Scrappy Saturday

block #13

It's the last week for using pink scraps over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Where did October go?
This week I made another pink block for the "Circle of Squares" collection (free block pattern is here).

Here are the 13 blocks on the design wall. I think I will make 7 more blocks for this quilt. Some colours are noticeably absent and I need to pay attention to this next year and maybe add a dark green, navy blue, a lighter red, brown, etc.
To see more scrappy projects, hop over to the weekly linkup.

Scrappy Saturday

October is pink month for the Rainbow Challenge Quilters. I have sewn together most of my pink Alamo star blocks into 4 patch blocks. They are joining the yellows, blues, purples, and aqua blocks in storage. Soon it will be time to figure out a layout for all these blocks. I think I will need your help when that time comes!
Hop over to SoScrappy to see what other blocks are being sewn with pink scraps!

Red and Pink

My sewing room is full of red and pink scraps today.

The red scraps are for Blockapalooza day for the 70273 Project. To read my blog post from yesterday for more information, click here.
As project captain Jeanne says: "a big Thank You to y'all for helping us remind and/or convince the world that Every life has value. Every. Single. Life."
I'm turning my red scraps into a "Middling" for the 70,273 project. What's a "Middling" you ask? It's a miniature quilt measuring 18" x 22". I only have two blocks started so far.

The pink blocks are part of my Alamo Star collection that I have been working on for 5 years. Yoday I am sewing the pink stars together into 4 patch blocks.


To see what the other Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters are up to today, hop over to SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday

This week is the 4th anniversary of my Omigosh project, so I had to make a few more blocks to celebrate! This is one of my multi-decade projects. 
Last month's colour was orange, and October is pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Finally I had a chance to play with my tiniest scraps to make a few more Omigosh blocks.

The grand total of blocks is: 

87 double nine patch
8 scrappy shoefly

After 4 years of adding to the pile, I'm almost half finished the block production. See what I mean about it being a multi-decade project?!?!

To see more scrappy projects in the making, hop over to the  SoScrappy linkup.

Scrappy Saturday

This is the last Saturday of orange month over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I got a few scraps sewn into useable blocks for various projects over the month. These are the two newest orange scrappy sprout blocks finished this week. For more sprout inspiration, the pattern is here, and you can see a finished version of this block pattern here and a WIP here.



Here is my entire sprout collection on the design wall. Does it need more medium blues/aquas? Yellows/golds?
Purples? Pinks?
Well, I guess it needs more of everything!

Hop over to the weekly link up and see what quilters are sewing with their orange scraps.

Sew a Jelly Roll Day

Did you ever know there was such a day to celebrate?!?!
Today's the day! Hop over to Project Jelly Roll to see what's going on over there.
I have been saving a jelly roll for this very occasion I was hoping to plan a jelly roll sewing party but have been too busy to get it organized. That's a sad state of affairs when you're too busy to plan some fun sewing! But it's Fall Fair season, so sewing time is at a premium.

I did get some maverick star blocks sewn this week from some orange scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If you asked me if I liked orange I would probably tell you that I don't, but I sure do seem to have a lot of orange fabric scraps laying around here!





Here are the 36 maverick star blocks on the design wall. This project is coming along well!

And now I'm off to see what's going on in computer land to celebrate Jelly Roll day. Are you cracking open a jelly roll today?!?

Happy International Bacon Day!

Do you know what today is? 
Here's a photo clue...
Besides being Scrappy Saturday, it's international bacon day! Yes I know bacon is a terrible food and it's really unhealthy, and we shouldn't eat it. But we do because it's just so darn delicious! We usually save this as a treat to enjoy when we're camping, but today is a special day set aside for bacon lovers, so we're having it!

When not eating bacon, I've been busy organizing some orange fabrics to work with for orange month over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I sewed another Circle of Squares (pattern here) block using some reddish orange scraps. I found that perfect background fabric in the stash.



I added this to the growing collection of blocks and here they are on the design wall. 12 blocks without sashing makes a rather small lap quilt, so I'm going to keep going with this one and make 8 more blocks. Looks like I'm missing some colours... dark green, navy blue, gold, and brown to name a few. To see more scrappy projects, hop over to the weekly RSC link up.

Scrappy Saturday

Blue is the colour for July over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 
The Omigosh project saw some scrappy attention this week. I finished 3 alternate shoofly blocks and 1 more double 9 patch block. These blocks use up my smallest 1" scraps. These are fiddly blocks and take just as long as a full size block to make (and sometimes longer if the seam ripper needs to be involved!)

Here's the full blue block collection. Many more shoofly blocks are needed but 3 is a good start!

This is a multi-year (maybe multi-decade project!) and I just sew a few blocks here and there when I have collected enough tiny scraps.

To see more blue scrap projects, hop over to the link up at SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday

A couple more blue blocks were added to the Maverick Star collection this week. This a slow growing, no pressure project... just the way I like my quilting to be! The star points are mostly corners cut off of flying geese blocks. This is a free Bonnie Hunter pattern (click here) and uses up lots of scraps. 
To see more Rainbow Scrap projects, hop over to the weekly link up here.

Scrappy Saturday

I'm working away on my collection of Alamo star blocks. 

 I've been making blocks for almost 5 years and this year I am sewing them together into 4 patch blocks with two light colour backgrounds and two dark backgrounds. The star colours in each four patch are random, which I constantly remind myself does not mean "evenly placed"!!  Here are a four more finished green 4 patches from May, and eight blues from this month. The 4 patch blocks measure 4".
To see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, hop over to the weekly link up.

Scrappy Saturday

July is blue month over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm starting off the month by organizing my blue Alamo Stars into 4 patch blocks. I'm surprised that there aren't more blue blocks, but this is all there are to work with. 
What are you sewing for the blue month? Hop over to the link up at SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday - Alamo Stars

It's Canada's 150th birthday today and I wrote about it here yesterday so that today I could show the Rainbow Scrap Challenge stitchers my yellow progress this month.

I was able to get all my Alamo Star blocks with yellow backgrounds sewn into 4 patch units! I had to match up a few of the yellows with some darker background blocks using oranges and browns, but I'm happy with them. These 64 star blocks have been sewn into 16 four patch blocks. Let's not mention that I'm still working on the green ones from last month and will now start working on the blue ones also! 
Hop over to the RSC link up to see what the scrap quilters are working on today.

Scrappy Saturday

The yellow month is speeding by over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I have been making a bit of a dent in the yellow scrap box. Two more blocks were added to the scrappy sprouts project this week (pattern is here).

This has been a very slow growing garden/project and that's my favourite way to make a quilt. No pressure. No deadlines. No expectations. Just making a few blocks here and there, and adding to it whenever you have a yen for it.
I like to quilt in the same way as I like to drive... believing you will get to the destination eventually, with the intention to enjoy every minute, and not be stressed about how you're going to get there.
I don't know how big this quilt will be, but it will be bigger than this, because I am still enjoying it and not ready for it to be done yet.
To see more yellow projects, hop over to the RSC link up.

Scrappy Saturday

Finally I had some time in the quilt studio to get to work on the yellow scraps. Can you believe there is only one more Saturday left in June? I had to make some progress with my RSC projects!
I made another Circle of Squares block (pattern here) not even realizing that I had already made a yellow block for this project. Oh well, now I have 2 yellow blocks! I used up some scraps left over from my En Provence mystery quilt. 

Here are the 11 circle blocks on the design wall. The top right is the new block... and the bottom left is the yellow block from last year. 

To see more RSC yellow projects, hop over to the weekly link up.

Scrappy Saturday Block Drive

June is the month of sewing up yellow scraps over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I made 4 blocks to send to Cynthia . She is collecting blocks for the Covered In Love charity, which provides quilts to patients who are dying. This is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I know how beneficial the colour, comfort and warmth provided by quilts is for sick patients and their families. 
When my brother was having cancer treatments, he was often cold. When there were scary visits to the ER, painful treatments, and hours of waiting, I always had a quilt in the car just in case he was cold. Here is a picture that captures a very vivid memory because it was a terrible day, and on this day he became particularly enamoured with the back of this quilt, which was "just a panel". It reminded him of days when he was healthy and able to go hiking and camping. It provided warmth, memories, and comfort.
If you are interested in contributing some blocks for the Covered in Love quilts, the tutorial is here. 
The link up for RSC yellow projects is here.

Scrappy Saturday

I have been slacking with my RSC efforts lately and finally made a bit of progress with green scraps. One of my favourite scrappy blocks to make this year is the Circle of Squares block. I found the perfect background fabric with the green stars at Cherished Pieces. It's so fun to look at these green squares and remember the projects for which they were purchased. Many of these are bits leftover from Easy Street.

The green block is #10 for the collection. This is another poor photo taken late at night, but you get the idea of how the project is developing.

In addition I wanted to get my green Alamo Star blocks sewn into 4 patches in May (see the aqua blocks here and the purple blocks here). But in laying them out on the table, I realized there were not nearly enough dark green blocks to work with. Apparently I only really like light green! So I cut out the pieces for 16 blocks with dark green backgrounds, and will sew these as leader-ender blocks and finish these sometime in June. I'm looking forward to working with yellow scraps this month.
Hop over to the weekly link up to see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

Green Scrappy Saturday

The RSC colour for May is green, which is one of my favourite colours especially at this time of the year when the grass and leaves are growing and we are surrounded by vibrant juicy greens. I have big scrappy plans for green month but at FSNI last night I only managed to sew one little 5" alternate block for Omigosh. This brings my grand total of alternate blocks to 3! 





That's okay because: a) this is a lifelong project and b) we had a blast at FNSI and talked for 5 hours straight! There was a lot of talking and laughing, and not as much sewing! 

To see blog links to quilters accomplishing more green things than I did this week, hop over to SoScrappy!

Scrappy Saturday

The colour of the month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is "multicolour". That has been quite a challenge for me for my RSC projects, so I practiced with some cookies first! 

These are some of the easter cookies my daughter and I made last weekend. It was great fun to decorate each one differently. My favourites were the ones with all the icing colours. The colourful cookies created quite the family conflict, since she didn't want anyone to actually EAT these treats. Apparently she thought we should just admire the creations for a few weeks! They're long gone now!

I did finally make a sort of multicoloured block for my Circle of Squares project. My scrap collection doesn't seem to have much in the way of multicoloured fabrics, and this is the best I could do!





Here are the 9 blocks on the design wall.

To see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, hop over to the weekly link up.

Scrappy Saturday

Major progress was made with the red scraps this week. I finished another Mad City Mama block (pattern from Bonnie Hunter's book Adventures with Leaders and Enders). 
Red was a fun colour to play with and I had many prints with little graphics that I could fussy cut. 
As soon as I took the photo, I could see that I forgot one of the light triangle corners. But it was easy to add in, and voila... here are the 8 blocks on the design wall.

WOW that's a lot of scraps!

Only one more block to go. 
What colour should I add?
Brown?
Gold?
Grey?
Lime green?

To see more scrappy red projects, hop over to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link up.

Worldwide Quilting Day

Today is Worldwide Quilting Day when we celebrate quilts and quilters around the world. The Quilt Show is offering free viewing of over 200 of their shows this weekend, so there is lots to watch while we sew.

I am excited to get my sewing machine out and start creating something. Yesterday was all about putting on the green for St. Patrick's day, and today is all about the red over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This is what my cutting mat looks like today with partial pieces for another Mad City Mama block. 
Happy Quilting Day!