking up the books for book club and found this:

Isn't the fabric just beautiful!

Playing with the Butterfly Block

Angela selected the butterfly block for the March column by column quilt.  And I worried that the butterfly would look too chunky in a 6.5" square.

I experimented with modifying the butterfly block  and ended up with an wonky looking "x" block.  I was thinking I'd like to shorten the body of the butterfly a little to see if I liked that better.  I'm not finished playing yet. 

Marching into spring colours

The RSC colours for March were announced.  We're to think spring - crocuses, lovely purple and yellow crocuses.  Scrap diving for these two colours was a pleasure; although, why I chose the muddied purples in my bin I can't explain.  Perhaps I'm just not ready to leave brown behind. 

I've admired the maverick stars posted by fellow bloggers and made my first foray into making a few.  What fun not having to match up corners!  Just winging it on the star points was so liberating.  These two are pretty good for a first attempt.  Angela's plan is for butterflies in purple/yellow for the column quilt.  Hopefully I'll have time to do some fabric selection later today. What purple scrappiness did you get into?

Second Chance

It's the last Saturday in February and time to put the brown and pink scraps away.  As I was doing a bit of a tidy up I spotted 1.5 inch strips of brown.  I must have cut them for sashing in another quilt and tucked them into a small bag of brown bits.  Although I had made the Patience Corner blocks for the RSC Column Quilt I wasn't happy with them;  they had no spark.  Here was an opportunity to use up some strips, clear them out of my scraps and add some spark to the column. 


Just look at the difference!  New column on the left, original on the right!  Now the column looks like it belongs in the quilt.  What a difference! Changing out the outer corners for a brighter pink  gave the blocks some life.  I'm so glad I took the time to remake the column. 

I'm off to a workshop - mystery quilt this Saturday so may be connecting to RSC a little late.  I'm looking forward to a day of quilting with friends - fun, laughs and great food!

Chocolate delights

Last week I tried a few variations with the brown and pink but I just didn't like the way it played so after much arranging and rearranging on the design wall, I ended up with the very first arrangement I tired.  Sometimes it just doesn't pay to change things up.  So here are my first two columns for the RSC quilt this year.

The columns are pretty long and the last block in each is cut off but you can see how I finally decided to arrange the brown and pink.

These cute little bags got finished this week too.

The brown and pink one is a perfect size for toting my rotary cutter, pins, seam ripper, marking tools, and scissors to workshops.  The blue one matches this cute little pad with pockets also perfect for taking along to workshops.  Several of the guild members have these pads that keep tools handy and save time looking for scissors on the workshop tables.  I always wanted to make one and, well, the time was just right this week.

I made the pad for my Elna.  It's a bit large for the Singer but I didn't want to take the Elna out of the desk.  The sewing notions fabrics that I picked up years ago were perfect.

My final project this week involved taking apart a canvas bag and doing some curved piecing using the bag as a foundation and then sewing it back together. 

 Every woman needs a little animal in her life.  Here's mine.  A great size when books and magazines have to be returned to the library or to take along to the store and avoid paying for bags.
Stop by SoScrappy and check out the other brown and pink quilty goodies.

Sweet February

Wonder why whenever I sit to work on my brown and pink blocks this month I have a craving for chocolate or strawberries or raspberries.  Could it be the colour of the month?  Could it be the start of the Lenten season?  Possibly a bit of both.  Last week I thought of reversing the brown and pink to see how that would look in the columns quilt.

 

 Here's how the column would look if the pink was the 2.5 inch squares and the (chocolate) brown was the strip.  You get a meandering brown strip running down the column.












And here's what you get if you alternate the brown square and pink square blocks.  I think I prefer the pink centres and the meandering
  brown chain.  Back to the sewing machine to finish the blocks for the column now that I know what to do.  Hopping over to SoScrappy to check out all the scrumptious brown offerings this week.




 

Solution Found

After looking at the Scrappy Mountains on Bonnie Hunter's blog I decided on a few changes to my quilt top.  First, I removed the bottom row of mountains; then added a thin neutral sashing and finally a 2.5 inch border of scrappy bits left over.  Here's the finished flimsy:

The afternoon sun was streaming in the window yesterday. The colours don't read true but it gives a good idea of the finish.  This measures 0.75 inches narrower than suggested and 0.5 inches shorter but I think it's close enough not to be noticed.  The binding will be the same neutral as the sashing so frame the border.  I think it will be nice.

When I was looking at Bonnie's mountains I notice she did not match the upslope and downslope of the mountains as I did.  She made hers even scrappier by mixing things up.  I think this may have helped me with some of the yellow patches.  I could have spread them out through the quilt a little more.  I'll have to make another and give that a try.

Almost Done!

Yeah!  I'm so excited.  My friend, Mary, finished quilting the 2015 RSC quilt.  Here's just a teaser -

I have beautiful feathers circling each of the star blocks and each star centre is quilted differently.  I have to trim the extra backing and batting and put on the binding then photograph the finished quilt but I have to say I just love, love, love the quilting.

During the week I finished a 4 x 9 layout of the scrappy mountains but now have a dilemma.  Our guild has set specific sizes for the Comfort Quilt projects and the 4 x 9 layout falls short of the size requirements.  Have you ever seen this quilt with borders?  I would have to add a 3 inch border to the sides and a 1.5" border top and bottom to bring it up to the  size for a comfort quilt.  I think this would be awkward looking.  Should I add the border or just submit the top as is? 

 

Brown and pink for February - Teddy bears and roses or as Angela referred to the selection baby lambs.  I made a few 6 inch blocks using the colours.

What about the floral for the rectangles and the brown for the squares?  Would that work? Could I work out a pattern for the next column?  ( I think this is the block she has selected for February but  I haven't checked the blog for a few days .) 

I'm late today but I'm linking up with SoScrappy and stopping by to see what others have been up to this week.

 

January Check In

Well  I finally buckled down and got caught up with the 2016 RSC.  Here are my blue Twinklers - a little out of focus. It's been a while since I did some block photography.

While I had the blue scraps out I looked for strips that were between 9 and 10 inches wide.  These were cut into 8.5" squares and paired with some floral fabrics from the  guild's Community Outreach stash. 

The result some lovely scrappy mountains.  I had to add some brown mountains so I'd have enough for a comfort quilt.  There are a few more blocks cut and waiting to be put together.  Maybe later today?

At the last guild meeting I took home a few blocks and was challenged to see what I could do with them.  Some blocks were donated as the block of the month and others were put together from precut block kits ( They're the ones with the grey fabric.) 

Isn't that disappearing four patch an interesting block?

I'll be linking up with Angela at Soscrappy and checking to see how everyone rounded out their January Blues.