New Color for May

 

May is all about orange! I chose this because it is usually a small color, and May is an unusually large month. I do have some string blocks to share, not because I made them this month, but because I sewed a bunch of strings at the cabin last summer. Anna is home for the next week! We will all go to Sydney's graduation on Monday and then hang out until it is time to go to the wedding next weekend. I will be at school two days this week. It would have been great to take the entire week, but AP testing starts on Monday and It would be rude to just disappear and leave everyone else to do the work. For today, I need to polish off my graduate school work for the week and see if Anna wants to do anything festive before the wedding. Maybe a mani-pedi?  How do your orange scraps look? It is a festive color, even if it can seem a bit aggressive. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Pink Saturday

How has another month rushed by? There wasn't much time to sew this week, but I caught up with a few things from the ironing basket and the sorting piles to come up with some more blocks to add to the wall. 

There were some beautiful sunrises this week. 

Also a lot of end of year rushing at work, which made it nice to take a deep breath and find a  minute every morning to just take it all in. 

My main goal for this morning it to get the log cabin blocks done and off of the frame. Anna will be here on Friday to stay with us until the wedding and it would be nice if she had a place to sleep. I got to the end of the batting that I had cut from the roll. I think that was 90 inches and the quilt is 110 inches. So maybe 20 more inches to quilt? I will have to cut piece of batting to move on. I was sure that I could puzzle together some frankenbatting, but I seem to be pretty low on leftovers right now. Honestly, being pretty low on leftovers is a good thing. It means that I am using things up efficiently. Its been over a decade of using up things and it suddenly seems to be making a dent!

Mister linky is below, please share your pink progress for this month. May starts on Friday and it is going to be orange! I made sure to choose a small color because it is going to be a crazy month. End of the year festivities and AP testing at work, graduation for Sydney, Wedding for Anna. Deep breath for me? Time will tell!

ScrapHappy Saturday Pink

 I haven't make much more progress on pink. There are always a couple of leader and ender blocks to add to the wall as I sew other things. Most of my sewing time has been taken up with the log cabin quilt. 

I quilted the first 90 inches. I know that because my batting is 90 inches and I need to add another piece. Extremely large quilts take an very long time. I am using freehand Baptist Fans which is one of my favorite traditional all over quilting designs. There are about 6 inches at one end that the machine can't reach even though I stretched the frame as far out as I could, I will reload it to get to that part as soon as the main surface is done. I need to get this done soon because the frame is taking up most of the room and blocking space. Anna and Sydney will both be here for the week between Sydney's graduation and Anna's wedding, and I think they would both like a place to sleep. Wedding plans seem to be coming along nicely. We all have two more weeks before things get very busy! 

Today Kurt is at tennis and I am going to go to an estate sale to look at a sewing machine for the makerspace at school. I took in my old Kenmore machine, but it wasn't working well. Yesterday I left work early to take it to a sewing machine repair shop. They are only open on 10-4 during weekdays, so I had to rush out early to get there in time. Hopefully they will be able to figure out what is going on. I was planning on letting Sydney have that machine when she moves into her new apartment in July. She thinks that she would like to modify vintage clothes as a hobby when she starts her new job. 

Tomorrow we are going to see the all school musical which is Les Miserable. Today I need to buckle down and get some school work done. A new term started on Monday and so we are all in the starting phase of figuring out the expectations for all the new classes. Somehow I ended up with three classes again this term, even though it is usually two. One is about technology, one is about human resources and the other is for my literature review. Time to stop procrastinating and jump in! How are your weekend plans shaping up? Hopefully you have found some time to sew. It's good for the soul. 

Spring Rains

 

It has been cold and rainy in Florida. Kurt has been gone all week for work and to visit his dad. Sydney is home for the weekend. She is starting to count down days until she graduates from UF next month. Anna is polishing off all of her wedding plans. The first week in May is going to be a lot!

I spent some time sewing together 10.5 inch squares from men's flannel shirts to make a backing for the log cabin quilt. 

This is the last giant quilt that I want to get finished before I collapse the film down to a smaller size. I need to get that one loaded up and then start to work on the binding for Dear Jane. 

It has been years since I did a scalloped binding, that will take a bit of mental effort. I see that the Artemis II astronauts splashed down. That is nice to hear. I am looking forward to a quiet weekend much closer to home. 

How are your weekend plans shaping up?

Long Weekend

 We had Friday off of school for Easter weekend. We don't always get religious holidays, but they gave it to us this year. It is the last long weekend until Memorial day at the end of May, so I am trying to enjoy it.  Thursday, also known as fake Friday, was trivia. We won! It always comes down to the last question, we didn't know it and bet zero. 

Yesterday I brought up the fabric basket where I dump all the leftover fabric for later. I sorted and cut and put things away. It felt good to start fresh again. 

Then I celebrated by sewing some pink. Look how happy those blocks look? Such a softer and less angry version of red. Have you started on pink yet? 

PINK!!

 

Are your ready for pink? A new month means a new color and I am ready for something new. How about you?

I've been trying to get out in the mornings a bit. I had a late start on Tuesday and spent a few minutes to enjoy the sunrise.

A sailboat got stranded on the beach Saturday night. It was stormy with big wind gusts. 

Then we went out tonight to enjoy the Artemis II launch. It was packed!

Coming Home Again

Kurt and I had the best time in Jamaica. Many walks on the beach, a little too much time in the sun. 

There was nothing more urgent on the schedule than a dinner reservation. 

It was just the reset that I needed after getting all too caught up in the worry over having a job next year. 

We got home again late Wednesday which left time for a few more log cabin blocks. I finally had to call it quits yesterday when I ran out of foundation paper patterns. I will need to make a few more copies and then continue to figure out where to go with the design. I think this will be called fractured diamonds. Maybe I will add a few more rows to the bottom to put the red diamond at the break between the first and second third. Then I think that I want to mirror the purple and red chevrons near the right hand side. The whole thing is going to be rotated... so something like this... 

Hmmm. It is all too symmetrical now that I look at it this way. I will keep playing. Maybe if the red diamond is at the first third then the peak of the chevron can be at the second third? At some point I will need to decide on a size. Having some parameters might help. Given that the blocks are going to finish at 2.5 inches, it isn't as large as it seems. I might need to get some graph paper out to do some planning. 

I ran out of red leaders and enders while I was sewing the log cabin blocks, but there is a good representation of red on the wall. Time to go and figure out what color is next! (Just checked, and pink is up next!)

 It has been a lovely week. Spring break is one of the nice things about teaching. How has your red month progressed? 

Spring Break Relaxing with Red

 So maybe red isn't the color that comes to mind when you think about relaxation, but it is a great color for spring break. Kurt and I are (hopefully) off to Jamaica for the trip that was supposed to have happened over Veteran's day when they had that massive hurricane. So far our flight has been delayed 45 minutes due to the TSA issues, but we are patient and hopeful. 

I pulled out this tiny log cabin UFO last week and started adding blocks. I am not settled on an exact layout quite yet, but I had lots of extra red blocks. I worked during the week on adding more orange and yellow. It looks like green and purple are up next. These blocks are paper pieced and each block is 3 inches unfinished with 13 pieces. I used up as many crumbs as I had and then dug into the string bin. After a massive organization for the new year, I have color sorted bags of strings and crumbs in all the colors of the rainbow. 

While putting together the log cabin blocks, I worked a few more red blocks in as leaders and enders. Finding contrasting shades of red for the centers of the dot blocks was not easy, so I went with some alternate colors instead. I don't have nearly as many reds as blues or greens, so there won't be too many more for next week which is the last red Saturday. How are your blocks coming along this month? Misterlinky is below. Please share with us all. This is scheduled for bright and early on Saturday, hopefully it all works as it should because I will be on a beach with an adult beverage and a trashy romance novel. 

How are your reds coming along. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Radiant in Red

 I sewed - on a Thursday! Yesterday was a teacher workday which meant that Thursday felt like a Friday and so I sewed. Crumb strips are so relaxing to make. No measuring, very little cutting. Then I went out and got a massage. Apparently I have a lot of tension in my back. No surprise there. Things have settled down at work though and spring break is right around the corner. My goal for today is to finish up the rest of my graduate school work for this week so that I can slide into the break with no stress. The first chapter of my dissertation was officially accepted! It is actually chapter 3, but it is the first one that I have written. I learned last weekend that all of the necessary people were not part of my Canvas classroom to give approval to my submission, but I got that all straightened out and that means one class is off of my to-do list. I have a haircut first thing this morning and then I will power through the rest. How are your reds coming along? I know that people do red and white quilts, but red is so strong - I think it looks better with other blocks. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Its RED

 

Are you ready with your reds? I found a few blocks ready to come out and play, but my sewing machine was at school this week as we worked on t-shirt quilts using some of our new makerspace equipment.

I made the ugliest quit top imaginable from a box of shirts that had been moving from place to place for many years. There are shirts here from 3 junior high schools and two high schools that I attended along with random other shirts from so many years ago. Mostly I was helping other people to press and trim their shirts. We did a trial run with teachers and then will have another workshop with seniors in a couple of weeks so that they can start their own t-shirt quilts. 

On the work front, my principal has promised me at least a 60% job next year! I was glad to be able to move ahead with planning for my summer boot camp and even ordered a planner for next school year as we began to plan summer workshops and professional development sessions. After waiting for two and a half months to find out whether I would be unemployed, it is a relief to know that I will have a job and be able to finish my doctorate. I am very tempted to just tell him at this point that I would prefer to stick with part time so that I can get a better work and life balance until my degree is finished. I had been waiting on signatures for my current dissertation chapter and those just came through this morning. So lots of good news to celebrate! Have you dug into your red scraps yet? Now is the time.

Last Greenday

Last day of February. Last day for green. Next Month will be red. I was able to do a bit of crumb sewing last weekend. Considering all that is going in right now, that seems like a big accomplishment. Still waiting to know if I have a job for next year. I've been trying to think of other things, but there have been evening events for school three nights this week so I am mostly drained right now. I am going to a quilt show with a friend today. I am excited about that. Join a quilt guild is on my retirement bucket list. How are your green scraps coming along? I know that it has been a short month, but there were still 4 Saturdays, so I hope that you were able to make a dent. Remember that we will have a pastel month later, so you can work with some more of the lighter shades then if you still have some. Misterlinky is below. Please share your February roundup as we get ready to roll out the reds. 

Scrappy Green Weekend

 

It is great to be home again. Sadly, I have not had much sewing time, though my crumbs sit next the machine waiting patiently for a few free hours. They look happy there, don't they? 

I might do a bit of string sewing as well. We will see where the weekend takes me. 

I learned last week that my job has been eliminated by our district and so it is up to my school principal to see if he has room in his staffing budget to save me. I should know before our big junior parent night this week when we roll out the college application process, invite seniors to share wisdom, and have colleges present relevant sessions. I don't feel comfortable promising them that I will be there to help them if I won't. It has all left me feeling a bit unsettled. I am fine with retiring early. I have plenty to keep me busy and would be happy to shift gears if that is how things end up. But I love my job and would love to keep doing it for a few more years at least. I offered to work part time which I think would be a perfect fit. Nothing is decided though, and so sleepless nights and distracted thoughts have me caught in paralysis trying to keep pushing forward with a doctorate that is so dependent on my job that it would be impossible to finish If I were not working.  So I think I need to finish a few revisions on my methodology section and them perhaps some time in front of a sewing machine would be therapeutic. Dear Jane is still loaded and ready, lots of ways to keep myself busy and distracted. 

How are your green scraps coming along? Even though it is a short month, there is still one more green weekend to go. I hope that you are making good progress. Misterlinky is below, please share with us all. 

ScrapHappy Saturdy - Greenday

 

We are in North Carolina this weekend for the celebration of life. We met Christine's family last night for dinner and the actual event is today. Anna and Ryan are here, but Sydney chose not to come because it is Valentines day. I did some sewing of hexies in the car, and combined with what I was able to get done on the bus, there are quite a few hexies to add to the collection. I tried to get my graduate school work done during the week, but there is just a tiny bit to finish off. I will try to get that done this morning before things get rolling. How are your green scraps coming along? I am enjoying seeing the glimpses of spring as the weather finally starts to thaw. There are still a few snow piles here that haven't melted, but it is generally recovered from the record snow. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge on the Road

 

I am almost done with my giant tour of Florida private schools. We have been to 8 so far, with 4 more left to see. Here is part of our group at NSU. They do a lot of graduate programs. 

This is the founder of FIT, this is the school in my hometown where some of our seniors do dual enrollment classes. 

This is Stetson. Notice the statue with the hat. It has been a lot of time on a bus which I put to good use sewing hexies. I will be sure to show those off next week. 

I took some time to do a bit of green sewing before I left for the trip. These are the tiniest of crumbs. They are sewn onto cash register tape. The random sizes are because they are recycled. If a crumb is too small to cover the three inch width, then I sew them end to end until they are long enough. Then I just trim them to 3 inches. I will save them for now.

How is green coming along for you? Misterlinky is below. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Green for February

Welcome to a new month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. It is time to put away the blue. It's OK if you aren't done, the pastel shades will have another turn down the road. For now, dig into the green! Think of spring and brighter days to come. 

I am plugging away at chapter 3 of my dissertation today. Every so often when I need to clear my head, I get up and quilt a Dear Jane block. I think that I am on row 3 now, no rush on this one of course, she has been patient so far. 

I know that so much of the US is a blanket of ice and snow. The celebration of life was postponed, which turned out to be a very good thing as that part of North Carolina has snow being measured in feet instead of inches. I think that someone let the spigot outside drip last night so that it didn't freeze and burst. It made this beautiful ice sculpture on the foliage. I will try hard not to go anywhere today. Watching the steam roll off of the crashing ocean waves is fascinating. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Blue Saturday

 

February is right around the corner! Based on the fact that I will be travelling for a week and a half, I decided to get a head start on green. Focus on the darker shades if there is a lot. I am going to have a "pastel" month later in the year to circle back to lighter shades of blue, green or pink if needed. Those seem to be the colors for me that go a little crazy. These are all leaders and enders from the 2 inch strip bin that I sewed up while webbing the top of Saltwater Taffy. 

The celebration of life was scheduled for this weekend in North Carolina, but this isn't the best time to go to that area as there is likely to be another big snowstorm. It is supposed to get below freezing here tomorrow which is extremely rare. It burns the palm tress! Also, lots of people don't have heaters or the sense to wear shoes and socks. Floridians are just not well equipped for freezing. Sounds to me like a great reason to stay in and get some sewing done. First graduate school work, then sewing. How is your weekend shaping up? 

Sunday Slowdown with Dear Jane

 

I got motivated yesterday to put Dear Jane on the frame. It has been years since I finished the top. Maybe during Covid? I've been terrified that I would mess it up with the quilting. It is rainbow of course, in a trip around the world setting. 

I searched back through the blog to find the overall photo of the flimsy. It was started in 2013 and finished in 2021. Feel free to use the labels at the bottom to see the long slow work in progress of this one. 

I needed to extend the frame though for the log cabin quilt, and so that required a bit of manual labor. I usually keep my Handiquilter at a shorter size, but the table is adjustable with leaves and it can get quite a bit longer. 

I am trying to put most off the quilting in the white areas which will help the colors to pop out. So far  am using a combination of micro-stippling and outlining. Each block just gets its own treatment. Whatever it seems to need. As much as I would love to hand quilt this one, I just need to move it along after all these years. It isn't perfect for sure. As I revisit each block, I am finding all the little imperfections. And you know what? I love it or all its imperfections. I had to hand stitch the corners where the corner kites met up with the side triangles. There were bit holes where the set in seams didn't meet. I also replaces a small goose in one corner that had gotten singed with the iron. So far there is only one bit of machine quilting that was so bad I decided to tear it out. That was orange peels that I tried to outline on the focus fabric. It stood out way too much!

So one row is done. I am saving the setting triangles for now, at least the ones on the top and bottom. I've got school work to get done today and then I need to work ahead because we will travel next weekend for the celebration of life. After that it will be a week and a half on a bus, so I plan to stich lots of hexies while we travel from one school to another. I hope that your Sunday is restorative and relaxing. I know that a big portion of the US is dealing with ice and snow right now. It isn't cold here, but we are watching the cabin weather and It is quite chilly. Anna is at Virginia Tech and she has been sending us daily updates. Fortunately, she is able to work from home on her graduate school work, but her fiancé Jordan has to drive for his job so I hope that things have been cleared up a bit before the new week starts. 

Yesterday I was able to finish sewing the Saltwater Taffy blocks together. I have an empty project tote now! Also a lot of extra 2 inch strips that I can turn into the sizes that I am using or this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, both the Dot Blocks and the Propellers use 2 inch wide units. This one might want a border. I will wait a bit on this one before making finishing decisions.

 Just one more blue week to get done what you can for RSC January. Remember, its all about making things with scraps, that doesn't mean you have to use them all up. It is all part of the cycle as you use up the old to make room for more. I am going to link up with Slow Sunday Stitching and Kathy's Quilts. Even though I am finishing this one up on the machine, it represents to much hand stitching of melons and diamonds and more. Snow storms are a great reason to stay inside and soothe the soul with needle and thread. Please stay safe and warm inside if you can. 

Scrap Happy Saturday - Blue Oveload

I had made so many blue blocks this month, that they were in danger of overloading any future projects. I will have to make a monochromatic quilt soon to balance things out. I did make a monochromatic quilt last week, but it is pink for a baby girl. These whirling blocks were just leader and ender nine patches that I had on hand. Each got a quick frame and then I finished every thing up last Sunday. There was supposed to have been a shower at work on yesterday, but it got postponed. The mom-to-be is already home on bedrest, so If they don't schedule it soon, she will need to bring the new baby with her to the shower!

I also made two loaves of sourdough bread last weekend. Three day weekends are such a lovely respite. It helps me envision the joys that will be retirement. 

My scraps are mostly under control. The blues are still a bit bursting at the seam. I might make a few more crumb blocks and try to whittle those down a bit today. I am clearly a color sorter when it comes to scraps. These are unprocessed bits along with corresponding yardage. There are also drawers that live under the longarm for strips and squares in 1.5, 2 and 2.5 inch sizes. I don't tend to use anything larger than that, but if I do, it comes form yardage. The yardage has gotten used up to the point that it is hard to be able to finish a quilt with what is there. Both Anna and Sydney have requested quilts for May. That is going to require a bit of stash accumulation. They are both fairly specific about what they want. 

For today, I have enough blocks finished for Saltwater Taffy which I started sewing together last weekend. I thought I would be able to sew a bit more on that during the week, but I had ALL the 8th graders for career planning lessons ALL week. By the end of each day, I was SO done. Kurt is back home again for the weekend. He was with his dad for the last week and a half helping him to get settled into his new apartment in a continuous care community. We will be back next weekend for the celebration of life and from there I will go straight to my bus tour. That means that I need to enjoy this weekend because it is the last time I will be at home during the day for a few weeks. 

How are your blue blocks coming along? Mr. Linky is below. Please share your progress. 

ScrapHappy Saturday

It is a three day weekend and I think that I can finish all the blocks for Saltwater Taffy before it is time to go back to school on Tuesday. I decided that there should be 180 blocks, and it is getting close. One of the blocks had a corner rotated wrong, but thanks to a couple of observant commenters last week I was able to fix that. Design walls are such a good idea! I would have missed the mistake completely without the chance to put it up there and let it simmer. The aspect ratio isn't right, so I will still have to do a floor layout to get the block distribution laid out, but at least for now I know that I just need to fill in that last corner to get enough blocks. 

My scraps have gone a long way, but if I use up any more, there will be way too much blue at the end of the year compared to the other colors. Some colors are just that way. Perhaps I will do a monochromatic quilt at some point? There is a baby shower at work next week, but it is going to be a baby girl. I could easily whip up a boy quilt today and make a dent. For now I sewed up crumb strips for the Cash Register Confetti quilt and string blocks for the New Moon blocks. I haven't made the actual blocks yet because I am still deciding on sizes. My trial blocks were pretty big and I usually enjoy small blocks. I might make a few more test blocks to settle on all the details. I won't start turning the made fabric into blocks until I am sure about that. For now though, they are fabric and not crumbs. That feels so much more accessible and organized to me. 

The start of a new term for school is always busy, but thankfully the three day weekend will help me to find some balance. I am not super excited to have three classes at the same time, so it will take a bit of planning and a lot of diligence. But that is not a problem for today. How are your sewing plans looking for the weekend? I know that not everyone gets to enjoy a long weekend, but I hope that you will find some time to play with your scraps for a bit.