Happy Memorial Day

 Friday was the last day of class and today if officially a holiday! Tuesday is counted as a workday, but most of our teachers tried to rush through and get everything done ahead of time so that they don't have to come back after the long weekend. I have a few things to do to get ready for camp, but I certainly won't work a full day.  

I spent most of my sewing time yesterday piecing a back for the tiny nine patch leftover quilt.  Leftover orphan blocks seemed fitting for a quilt of leftover blocks. This one is now ready to load onto the frame. I will have to see if I have any batting that I can cobble together. I had a giant roll that ran out and my attempt to order online appears to have been unsuccessful. 

I hope those on holiday will find some time for relaxing and enjoying the lovely weather.  

Last Gasp of Pink

It is the final pink weekend!  Next Saturday will be the first and time to put away the rosy hues in favor of blue for June.  I have just a few pink star blocks to finish. The geese are cut and ready for assembly, so that should not take long at all. Yesterday was the last day for students! I will go in next week to wrap up a few odds and ends and then there will be a short week of camp, but there is a light nearing.  Sydney popped home for a weekend so we will enjoy spending some time with her, when she is not hanging out with her friends. It looks like a beautiful beach day and I am guessing we will be finding some aloe for sun burns before it ends.  

Kurt had her room completely torn apart and ready for painting when she surprised us by coming home for the weekend. He was able to get everything reassembled enough for a few days though and I will have a time after she is gone to do things properly. I really do love painting, the mood is sure to be more conducive now that summer has properly arrived. 

I pulled a tiny leftovers quilt out last weekend to see if I could cross something else off of the list. There are some leftover green binding strips that I might auditioning as an inner border and then perhaps a lighter wider green outside of that. I hope you are finishing up your May blocks and finding some time to play with your scraps. Misterlinky is below

Sunday Funday

 

I am mostly caught up on pink for May! I squared up some crumb fabric to make star centers and then finished the Hen and Chick blocks along with tutorials. That led to updating the RSC24 Sampler Page and so I think everything is up to date. Yay! 

Kurt has decided to start a cleaning and organization spree in the house, which is absolutely the last thing I want to think about with 5 more school days to get through. Ask me again in 6 days and I will be full of energy and ready to tackle lots of fun projects. 

I have been doing a bit of clearing out and finishing up in the sewing studio. There are several flimsies hanging waiting patiently for a turn to be quilted.  This one is all the leftover baby nine patches made from 1 inch strips that were addictive enough to turn into several quilts. I feel like this one just needs a nice wide calming border and it will be ready to finish. 

Hen and Chicks Block 20 - Churn Dash

 

This is another classic quilt block that can be made from simple subunits.  Combining and recombining them in different ways.  It is basically the same as the Shoofly block, but with rectangles instead of squares on the edges.  This one is fun for a kids quilt, a fun novelty would make an adorable center for an eye spy.  

Use your favorite method to make HST units. You just need one background square for the center and a strip of pink and background to make the rectangles. I strip pieced these, but you could cut them individually as well.  

Sew your strip set together and press toward the pink. 

Cut your strip sets into squares which are the same width as the combined length of the two strips sewn together. This will make them the same size as the square and HST units you have ready to go. 

Now that your nine subunits are prepared, just arrange them with the HST units in the corners and the rectangle units along the edges with the dark pink facing the center square on all sides. 

Sew as you would for a nine patch and you are ready to go. I could seem to make this block again and again and never get sick of it. 

Hen and Chicks Block 19 Pennsylvania

This block is about as simple as they come.  I can't imagine making an entire quilt with it, but I can see using it as an alternate block between others. I enjoy two block quilts with one busy block and one connecting eye resting block. This would be a great way to leave a bit of empty space and highlight other blocks in your overall design layout. 

You will need big square and small squares. I used strip piecing for the small squares and widths and lengths for those are in the cutting chart. 

Sew a strip set with pink and background. Press toward the pink. For larger blocks, feel free to use several smaller strips to have enough length to cut your subunits

You will need 8 subunits cut from the strip set. The width of each unit is the same as the initial width of the strip that you used. I started with 1.5 inch strips for the 6 inch block, which means that I cut mine 1.5 inches. 

Pair the twosie subunits together to form four 4 patches.

The four patches go in each corner, and the background squares form the sides with the large pink square in the center. Press away from the four patches to minimize bulk. 

 

Hen and Chicks Block 18 Broken Sugar Bowl

I find quilt block names to be so strange and fascinating.  Why this one is called Broken Sugar Bowl is strange to me, but as I was making it, I kept thinking about how the sugar bowl looked before it was broken and why the sugar that spilled out was pink. I like that this block has a strong diagonal line in two directions. That gives it a lot of design potential in a multi block layout. I think this would be a nice one to put random scrappy nine patches together where I used the light pinks with a single unifying tone on tone or solid where I have the dark pink. As a block, it is a simple combination of HST units and squares, so it is easy enough to put together with things that you might have hanging around.

I saw several different combinations of the two colors in the block as I did research, but settled on this layout which gives a light pink flow in one direction and a dark pink flow opposing. 

You will need to choose the HST method of your choice to make 4 units in dark pink. I used the Easy Angle, but I will include measurements for those using a more traditional method. Add to that two squares in light pink and  a long strip in light and dark strip in dark pink paired with backgrounds. If you don't have a single strip long enough, feel free to use two strips that add up to the same length. 

Sew the two strips together the same length of background fabric. This will make a long strip set in light pink and short strip set in dark pink. Press carefully toward the pink trying to keep the seam straight. I included a little bit of wiggle room in case you need to square things up a bit. 

Now sub cut those strip sets into units the same width as your initial strips.  You will need 4 light pink subunits and 2 dark pink.  Combine two light pinks together to make the center 4 patch and then one of dark and light to make two mixed four patches. 

Here is the layout. Start by lining up the light pinks to form a diagonal line in one direction. Then add the mixed four patches to opposite corners to form the other diagonal. The HST units both nestle into that dark pink diagonal.  Check the photo and compare before you begin to sew. 

Now just sew as you like to put your nine patches together and press. I couldn't see a strong advantage to any specific pressing pattern here, there is bulk in both directions. I chose to press away from the HST blocks because sometimes that helps with more perfect points for triangles.

ScrapHappy Saturday - Smaller to Bigger

This week I took a few small bits of pink scraps and put them together to make slightly larger bits of pink scraps. I have several crumb bits that are now the substantial enough to square up and sew into star blocks. The plus blocks are coming along nicely as leaders and enders, but the sampler blocks need a bit of time today, so that should go first on the list. There are just five more days of school left this year and graduation for our seniors is Tuesday. There is much to look forward to in the next few days, but also the promise of some quiet time in the near future to enjoy some fabric and play. 

I hope your pink plans are progressing positively.  Please use MisterLinky to share with us all.

 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Pink is Peeking

 

I didn't make much progress on pink, but I took enough time to dig in and find out what was hiding in the bin.  There is one of the Hen & Chick Blocks, the others are planned, so finding some time to sew them up this morning is part of the plan.  It looks like I've got some partial blocks and crumb bits ready to go.  Sydney came home for a few days before the start of her summer classes on Monday.   After seeing Anna last weekend, we are almost caught up on visiting with kids. School is all about testing right now, but I get my steps in each day walking around while they do their thing. I've got a couple of days squeezed in to help juniors with college applications and then a few days of College Application Bootcamp right after school end.  After that, it will be all vacation all the time! Looking forward to long days with so much time to sew, relax and regroup!

I hope that you pinks are coming along nicely.  

Please use the linky tool below so we can all enjoy your progress.

Hen & Chicks Block 17 - D4P

 

Double 4 patch is not all that different from Antique Tile, it is just a four patch rather than a modified four patch in each corner.  

It is easily strip pieced, and except for the center square, everything comes from just one size of strip.  That would make this one a great way to dig into your bins of strips.  I have quite a collection saved up and this would be a fun way to put them all to good use. Start with strips of pink and background. One super long strip will do it, or two or more shorter sets, depending on what you have on hand.  It never hurts to sew extra length on strip sets.  The lengths in the chart all have an extra half inch worked in for safety, but you can make yours longer depending on what is in your scrap bin.  

Sew the pink and background strips together and press toward the pink. Try to keep the strip straight as you press, it makes the cutting more accurate.  

You will need two sizes of sub cuts for this one.  The big one is a square and the little one is the same width as your original strip.  This is the 6 inch finished size and I started with 1.5 inch strips.  That means the big set is 2.5 inches and the little set is 1.5 inches.  Cut 4 of the large squares and 8 of the small units which will be combined to make squares. 

Sew the small units together to make 4 4 patches and iron as you like.  I usually spin the seams on the back of 4 patches, but the key is that the seams should nestle in the next step, so remain flexible depending on how the seam lie.  

Arrange these subunits as seen here. Notice that the pink 4 patches form an X and the pink on the two patch square is away from the background colored center.  Now sew as you would any nine patch, taking care to nestle the seams of the four and two patch units

I have updated the links on the RSC24 Sampler Tab. I hope that everything is correct now, I had a few bad hyperlinks before, so thanks to those who let me know.  Please keep me posted if you find errors.  I somehow went through a phase where all m 12 inch block measurements were too small.  I'm not making 12 inch blocks this year, so it was easy to loose track.  

Its May!

 A brand new month always means a brand new color at RSC. I have so many pink scraps.  I really thought they were getting under control .  

I thought that using so many pinks in the back of my last quilt would help.  Instead it just moved the fabric from yardage to scraps.