Last ScrapHappy Saturday of 2025

There is a new button for Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2026. The AI version got the majority of votes, which makes me sad, but it is objectively better than the version that I devised. In the upper left margin, there is a button image with some HTML code in the box below. Just copy that code, and then paste it into an HTML widget on the menu of your own blog. Feel free to use the image in other ways if you do not blog. 

2025 is ready to draw to a close. I hope that means that everyone is ready for the first ScrapHappy Saturday of 2026 next weekend! It is officially time to dig into your blue scraps and settle on a project or two for the year. 

I am off to a late start today as we are celebrating our delayed family Christmas. 

We spent the morning doing Christmas crafts to make t-shirts of the cabin crew complete with Bill the groundhog that Anna designed on her cricket. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - 2 More Saturdays in 2025

And sew the countdown begins! Just two more Saturdays left this year. I will be back tomorrow with a new logo, rollout directions for 2026 and the color for January! Next week, please come back with an end of year wrap up. It is time to celebrate all the great rainbow scraps that you have turned into blocks, projects or quilts during 2025. Misterlinky will expire in 30 hours, so I will get that all straightened out and work on finalizing my plans for the new year. For now, we have had a change in plans and I will work on finishing up a few more projects and tidying things up around here. I dug a little deeper into my project bins and found one more block collection that was nearly complete. These Irish chain leader and ender blocks needed just 5 more blocks to be enough for a small top. Kurt is asking for more smallish cuddly quilts to use at the cabin. I pulled out all the 2 inch strips in brown and sewed them together like binding to make a couple of borders. I always think of brown and green for things at the cabin. 

Then I cut up a stack of flannel shirts that Sydney and I have been collecting from the Goodwill store. They had to be super soft and have the tag color that means they are half off this week. Size large or extra large is preferable. The green and red plaid was a set of XL men's PJs that were half off of 5.99. That is a lot of fabric for $3! It seemed like 14 inches was the largest width that I could consistently cut from sleeves and such, so I just made rectangles that were 14 inches by the longest size I get get. I have a pillowcase full of smaller bits that I can still use for other things. 

Then I cleared out the very last of the extra batting to sew together this collection of random softness. Karen Brown from Just Get it Done quilts calls is Frankenbatting. That is an appropriate name for what turned out to be a perfectly serviceable quit filling. I do have an entire roll of brand new batting, but I didn't want to open it up until all the odds and ends have been used up. The quilt is loaded on the frame and I got a few rows of fans quilted before Kurt made it home from the airport yesterday. 

Kurt had not planned to fly anywhere this week, but he got an emergency call from his dad on Wednesday morning that said, "Come, NOW".  Christine is his dad's wife. They were both widowed and then got married about seven years ago. You might remember that she got sick at Thanksgiving. Unfortunately she never really got better and passed away while Kurt was on the way. He stayed with the next few days with his brother to get arrangements started and we will all drive up together on Monday to bury the ashes. We are still playing things by ear based on when the arrangements come together. Kurt's brother and wife both stayed there and we will try to stagger out support so that he doesn't have to be alone right away. There will be a celebration of life at the end of next month. They had both planned to move into a continuous care facility next month, and the boys are both helping to work out those plans. They were both incredibly organized and pragmatic about planning, but it still seems to be complicated to get everything done following a death. 

I will spend the weekend here getting a few things cleaned and organized. Our washing machine broke last weekend and we got a new one delivered on Tuesday. It is both a washer AND dryer in one and it has been getting quite a workout to catch up and get everyone ready to pack and travel to colder climates. The laundry room needs reorganization as well which will keep Kurt occupied for a few days. 

So, if you have made it this far, let me recap. Come back next week with an end of year wrap up and then be ready with new plans for #rainbowscrapchallenge 2026. I feel ready for a new start and hope that you do to. 

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.