ScrapHappy Saturday - End of Year Frenzy

     

It has been so relaxing to have time off from taking classes to have mental space to sew. I quilted 2 ongoing projects last weekend and then kept digging to find one more set of almost complete blocks. I decided that 8 more blocks would be enough for a seven by 10 setting. And then cut out lattice and cornerstone bits. This one is ready to sew together. I ended up going with a consistent rainbow print for the cornerstones and then stacked everything up next to the machine. I think three of the seven rows are together so far, I will keep working on this one today. First, we need to finish some Christmas shopping and I am supposed to make cookies for work on Monday. So much holiday cheer! I hope that you are finding some time to slow down this holiday season. Being merry can be a bit exhausting!

Sunday Slowdown

It is a beautiful Sunday and I don't have a care in the world. I have no school work, have just finished pulling TWO quilts off the frame and am ready to go and see Wicked 2 with Sydney. 

Here is the 16 patch leader and ender project that had been sitting on the frame forever. I got the binding machine sewn down and thought about sitting down to do the hand sewing. Instead, I think that I will save it for a long car trip. I need to think of something to call this one. Kate at Last Homely House calls it Louis 16, which is cute. It also screams pixels to me. I will have to let that all simmer. I will make sure that it has a name before the binding is done and it makes its way onto one of the bunkbeds at the cabin. If the size is right, then I have plenty  of blocks for another quilt. 

Then, while I was on a roll and the frame was ready to load, I quilted up my official RSC25 quilt which is called Starburst. I don't have any binding for that one yet, but that shouldn't take long at all. 

With a few minutes before we need to leave for the movie, I started to play with logos for next year. 

Here is the one that Microsoft copilot came up with

Here is one that I started working on from that idea. I tried to make the blocks more rainbowish, but I also lost the justification of the text which isn't as nice. Maybe I will keep working on it. I thought having a simple monochromatic quilt design in each block would be nice, but that might be too busy. I hope that you are enjoying your Sunday. Christmas is right around the corner and then it will be time to start thinking about next year. I love thinking about next year!

December Squirrels

 

I got a bunch of hexie blocks sewn in the car on the way to and fro for Thanksgiving. I will try to even up the rows a bit on the next long car trip. And then a squirrel came by and I lost all focus. 

December is the month for finishing up. I have Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2025 quilt ready for the frame, but a random scrap quilt that I forgot about has been sitting loaded on the frame for so long that I don't remember what it looks like anymore. So quilting that up would have been a smart plan. But the backing wasn't quite big enough and so I ignored it for a while. I'm not the only one who hits a small roadblock and then just heads off in another direction, am I?

So I ordered myself a new ruler, it is a tiny Loc Bloc. They are so expensive! And also a rotating cutting mat which is also expensive, but I got a small one that will fit right next to my machine. But I have so many tiny HST triangle units leftover from binding, or from flip and sew triangles. I thought it would be fun to trim those down. I had a head cold on Monday and Tuesday and came home early from work, so trimming down tiny triangles required just the right focus and energy level. 

That led to a few test blocks when I was feeling better again on Wednesday. You know that rush of euphoria you get when you remember how it is to not feel sick? So there are some Shoo-fly blocks from units that are 1 1/8 unfinished. The broken dishes blocks are 1 3/8 HST units. Finally, the Churn Dash blocks use hulking 1.5 inch HST. Somehow in all the sorting out, I also found some pinned units from the house quilt that I made during Covid lockdown. 

I still had a bunch of random triangles though, so I did a few foundation pieced economy blocks. Those are 3 inches unfinished. 

And then yesterday Anna mentioned that she didn't have any ornaments for her Christmas tree. That sent me into another tangent of Yo-Yo blocks which put a big dent in the green and red scrap bins. How are your projects starting to wrap up this month? Have you been starting to think about projects for next year? I know that I have! Just two more weeks of school before the next break, and with no graduate school classes until the new year, I should have some time to sew. 

Giving Thanks

I was so thankful to have a full week off of work. What a nice change it was to spend hours playing with fabric and sorting through scraps! I finished up my last few assignments for graduate school this term, which means that I have a break until the second week of January. I plan to enjoy every single minute!

I played some more with some crumb strips to use as lattice strips. These would be fun to do with receipts. The crumbs are all in little color segregated baggies, so they are easy to play with in small doses. 

I have been sewing a lot with squares lately, and I thought it would be fun to use my strip bins for something different. So here are some 2 inch strip polka dot blocks. I sewed a few for fun ad then kitted up a bunch until drawer had some satisfying open space. Each block needs to strips that are 6.5 by 2 with two matching squares. Then a contrasting square comes out of the square drawer and they are ready to sew. 

Then I worked on the 2.5 inch strip drawers which were quite stuffed. I didn't have a pattern in mind yet when I decided to cut lots and lots of bricks which are 2.5 by 4.5. There were some vintage fabric strips buried in there, it was good to use them up. 

Then I slept on it and decided on simple stair step blocks which can be arranged like log cabin blocks. That led to some 2 inch bricks which are 2 by 3.5 which I tried out in a whirly gig layout. 

Then I set a few 1.5 inch postage stamps by the machine to use as leaders and enders. I just hate to end a seam without something sitting under the presser foot to hold the threads in place. 

That left just enough time to throw the hexie zipper case into the car and head out for Thanksgiving in North Carolina with Kurt's family. It didn't go quite as planned due to some unexpected health issues with Kurt's fathers wife, but she should be feeling better soon I hope. I am scheduling this to post early on Saturday, by then we should be on the road and headed home again! It was an unusually long drive up on Wednesday, but hopefully we will have better luck on the way back. There should be some time to put the prepped hexies together into blocks. After that I will take a turn to drive. Kurt and his brother had to drive his father and sister back home on Thursday, so they are a little bit done right now. It will be great to see home again. It was great to catch up with family, but being home is also nice. I hope you all had a lovely holiday.  Did you find some time to sew?

Thanksgiving!

I have been on a bit of an organizing binge lately. It started because the blue bin was overflowing. So now there is one bin for light blue and one for dark blue. If I had known ahead of time I was going to have two dark bins, the first one would have been darker, but now they are not overflowing. I still need black/grey and brown. 

I also pulled out strings, crumbs and triangles for their own sections. For fun, I started sewing these 2.5 inch strips out of crumbs. I might cut them down and use them around smaller squares. These were WOW layer cake squares that I got when Joann's was going out of business. They are too white and large, but I will still keep sewing some more crumb squares. They are small and simple to make a batch on a week night. 

In graduate school news for the week, my dissertation topic has been approved.  That means I am officially a doctoral candidate. I just need to wait for my committee members to be assigned. Now one of my two classes for this term is over. If I can power through a couple of assignments this weekend then I will have a nice long break for the holidays. 

I definitely have some plans to sew some more today. I have an entire week of for Thanksgiving! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I am looking forward to it. I have a few flimsies ready to quilt. That would be a fun way to spend a holiday. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Tangents

 I spent an evening this week catching up on you tube videos and taking the paper out of the string blocks that I brought back from Virginia. Some of these will be turned into circle blocks, but some will be cut down into 8 inch blocks with white sashing strips in a rail fence setting. I spent another evening sketching block ideas of graph paper. One extra evening was spent trimming down and sorting through more strings. At this point it is hard to walk through the sewing space, but it was still a fun week. I got my concept paper for my graduate school dissertation back as approved last night. So excited for that milestone! Today we are off to see the school play which is Beetlejuice, but there might still be some time to sew mixed in there. Perhaps a bit of a clean up and some hexie time? How is your weekend shaping up?

ScrapHappy Saturday - wrapping up and planning ahead

 

We are in Virginia right now on a weekend getaway instead of in Jamaica. We have resort credits and flight credits and can hopefully reschedule for spring break. I thought it would be good to bring some sewing with me. I've been thinking for a while about what I could bring here to have an ongoing sewing project that would be separate enough from everything else. And so I decided on strings, I had quite a few, and so that led to a bit of sorting out. 

That led to plans for what to do with strings, and this is one possibility. I stuffed in all the strings that would fit in my carry on along with a phonebook. I will see what I can make out of all of that. 

How is your end of year starting to wrap up?  Are you finishing up or starting to plan ahead?

ScrapHappy Saturday - November!

 

Welcome to a new month! There is no new color for November, instead it is time to collect and assemble.  My month needs to begin with a bit of a cleanup. I've got new scraps and partial collections and I am not sure what else all going on. Figuring that out is first on my list. 

Thursday trivia was Halloween themed. All the kids came to school in costumes yesterday which was festive if not educational. We will definitely not be headed to Jamaica next weekend. Our resort was spared the worst and hopes to welcome guests back before the end of the month. We might be able to reschedule for spring break. I hate to go to work when I have already taken time off, so maybe we will just head to Virginia instead. Kurt will already be there for work, so I could join him for some fall fun. I could chop some wood and do some projects. Not exactly the same as a beach vacation, but it could still be fun. 

Las night a palm tree cast a shadow on the side of a condo as we walked home from date night. How is your end of the year starting to shape up? There are two months left to assemble your blocks and think about what can still turn into a quilt before the new year begins. Misterlinky is below. Please share with us all. 

ScrapHappy Saturday

 

It feels like fall in Florida. I was at car loop yesterday and wasn't sweating!  Then this classic car came through all decked out for Halloween and I just had to smile. 

I couldn't do any graduate school work on Monday when the AWS outage affected Canvas which is the learning management system that we use. I took advantage of that down time to play with hexies a little bit. I didn't get any new blocks finished, but I fondled fabric and did organizing and planning. 

Today we are watching the tropics. Florida is fine, but Jamaica is not looking good, and we have a trip booked there in just a few weeks. That will be interesting!

How is your weekend shaping up?

ScrapHappy Saturday - Home Again

The hexie snakes are growing slowly. I added a few more to even out the short rows. Eventually they will catch up to the two long rows. 

I was at school late on Thursday for FAFSA night when my neighbor texted to ask If I wanted some fabric. She found a bunch at an estate sale and wanted to share!  I am finding a lot of great tone on tone shades that will be lovely for my rainbow quilts. 

And here is the view on our walk home from date night last night. Sometimes I just remember to take some time to appreciate the view. I have a bit of schoolwork to do today and then I would love to turn some of the new fabric into some hexies. How is your weekend shaping up?

 

ScrapHappy Saturday - The Beginning of the End of the Year

We are at the cabin this weekend because Monday is a teacher workday. It has been raining constantly in Florida and here it is crisp fall weather with meadows of prancing deer. We had spirit week as school and then had to cancel the flag football game yesterday. We will try again next week. My seniors should be busy finishing up early action applications this weekend. Three Florida schools have moved to October 15 deadlines which does a great job of getting the kids moving early. 

This was our sunrise this morning. We have some trees to plant this afternoon and then will take some time to enjoy fall color and perhaps clear the driveway a bit of fallen leaves. I also have a literature review to write for my dissertation concept paper, so there will be some inside time next to the fire as well. 

I love the end of the year at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Even though it hasn't been a hyper productive sewing year for me, I still love to think about rounding out block collections and finishing up quilts. 

Last weekend I finished sewing together my leader and ender project for this year which I think shall be called Starburst. Doesn't it look like the multicolored square candies? Also, the sunrise kind of colorwash idea is also a starburst. So it works on two levels. 

I also added some more hexie snakes to the collection and started to pay with the layout. I am thinking of rotating the dark sides of adjacent colors toward the center to create a kind of seam. Then the next thought was that I might run the rows vertically instead of horizontally. I didn't actually change them on the design wall, I just rotated the photo to try out the plan. Plenty of time to make those decisions though. For now I am just slowly making each row longer. The summer Alaska rows got a lot of love during days watching glaciers and riding on trains. The others will slowly catch up during quiet days at home. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Fall Fun

 

Yesterday was flag voting! This was one of my favorites. I still need to tally votes. Several classes turned in paper ballots because of the new cell phone ban, so I still need to add those in to the digital vote tally that happened automatically. I will share photos of some of the winners next week. 

I realized last week that I had almost enough blocks for a complete quilt with this years leaders and enders project. I decided on a colorwashish sort of sun bust arrangement with amorphous edges. I didn't have equal numbers of all blocks because some months were busier than others. I realized that I needed a few more purple and blue blocks to complete my quilt and then whipped those up in a hurry. 

Then I failed to get a photo of the final layout before starting to web the top. I have three more columns to add before I can start sewing the rows together. It feels so good to see a random assortment of blocks collected throughout the year turn into a quilt. We need another not too large lap quilt for the cabin, so this one will get put to use right away. 

How are you blocks rounding out as we get a bit closer to the end? This was obviously not a hugely productive year for me with graduate school going on, so I am pretty proud to be able to make one full quilt from start to finish while moving a few more along the road. It isn't a lot, but it is what I can do  right now. On the graduate school front, I got my dissertation topic approved this week! Now I just need to flesh out the details today and start digging in a bit. It looks to be a rainy and windy day here. We worried last weekend about a hurricane only to have it go the other way and then some sort of tropical mess just popped up right over us. Sounds like a good excuse to stay in a sew!

ScrapHappy Saturday - Falling

I always start to think about rounding out my collections as the end of the year approaches. I was in a hand sewing mood last weekend and started to add to my short rows on the hexie snake quilt. It takes longer to see progress on hand stitching projects, but there are quite a few new blocks up there compared to last weekend. 

That had me digging through my drawers of squares looking for sets of four. I think I will dig through some more this morning to fill up my leaders and enders supply. I haven't really got a main sewing project going on right now. I was thinking about finishing up the flimsy for my log cabin quilt this morning? I also have a quilt on the frame. Maybe I should pull out a UFO bin and dig in?  So many options. 

I spent Sunday last week digitizing slides that Kurt's dad sent home with us this summer. Here is one of Kurt and I at my senior prom. We were so young! This was one of the more recent photos.

This is Kurt and his brother with their father in England when he did a research sabbatical in 1969. 

September is almost gone. A new month is always about a new color here at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and so as you tidy up the light and bright greens and blues, it is time to shift to the darker shades of fall. Brown and black are ready for their turn this month. I know that some of you avoid the darker shades in rainbow quilts, so this is also a great time play with your light neutrals or to start rounding out your collections. The goal is always to start assembling blocks in November so that quilting can commence in December. How are your blocks coming together? Mister linky is below. Please share your progress. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - a Pause

 There is a current moment of calm. A couple of weeks between classes, a lack of any unusual events. It is blissful. Last Saturday I did some sorting and organizing. Sunday I sat in a comfy chair and quietly hand sewed hexies. I started to rough out a plan for the hexie snakes. So far it seems wider than it is long. With hand stitching, there is always plenty of time for design decisions though, so I will let it evolve slowly like the stitches. 

Even though Kurt and I were both in town all week, he had a meeting one night and I had a meeting on a different night, so we didn't spend all that much time together. That seems to happen a lot, so it was nice to walk to one of our favorite date night restaurants yesterday. 

Then the sun came up beautifully this morning and I ready to head down to the sewing room and putter. Not a bad plan for a quiet Saturday. How is your weekend shaping up? Misterlinky is below, please share your progress and plans. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Catching Up

 I spent most of this week at a conference in New Orleans for work. 

I was presenting with a coworker about a College and Career Readiness Survey that we use with all of the high school students in our district. 

I had never been to New Orleans, and it was fun to see the sights. 

There was an evening event at the House of Blues that was a lot of fun. 

I took along some hexies to sew on the plane. 

For today I have one last paper to turn in for my literacy class and then I think I have a two week break before the next term starts. Looking forward to every minute of that! How is your September shaping up? The linky tool is below, please share your updates. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Fall Flair

 I have to admit that it doesn't feel like fall around here yet. School is in full swing though, so that makes it feel a lot les like summer. I seem to have a lot of blue and green on the wall. Why then are all of those scrap bins still overflowing? I think this is why people do monochromatic quilts. 

I have a beautiful all green quilt that I made using Bonnie Hunter's Jamestown Landing pattern. I could easily make an all blue quilt from what is hanging out in my sewing room right now. First though, I think that I will scavenge through this stack and make some hexies. I have a flight tomorrow for a trip to present at a conference in New Orleans and I will have some time to sew while in transit. How is your weekend shaping up? New months are full of new plans. I hope you have some scraps to work with. 

September Color

 Ready to circle back and catch up? Light and bright are ready to roll out in the blue and green bins. I know that we did darks in blue and green, but these are two colors that need a bit of a repeat to help to get them under control. This is also a great time to think about catching up and rounding out your prior months collections. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Long Weekend

 

It is a lovely and long weekend for the US. I am hopeful that will leave me some time to sew. Since not a stitch was sewn this week, I have some random sunrise and flag photos to share. Here is Ms. McCormick's flag. They had an animal theme. 

And Ms. Nery's class had an army theme. They all dressed up in camo clothes for Wildcat Challenge which is a field day that the juniors and seniors do in the spring. 

I hope that you all have plans to sew this weekend. Monday is a new month and a new color to enjoy. Well, sort of a new color. It is a chance to dig back into blues and greens to focus on the pastel shades. I can never seem to get through all the blues and greens, so this a chance to add some of the lighter and brighter shades to add some sparkle to your quilt(s). First up today, I will drive to school to finish off my work for the week and then bring home my sewing machine. That is sure to make the rest of the weekend sewing go much more smoothly.