Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on my scrappy HST project. You might remember that I have been making fabric with my scrap bins and then pairing the made fabric with a deep gray polka dot and creating HST’s. Last time I posted about this project, I mentioned I wanted to make two more sets to complete the quilt top.
I made a pale yellow set.
After that, I stitched a light green set of blocks.
I am quite pleased with the effect of these scrappy blocks now that they are sewn together. There are so many fun bits of fabric to look at and enough different values within the quilt top to make it really interesting. The two shades each of blue, yellow, red and green are really nice.
It isn’t quite big enough though. I added a two inch border to frame it in gray. Now I am going through the chunks of scrap left from trimming the made fabric. I want to make a scrappy border with these pieces. I am thinking it will be about 3 to 4 inches wide, depending on what the scraps look like. There isn’t going to be quite enough so I will have to build them up – this is certainly not a problem. If you could only see my scrap bins!
For now though, I am setting this aside. It is nearly finished and won’t take very much time to do that last border. However, I have a few gifts that I am working on and hope to have completed by Thanksgiving. Always something to work on, right?
As with last month, I finished my scrappy blocks just in the nick of time. I finished with only one day to spare. September has come to a close. Time moves at a dizzying pace sometimes. Anyway, I played with some deep red scraps and added gold accents where I could as this was the RSC16 color scheme for September. This is a combination I really like. It worked better for my scrappy HST’s than it did for the gemstone project. The gemstone project requires I cut 3 1/2″ blocks and I didn’t really have very many deep red scraps that were big enough. I had tons of strings though which I used for the scrappy HST’s. Here you go. Take a look.
I love these colors. They add a richness to the project. What do you think?
I was playing with these blocks on Tuesday when Julia was recuperating on the couch. We looked at colors trying to decide the last two colors to finish this off. Of course I don’t know what the October color will be for RSC16 but I think I am going to do a set of deep purple blocks and a set a very pale yellow. (Unless, of course, Angela comes up with some crazy colors for the month of October that appeal to me more. We shall see. Also, I cannot decide if I should keep the multi colored scrappy blocks that are in the center. Do those stay or do they go?
As I said, I didn’t have much to work with for the Gemstones quilt. I do like the blocks but was only able to make two.
Here is the sum total of what I have thus far.
I definitely want to add some deep yellow blocks to this. I don’t know if I have the right scraps and may have to splurge on a fat quarter or two to supplement. Kind of silly to buy pieces for a scrappy project but I think it is calling for yellow. Also, it might need some blocks with a deep, midnight blue. Do you agree??
Glad I am keeping up with these, though just barely! I look forward to finding out the color for October and deciding if it works for either project, now that I am coming close to completing both of them.
Happy weekend everyone!!
As always, I’m linking up all over the place. My favorites are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
My sewing room is basically made up of bits and pieces that eventually come together to form something pretty – I don’t mean this to sound all philosophical. I am not like that. I mean to say it is a mess and I spent some time organizing and realized there are all sorts of fun bits in there that I want to play with. I have picked up a few things thrifting, made a few fun things and finished some others.
As far as thrifting goes, here are the most recent finds. This little stack of bits was a cute one. I love the roosters and the piece of white is totally clean and quite large; and really,- who doesn’t want extra white fabric on the shelf? The yellow bit is about 7″ by 42″ and my yellow scraps are next to nothing. These are washed and put away for now.
This block was in a bin and looked so forlorn. It was a dollar and I wondered who pieced this with such nice points and didn’t want to keep it. I usually imagine that these things come from a lovely woman’s quilty UFO pile and get donated when she can no longer sew. Take a look at the beautiful curve she did with the stem, it is lovely. I will make a little table topper with it because it is 14″ square and deserves to be finished.
When I was cleaning up, I somehow ended up with this pull from my stash. I kept seeing pieces that needed to be together. I don’t have a project in mind for it but if I put them back in their color area, they wouldn’t become used together and they should, don’t you think? Pieces are anywhere from fat quarter to 1/2 yard in size. I just love this autumnal bundle. When I put the photo on Instagram last night I was asking what other colors might need to be added. My IG/blogging friend, Gloria, suggested deep brown and I agree. I have a nice dark brown in the solids stack and will pull it to see if it belongs with the others. Am I crazy to just pull it and let it sit there until I figure out what to make with it? Do others do this? I have projects lined up right now and don’t “need” another but still??
Here is another little bit. This is a six-inch square made up of leftover pieces when I was making the border to surround my THREAD mini quilt. I didn’t want to throw them away. It will adorn my design wall for now, waiting to become something else. It is so cute.
Speaking of the THREAD mini, I put sleeves on both minis and got them hung up. My thread collection is a mess. I have some on the wall, as you can see. The pegs on these two spool hangers are too short for my Aurifil and Connecting Threads collections. So I have bins of those two and another of gorgeous, shiny spools of Sulky. What is the solution here??
This picture shows the slightly ridiculous state of affairs in the closet that holds my fabric. It was either show you the truth or close the door which is a mirror and show you me taking a picture, standing on a chair, in my nightgown. The decision came quite easily.
Lest you worry that I didn’t make any progress on my scrappy projects during August, let me assure you I did. But barely….hardly any….almost none. I made four scrappy HST blocks. Except, once again, I veered from the RSC16 color of the month and used yellow scraps instead of a second round of purple. I think I can no longer call this a RSC16 project. They are so cheerful – I was too pressed for time to lay them out with all the others though.
I will have to lay them out this month though and take stock to see what colors I need to finish it up. There are three months left and while it sounds like forever, we all know it will pass far too quickly! I also need to double up on the Pretty Gemstones project and do two colorways for that.
Finally – oh, you are going to be so proud of me for this one. I took a ton of bits and pieces – namely the receipts that support my Etsy shop – and got them organized into a spreadsheet for the 2016 tax year process. Oh my gosh, you don’t know how happy this makes me. To have eight months all organized – Paypal and Etsy reports downloaded, numbers entered in Excel. Amazing!! My usual process is to complete our personal taxes, and then become angry with myself because there are twelve months of nonsense to compile to figure out the numbers for my little business. Last year I was kicking myself over and over for having it in such a messy state. But, look! It is September and 3/4 of it is done. OK, I will stop bragging now.
There you have it. A whole lot of minutiae – somehow having written this up makes me feel like I took care of lots of loose ends. Simple pleasures, right?
Linking up to my favorites – please check out the tab at the top of the page, Link Ups, for all sorts of fun linky parties.
Also, if you haven’t popped over to check out the $5 Blowout Sale at C&T this weekend, please do. Lots of great sewing and crafting books to be had for only $5 each.
This month I barely made it in time! I kept thinking about working on my two scrappy projects but there was always something else going on so I would put it off. But I squeaked them in. Part of the problem was that this month in RSC16 land, the color is hot pink with a lime green accent. People have been making some really awesome blocks with this combination but it just wasn’t calling to me. So I decided to change it up and pulled out my bin of red scraps instead.
Once I made that change I was able to get into the idea and worked first on my made fabric. Scraps came together well as the red bin is packed with scraps to choose from. For the Gemstones quilt, I wasn’t sure how any red blocks to make. I started with two. But I like the addition of the red so I will need to make two or three more. Looking at them all together, I am getting excited to finish this one up. Remember there will be sashing between the rows when I start to piece the top.
Looking at the scrappy HST’s, I am at somewhat of a deciding point.
I think it is time to commit to a layout. The layout will determine how many of any one color I will need. Well, unless I choose to go scrappy and not group by colorway. Above is a scrappy layout without grouping colors. Below is one where I am keeping colors together.
If I keep colors together, I think I need to sketch this out and try to plan how many blocks of each color will are needed. Do I break the colors up in any one row, or make enough that the row is cohesive. Decisions, decisions… I think I will do some planning using the Quiltography app that I recently posted about.
Alternatively, I could use a simpler layout. With this one, it feels like each row should be one color. Planning is still needed though. Luckily, I have been saving any chunks of the scrappy made fabric in case I need to make more of any color. It won’t take any time to add blocks here or there.
I am strongly leaning toward the first layout shown above. However, I am equally enjoying the scrappy look and the more organized, cohesive look. Will you throw in a vote? Striped layout or the diamond? Scrappy or organized colors? I am curious and would love to hear your thoughts.
This is the hottest part of our summer thus far with triple digit heat all week and into next. We were able to escape some of the heat while at the coast for a few days. Now that we are back home, Julia and I have been hunkered down enjoying the AC. It is just awful outside. Julia has been trying out some fun techniques with her water colors, making stencils with painters tape. This one is an interpretation of the Seattle skyline with the Space Needle featured.
She is also working on some lettering. Yesterday she was channeling Walt Disney.
I am pleased to see her enjoying other activities and relying less on technology. Three more weeks and school resumes. Hard to believe but summer is winding down. Hope you are staying cool these days!
Linking to Oh Scrap and Crazy Mom Quilts, both of which are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
The RSC16 color for June (according to Angela over at So Scrappy) is aqua. She suggested adding a pop of lime green but I am pretending I didn’t hear that part. 😉 I love the aqua part though. My blue scrap bin is overflowing and the lid no longer closes (literally) so I was happy to use a few scraps up.
This week I finished up the turquoise gemstones and they look so pretty. Turquoise, as in the actual gem, isn’t one of my favorites. But these blocks are. What do you think?
Now that I have so many blocks done, it is becoming difficult to lay them all out. (My design wall is not huge and the light in the sewing room makes for terrible photos.) But here is a sampling of them to give you an idea. I like this more and more with each month! I will have to find another way to lay them out. I suppose I will be crawling around on the floor with them next month!
After working on the Gemstone blocks (the pattern for which was designed by Cynthia Brunz and published in an issues of McCall’s Quilt magazine), I played with more aqua scraps to create some scrappy HST’s. These are so much fun to make. The process is very relaxing.
I have added these four HST’s to the pile which now consists of 24 eight inch blocks. As before, it is really fun to play with different layouts. This is a favorite of mine.
I am drawn to this configuration. Next month when July’s blocks are added to the pile, I will crawl around and arrange all of the HST’s and see where I am at that point. But this arrangement is high on my list! We will see after I add a few more rows to it.
There you have it! The scrappy updates for my June RSC16 projects. I am kind of hoping that July will be some shade of red. We haven’t done that this year and I want to create some ruby gemstone blocks.
If you haven’t already entered, I have a giveaway happening this week. Saturday, 6/11 is the last day to enter. Hop over and see! Have a great weekend all!
As usual, Craftsy has another great sale going on. Classes are 50% off beginning today, June 10th and running through the 13th. You know how I feel about their classes – I love them. If you haven’t tried one, now is the time.
(Note: I am a Craftsy affiliate and if purchases are made by clicking on the link I provide, I will be paid a small commission.)
I have finished up my monthly scrap challenge projects. April was declared as the orange month. Angela, of So Scrappy, suggested including accents of black; like a Monarch butterfly. While this is a nice idea, it didn’t work for any of my projects. Plus, orange and black makes me think of Halloween, which just doesn’t feel right in April.
I made my improv HST’s and I love them! I am totally enjoying the process of piecing all of these scraps together and slicing them right back up again into half square triangles. I have the HST’s sized at 9 inches right now.
Half square triangles can be arranged in an endless number of ways.
Each arrangement brings an entirely different look to the project.
Just changing the perspective on this arrangement (setting the blocks on point) changes the look.
All of those gray dotted blocks would provide great negative space to quilt! Even with all of these choices, I am debating cutting them again to make quarter square triangles. I haven’t decided yet but I think I may want to have the blocks a bit smaller than nine inches. With quarter scale triangles, I could do an hourglass pattern or a ribbon pattern (some call it a DNA quilt pattern.) So many ways to do this! I will wait until I get a few more months done and then maybe it will make itself known to me, as these things often do.
For the Gemstones quilt, I took a suggestion from Cynthia Brunz and used rust colors instead of brighter orange tones. The suggestion was absolute genius. These blocks call out Topaz, or Tiger’s Eye, and what is better for a quilt called Gemstones?
I will confess that I had to go buy a few fat quarters to be able to use this colorway. I only had a few in my stash. Aren’t they gorgeous though?
I added the green sashing strip to one side of each block so I could see what that framework would look like. It’s perfect! At this point, I have made blocks to represent Amethyst, Topaz, Sapphire, and Rose Quartz. I still need to make blocks in Ruby Red and Emerald Green. What other gems need to be included? Maybe a lighter green for Peridot?
Finally, I used the last of the orange patchwork squares to make a little hot pad. I will pop this in the mail to my sister who seems to have a thing for orange right now.
I used two layers of Insul Bright for insulation which makes it a bit stiff to handle. I found it was challenging to bind. Or maybe I just didn’t pay close enough attention? I machine stitched it to the front and back and it only looks ok. Should be alright since this will end up in a kitchen drawer and not under anyone’s close inspection!
Scrappy projects for April are complete! This week I will continue to work on the Stepping Stones QAL. I was very happy to see (on Instagram) that Sandra over at Musings of a Menopaulsal Melon (probably the best blog name out there) joined in. She is making a great quilt using a neutral palette. In addition, I am working on a mystery QAL over at The Inbox Jaunt. More on that later this week. Finally, I will be hosting Free Motion Mavericks for Muv this week. I hope you will come back on Thursday and link up your FMQ projects!!
As always, I am linking this post up with all of my favorite spots. Check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
I am currently working on lots of different projects. I don’t normally do this but I am enjoying it. It allows me to enjoy bits of the process, depending on what I am in the mood for (piecing, trimming, stitching etc.)
I have been hand stitching the binding on my Square Dance quilt. I found a cute red and yellow print on a sale table that works well with this pallette. Picking this up in the evenings and stitching a bit is perfect. I brought it up to Downieville over the weekend for some hand sewing but only worked on it for a short while. I should have it finished up by the end of the week.
Knowing that we were going to be up at the house in DV, I made a little curtain. In our bedroom, there is a door leading to a tiny room which will someday be a sewing room. For now, it is where Ray keeps his tools and supplies for all of the work he is doing on the house. But someday…. it will be a perfect place to sew. This door has a window that I wanted to cover for privacy. The sewing room has windows that one can look through to the bedroom. I used a great piece of Tula Pink in gray and blue. I took the photo at a weird angle because the sun was coming through and when I took it straight on, the colors were way off.
Now that April is here, there is a new color for RSC16, orange. Not at all my favorite color, I was surprised to see how many scraps I had to work with. Last night I worked on “making” fabric (as discussed in “15 Minutes of Play” by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.) It is coming together well. I had a patchwork block left over from RSC14’s quilt so I unpicked some seams and used bits of patchwork for the new blocks.
These colors will add a huge pop to my scrappy HST quilt. I won’t use them for the Gemstones quilt though. After a little back and forth with Cynthia Brunz, she suggested swapping out orange for a deeper rust (think of Topaz gems). I love this idea but don’t have enough choices in my stash. I will pick up a few FQ’s for this.
Finally, I made huge progress on the Stepping Stones QAL that I am doing with Jennifer over at Inquiring Quilter. Participating in the QAL has been the perfect way to keep me on task. After many years of working to a deadline (which is so common in the HR world) I am finding that having the deadline is really helpful to me. I have pieced the 143 HST’s needed. I also cut some extra charms. After counting what I had, I came up slightly short. Take a look at these black and white FQ’s that I picked up to supplement my charm squares with.
I love all of these! The fabric at the top is a Tula Pink which I found interesting – I don’t think she uses black and white very often. It is gorgeous though.
Finally, I want to let you know that signups are open for the 2016 New Quilt Blogger session with Quilting Jetgirl, Late Night Quilter and Meadow Mist Designs. I participated in this activity last year. If you are relatively new to the quilt blogging world, I highly recommend participating. It was a valuable experience offering tips and techniques that taught me so much. Working with a large (we had about 70) group of bloggers, I became acquainted with many new bloggers. Opportunities were available which helped to push me to learn and grow (such as the block hops sponsored by Paint Brush Fabrics.) Be sure to check out the information at any of the three websites I have linked to and see what if this is right for you. If you have questions, leave them in the comments. Here are the criteria for participating in this event.
If you have been blogging mainly about modern quilting (modern quilting to you is modern quilting to us.),
for less than 2 years,
writing at least 4 posts a month,
are willing to agree to be actively involved in the blog hop through visiting and commenting on the other blogger’s hop posts,
and have or are willing to open a Facebook account to participate in the group discussions.
Hope you are all having a wonderful week. Springtime is certainly long in coming to the east coast but we are in full swing on the west. My lilacs are fully blooming. I tried to cut some for inside the house but the fragrance was powerful and I couldn’t leave them. We were all sneezing after just a short while!
Linking to lots of fun places. Check out the links at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
This week I discovered that I have almost no purple fabric; scrappy, yardage or otherwise. I don’t know why. The purple section on the shelf is nearly empty and my purple scrap bin is the same. I will soon have the pleasure of shopping for a few purple blenders to build things back up. But first, let me show you what I managed to cobble together for the RSC16 for the month of March.
My blocks for the Gemstone quilt are starting to accumulate. Here are the newest additions in all their purple splendor.
This quilt is going to be so pretty. The first three months look wonderful together. Remember that each block will be sashed in the pale green so they will be floating on the green background.
Because most of my purple scraps are strings of various widths, it was easier to work on my improv project. I made a slab of purple fabric using all sorts of tiny pieces.
Check out my teeny tiny HST’s on the lower right. Those were fun to put together. Once I had the slab done, I decided to start making blocks out of the slabs I had made thus far. I wasn’t sure what size I wanted to cut them to, so I practiced with an old rainbow slab I made a while back. I am going to make HST’s which will combine the made fabric and a simple gray polka dot fabric. Once I decided on the size block (9″) I started cutting the blue, pink and purple slabs. You’ll notice a substantial color difference in both of these shots. The photo above was taken on a rainy day when I had to rely on terrible lighting. The shot below was taken today with wonderful sunlight streaming in. The color below are much more accurate. (Thankfully so.)
I am loving how these are coming together.
I was careful to preserve the parts of the made fabric that I wanted to show up in the HSTs. My little girl, the pink pinwheel, the tiny purple HST’s, and the little deer on the edge of the other pink HST. For now, I am going to aim for four or five blocks from each color, which will give me about 50-55 blocks. Then I can lay them out and see what it still needs. I have plenty of the gray dot fabric for the project.
Cutting the made fabric slabs left me with a number of large scraps. I will hold on to these and can stitch them back together as needed for extra blocks when I lay this out.
Linking up with my usuals, including Oh Scrap and So Scrappy and looking forward to seeing what everyone is doing with their purple scraps this month!
If you follow along with Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge, you probably know that this month’s color is mocha. Angela suggested adding bits of pink if that felt like a good idea. Hmmm…. neither of my scrappy projects for this year call for brown. So I rebelled and just sewed pink. Call me crazy.
I love both of my projects. They are coming along nicely now that I have two colors to look at.
Here are my blocks for the Pretty Gemstones quilt.
The pink looks great with the sage green solid corners. They look wonderful mixed in with the blue squares from January. I already know I am going to love this quilt. 🙂
I made two rather large pieces of “made” fabric, just like last month. I don’t have a huge amount of pink scrap but I found enough.
I love the scraps that are in this piece. The windmill block is made from those little triangles that were snipped off of my row of heart blocks when making my BOM for Classic Stitches last February. It is just peanut sized, measuring two inches square. There are pink dotted triangles that were saved from my Allison Glass mini quilt swap last spring. And, my favorite, the little girl looking into her jar of fireflies from a piece of Wee Wander, Wander Woods. I fussy cut her and will be sure top keep her intact when I make a block from this piece. It might be a trick to keep the tiny pinwheel and the little girl whole but that is my goal.
This second piece has more kidlets and a deer from the Wander W!oods piece. Check out the tree that looks like it is in blossom on the lower right. The pink plaid in the center is a piece of vintage fabric from the bundle of fabrics that were given to me last spring. There are a few fun posts about this fabric here and here. I love seeing bits and pieces of past projects popping up.
I am almost certain that I am going to create HST’s with these fabric collages. I bought a pall gray dotted fabric and I am thinking I will use that for the “other” side of the HST. My next decision is how big to cut the HST’s. I need to do a little thinking before I start cutting, but they will be on the big size. If I actually make any of the HST’s between now and next month, I will post them with my March scrappy post.
February was all about pink scraps for me. I am sure that at some point Angela will call for a pink month and I will have to substitute something else in that month.
Linking to Oh Scrap!, So Cute Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, and Let’s Bee Social. Find these links at the top of the page under link ups.
I have just a small finish to share this morning. For RSC16, I am making two projects. The first is the pattern, Pretty Gemstones, created by Cynthia Brunz and recently published in the McCall’s Quilting magazine. The second project is still a bit undefined. However, I know that it will be based on “made fabric” as taught by Victoria Findlay Wolfe in her book, “Fifteen Minutes of Play”.
At this point, I am making four squares of each color for the Pretty Gemstones quilt. I completed the Icy Blue color for January.
On each corner you’ll notice a very pale green rectangle. That green is a Kaffe Fassett cotton, called Ecru. I totally don’t get the name because Ecru makes me think of an off white color. At any rate, it will be the background fabric. I bought the end of the bolt at my local LQS, which always gives me a sense of satisfaction. She gets rid of a small amount and I get 15% off. Win Win! I defintely have enough to complete the project throughout the year and not be in fear of being unable to match it. These blocks take no time at all to stitch up and the effect will be fun at the end of the year.
With the exception of the one darker blue block, I tried for pale blues with gray and light purple tones to them. I want this quilt to have a cool tone to it which means I may skip some of the colors during the year. Definitely orange and brown, as they are such a warm color. I will make four of each and then may have to go back and augment certain colors to complete the quilt.
The next project, using made fabric, needs a bit more definition. I have really enjoyed reading the Fifteen Minutes book. So much so that I have been through it twice already. I have done almost no improv work but she makes it so simple. I have been sewing scraps together like crazy.
The biggest hurdle for me is to make everything lay flat. She talks about this in the book and basically says to chop of the parts that ripple and reattach them elsewhere. I am getting better at it though.
I want this quilt to be really bold. I am thinking of creating fabric in the color of the month and then squaring it to about 13 or 14″. Maybe I will make HST’s with the improv pieces, using the same color for the other side of each one. I think using big, blocky HST’s might make a fun quilt, and there are endless ways to lay it out. I am still not quite sure though. So, I made two pieces of scrappy, icy blue fabric and will leave them be until I have a few more colors created.
In the next picture you can see a bit of rippling. I will slice it up a bit and reattach it so the piece calms down a bit.
Both of these RSC quilts are great fill in projects. I can pull out the bin and sew for a while without having to think too hard. Neither take lots of time and the results from both will be a lot of fun, with the added bonus of using up scrap.
One more thing – remember the baby bird quilt I made using orphan blocks that I had thrifted? I linked that post over to Muv’s Freemotion Mavericks linky party and this week she featured my project.I am flattered! Thanks Muv! I brought the quilt over to a local organization in our town, called Kare Crisis. Kare Crisis is a house that is open 24/7 and they will take care of any child ages 0-5 years if the parent is in need. They do not define the crises, rather it is up to the parent to decide. Sometimes it is just a matter of having a sick baby and the mom needs to go to work. Sometimes it is something far more serious. They also provide a safe place for supervised visitations. It is an awesome resource and the director, Lynne, was thrilled to have the quilt for babies to use.
Happy weekend everyone. It is raining hard this morning. After I run Julia over to school, I will spend some time in the sewing room. Hope you are doing the same, wherever you are. 🙂
It isn’t quite big enough though. I added a two inch border to frame it in gray. Now I am going through the chunks of scrap left from trimming the made fabric. I want to make a scrappy border with these pieces. I am thinking it will be about 3 to 4 inches wide, depending on what the scraps look like. There isn’t going to be quite enough so I will have to build them up – this is certainly not a problem. If you could only see my scrap bins!
