ScrapHappy Saturday - End to Begin Anew

 

I love the end of the year! I have energy to finish things so that I can start new projects next year. November is the perfect time to take stock of block collections and figure out what needs to be added and adjusted for quilts this year. Finished quilts this year means no guilt about starting new ones next year? With that goal in mind, I finished the quilting on these churn dash blocks. It took way too long because the thread kept breaking. I went through new needles, new threads and much cleaning of the machine to get it working well again. I will do a close up of the quilting when the binding is done.

This is the final layout for the dots blocks. I have the rows sewed together so far but not the columns. That shouldn't take too long to move along. I think I have a backing for this one which might make it next to the frame. 

Here are a couple of blocks that I am considering for next year. The plus blocks are something I saw on Stitch with Rachel on you tube. They might work as leaders and enders. And the 60 degree stars could be my next handwork pattern. 

First though, I need to finish up the snakes. This will be the final layout. Now I just need to even out all of the rows. Blue and aqua are both 60 inches. I cut out some more green. It looks like yellow will get its turn next. Then I will have some time to prep them before holiday travels when I can sew them together. It's always nice to have a photo and then a little list of how many of each color to make. 

How is your beginning of the end of the year starting to shape up? The weekly linky is below. Please share your progress with us all. 

Scraphappy Saturday - Slowly

I did bit of hand sewing on hexies. The green row is definitely too short. After that I will decide if the blue is too long or the purple is too short. I used the Cricut at school to cut out a few more shapes for EPP. and did a bit of cutting and prepping. I was thinking about tiny plus blocks as a leader and ender this year. They use 1.5 inch strips. I am not a roll finishing things up right now, but that always gives me the urge to start new projects. The end is near for this year, hopefully you are feeling ready to start putting some blocks together!

Kurt was gone all week to Colorado, I picked him up at the airport yesterday. Sydney is home for the weekend for early voting, but she is off to Halloween Horror nights at Universal later today. I think Ryan is headed back to Gainesville a Halloween party. That just leaves Kurt and I.  am sure he will be working on the kitchen remodel that is underway. When he doesn't need me to help with that, I think I will sew a few more hexies together and stream a bit of Netflix before our account expires on Tuesday. We are working to limit our streaming services and I didn't want to add anything new until we got rid of something old. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Slow and Steady

 

No new finishes to share, but there was still progress. We spent the week in Virginia helping out with the new grandbaby. Anna was also able to help me out with data analysis for my dissertation. Catching up on graduate school work is first on my list this morning. 

James is getting so big! He smiles now and makes many adorable noises. I took hexies along to sew in the car. I guess I need more green, but there are plenty of blue blocks. I will work on getting these rows together and evened out before figuring out some dimensions.

Churn Dashes with Chains is still on the frame. Maybe I can get to that this afternoon. How is your October shaping up? I enjoyed getting to visit fall weather, but it seems to still be summer here in Florida. 

FInishing

 I am continuing to work to finish of UFOs. Monday I took the last stitches on the scalloped binding for Dear Jane! I love the hand sewing of the binding stage. It is just such a nice chance to admire each and every block. 

I laid it on the patio and went to the balcony to try to get a full flat photo. It isn't perfect, but I am pretty happy to have it done after all those years. So many different patterns and techniques and fabrics. Also, so much growth and learning. Well worth the effort for sure. I have been pondering the Nearly Insane quilt. Maybe that will be a retirement project to look forward to. 

On Thursday we had tickets to see Hamilton in Orlando. It was amazing! I have seen the Disney version so many times, but it was even better in person. 

We are in the car right now headed to Virginia to help Anna with the new baby. Then Kurt needs to head to to North Carolina to take care of some things with his dad's estate and check in on his sister. Monday is a teacher workday and there are so many early deadlines for college applications on October 15. So many good things happening! For now, I have some hexies to stitch in the car. I am desparate to start a new EPP project, but I will finish up my hexie snakes first. Two hand sewing projects at the same time is too many for me.

How are your purple scraps coming along so far? Mister Linky is below, please share your rainbow scrappy progress 

And Sew Begins the End

 It's only October, but I am already starting to think about finishing things up for RSC2026. I have been trying hard to finish off quilts and to avoid having quite so many ongoing projects and UFOs.

With that thought in mind, the Hexie Snake quilt is coming together. I have most of the blue and purple blocks sewn into a row. I want to start a new hand piecing project, which means that the ongoing one project really needs to get finished up.

The new projects has tiny 60 degree diamonds which come from 1.5 inch strips. I haven't been saving much of that size since I finished up my log cabin quilt, but I will focus on that from my bin of low volumes. Those really need to be cleaned up! So maybe I will start the day with a bit of pressing. 

I won't officially start on a new quilt yet, but it will remain on the back burner. 

With the thought of finishing things in mind, I loaded the Churn Dash and Chains quilt onto the frame. I am quilting this with continuous apple peels, it is going slow and steady. 

Then yesterday I did the math and realized that I have plenty of propellor blocks, but not enough dot blocks. So I got some purples up on the wall and need to figure out which colors are still a little light. How is the beginning of the end of your year starting to shape up? 

October!

 Tomorrow is a new month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If you are all caught up with the rainbow, this is a chance to shift your focus to neutrals in dark or light. This might mean adding sashing or borders. It might mean digging into your low volume stash to lighten things up a bit. If you are not all caught up, then October is a great opportunity to revisit your block collections and figure out how many you need and which colors got missed along the way. I know that I got busy once or twice this year and will need to even things up a bit. 

November is set aside for block assembly with December available for finishing. With a little bit of planning, you will be ready to end the year with a finished project instead of another UFO. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Playing with Purple

 I am enjoying purple so much this month. 

We had a volunteer come in to the new makerspace at school and do some organization that makes it more functional. Most of the kids just want to use the 3-D printer constantly, but there is also a Cricut Maker. I learned that it could be used to make EPP templates and wanted to give that a try. So I cut out some hexies and then gave the 60 degree diamond a try. My next hand sewing project might just be these 6 pointed stars framed out in diamonds to make an octagon. 

That motivated me to get moving on my current hexagon project which I think has plenty of blocks to be sewn together. So here is the purple row, all sewn together!

And since I don't work on Mondays anymore, I loaded this random nine patch quilt onto the frame to cross another UFO off of the list. I think that I was making nine patches for the Sister's Choice quilt that I made for mom. I made a bunch of extras and then they sat in the orphan block bin for longer than you can imagine. As I look at the finished top,

After finishing that quilt, I was nearly out of batting. I used to get big rolls each year Joann's when they were on sale. I checked on Amazon, but the same type of roll that I used to get was about three times more. Eventually, I copied he exact code from the packaging into Google and found that Michaels carries it with free delivery. Yay! So now I have a new roll and am ready for the next UFO. Watch this space for further updates on my UFO finishing progress. 

How are your weekend plans shaping up? I went to work on Friday because it was a teacher workday and there was a meeting. I will bank the extra day toward an extra week off in November when Anna wants me to stay with the new grandbaby while she is at a conference. 

Scraphappy Saturday - Progress

 I thought it was time to pull out a couple of my block collections to take stock and do a quick evaluation.

First is the dot blocks. I think there is one purple already, but I will add some and think about the color placement. Maybe a color wash kind of arrangement with a bullseye or starburst slightly off center?  I also need to think about what size it should be.  I feel like I am a bit short on green blocks and there is only one purple that has made it through the pipeline. 

Then there are the propeller blocks. These are meant to be set on point. I will ponder the next steps for this as well. About half of the orange blocks were rotating in the opposite direction from the rest. That can be a problem when working on quilts over a long period of time. I will do some reverse sewing and get those fixed before adding some new purple blocks. 

The main progress this week was in quilting. I got the sprouts blocks off the frame on Sunday and then added the binding before quilting circle on Monday. Then I was going strong and took a deep breath to jump into the quilting on the Itty Bitty Log Cabin blocks. I knew that I wanted an all over pattern for these which would not work well on the long arm. Instead, I used a walking foot and just made diamonds from corner to corner around each concentric circle. I will have a lovely binding marathon today and finish both of these up. That is always a nice excuse for catching up on movies or streaming series. I watched 9-5 while I was starting the log cabin quilt, so maybe I will do Steel Magnolias for another Dolly Parton film. I will do the full finished quilt reveal for each of these soon. 

What are your weekend sewing plans? I need to do a bit of a tidy up in my space before I figure out what is next. I hope that you have some lovely purple to play with. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Home Again

 

We got back last night from our time visiting the new baby. He is perfect and beautiful and doing all the things a new baby should be doing. I was so happy to be able to go and meet him. I am also happy to be home again. I have quite a nice stash of purple that will be fun to sort and sew. Sometimes the simple things are all that I need. To come back home again. To play with some pretty scraps. To combine old fabrics to create something new. 

ScrapHappy Saturday in Purple

September is going to be a purple month here at the #RainbowScrapChallenge. I have some purple hexies waiting patiently to be joined.  

I planned hand sewing for the trip to Virginia. We came up to meet the new grand baby. After his due date passed on Friday, they decided to induce on Tuesday before the holiday weekend. He finally arrived on Thursday morning. Mom and dad are not sharing photos of the new baby on social media, so here is his room instead. I had saved the binding to sew on the drive up.

There has been quite a bit of handwork in my sewing lately. After adding some blossoms to the sprouts blocks, this quilt is finally ready to be done. I just don't enjoy square quilts, so this was a way to make it rectangular. This was one of my RSC projects from 2019, so it is good to have it ready to move along. 

I have some hexies as well, but have not had a chance to start sewing those together yet. Perhaps today. We are at Anna and Jordan's waiting for the new family to come home from the hospital. Her blood pressure was high and so they kept them all there for an extra day. We have been delivering them food and popping in for short visits. It will be good to have them back home again. For now it is just us and the cat, all waiting patiently. Sewing some purple hexies sounds just about perfect. How are your purple scraps shaping up?