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?