Happy Holiday

Three day weekends are such a great invention!   I was able to finish the hand sewing on the binding for another quilt today.  Like Streak of Lightning, this one isn't so much a block as a setting that could be used with any block.   If you look closely, it is just alternating columns of crumb blocks framed out in either white or black.  The columns are staggered, and then an extra strip on contrasting fabric separates each block to visually link the rows together.   

I also loaded a quilt onto the frame and made another tiny blue block.  Number 19 is called paper pinwheel and it is traditionally pieced.   Unless there are crazy angles, I am using regular piecing for anything that is a 4, 9 or 16 patch. I think I will start a page to keep track of the block names.  
 

Next

 I might like the back of Green Crumbs better than the front.  It has Elvis and hats with flowers and some random bright green fabric.  What a fun way to clean out the cupboard. 

The front was also a cleaning experience with more of the green crumb blocks that just won't end.  I have the binding picked out, it is a green and yellow stripe that came with my last order from Connecting Threads.  I'll do it in the morning though.  Right now I think I'll clean up and call it a night. 

Happy Easter

 I hope everyone is having a relaxing and rejuvenating Easter Sunday.  I tried sneaking into the sewing room first thing after the egg hunt this morning but was pulled back into a round on house cleaning that lasted until lunch.  Hopefully that silliness is over and I can get back to my little hideaway soon.  I put yellow sashing strips on two sides of my green crumb blocks to give them a less formal feel than a lattice and cornerstone treatment.  I think I still need to randomize the rotations a bit more.  After that I pulled all the cheddar bowties out to see how close I am to getting that one done. It has been ages since I finished anything and I am starting to feel that there are too many irons in the fire. 

Yesterday we went to a HUGE Easter party that a good friend hosts every year.  The kids have all been looking forward to it for ages and were so excited to get all dressed up and smash confetti eggs on all their friends.  I've been sweeping up leftover confetti all day but the kids are already looking forward to next year. 

Design Wall Monday March 5, 2012

I wasn't planning on working on green string blocks this weekend.  I was planning on doing some cleaning and organizing with a goal of emptying out the mixed crumb/string drawer.  I have decorative jars where I keep my crumbs and strings sorted by color now and thought it would be nice to move out the ones that don't fit in my color sorted scheme.  If you had asked me, I would have remembered that there were some green blocks leftover from March of last year.  I used some of them in combination with purple blocks to make Lilac Potpourri, which I absolutely love.  So anyway, it is too late to make a long story short, but there was a big stack of partial green blocks hanging out in the drawer I was trying to empty.  A few short hours later, up went the blocks on to my design wall, waiting for a decision on sashing colors.  Putting crumb blocks together with nothing in between is to difficult from a mashing of seams point of view, so lattice and cornerstones win the day.  I thought brown, but that might be too dark.  Several greens didn't seem to stand out at all, beige is the obvious choice, but I'm tired of beige.  So how about yellow?  Bright, happy, contrasty enough.
The weather is beautiful and the kids are wanting me to come out and play with them before dinner, so off I go.  Good work day today, but there are a few things I should work on this evening, so maybe tomorrow I can make a decision?  After Tiny Tuesday of course. I am still worked ahead on that for a few more weeks, but the next few blocks don't look too bad, maybe I could squeeze a little midget block in there as well.  Time will tell......

Taming Scraps

This morning I got almost entirely caught up on Orca Bay. I still have a pile of blocks and parts waiting for ironing. As soon as that is done I'll count to make sure I have enough of everything.  In any case, I'm ready for the new clue tomorrow.  I couldn't hide away all day though, so I pulled my scrap basket out and did some sorting at the dining room table so that I could keep tabs on all the comings and goings. 

  Then I spent most of the afternoon taming scraps.  They have been piling up in a basket for a while, waiting for a little attention. I focused on squares to feed the leader and ender projects, using my GO cutter to streamline the process.  I've got some tumbler blocks going as well as some more red and green bits for the double wedding ring table runner.   

Anything too small to get cut into a nice square or strip will get sorted into a crumb jar to become part of the new Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The jars are a little emptier than they were last year, but somehow they seem to keep producing lots of fun bits for blocks. 
Oh, I also updated my blog margins to show the midget blocks I've been working on for a while now.  I've gotten 66 done so far in about a year and half.  Each of the blocks that I've completed links to a post.  If nothing else, It will make it easier for me to keep track of which blocks are done.  

Finishing Up

My finishing up never happens on Friday.  Or rather, the finishing up on Friday is always work related.  It was a calm day at home though, allowing plenty of time to stream holiday movies on Netflix while quilting up a storm. First up is a less wonky photo of Rainbow Crumb Parade.  This one makes me smile because I can remember where all the little bits came from.  See the tiny pink triangles?  Those are from Mom's Chemo Quilt.  And the purple, they were leftover from Lilac Potpourri, which was leftover from Anna's Purple Beauty.  Crumb quilting is such a nice way to revisit the ghosts of quilts past.

Next up is the four square quilt which I got quilted today. Kurt voted strongly NOT to have another border, so I left it at one and got it all loaded lickety split this morning.  Both quilts are still in need of binding, so that might be on the agenda for tomorrow.

The only other thing we accomplished today was gingerbread houses.  Sydney wanted to make them out of real gingerbread until she started reading the recipe.  Then we all voted to go with good old fashioned ready made graham crackers instead. 

I just updated my margins and am excited to see that the WIP list on the right is down from 17 to 14 and the Finished list on the left is up to 27 for the year.

Now That's Akward

 I was at training today instead of at school.  It is amazing what a small change in routine can do for your outlook and attitude.  I went in this weekend to work on sub plans, and though I'm sure I'll regret it later, I decided to spend a little bit of time before leaving for Academic Team tonight finishing up the quilting on my rainbow crumbs.  Things were going along well enough until I rolled down to the last little bit and realized that the bottom of the quilt is about three inches longer than the bottom of the backing fabric.  I checked before I loaded it on the frame.  I guess the top was just super stretch compared to the back?  There are a lot of seams in those crumb blocks.  What to do, what to do?  I guess I'll have to unload it, sew some more fabric on the end and then either reload it or quilt it on the regular machine?  I guess that is a problem for another day. I know it will bug me all day tomorrow if I don't do something about it though.  Mabye I should just quilt up to the red row and chop the black off the bottom, seems like a waste, but it could work.  Ahhhh, lesson learned, much better to have too much fabric instead of too little on the back. 

Design Wall Monday December 5, 2011

 It was a weekend of little bits of lots of things.  I did manage to finish piecing all of the blocks for the Four Square Brown quilt.  I'm not crazy about the light colored blocks, but maybe they will grow on me?   I'll get that webbed together soon and make some decisions about borders.  Rainbow Crumb Bricks is on the frame.  It is about half done so far. The quilting pattern is called double bubble and it goes pretty quick. 

 I got just a few more Bow-Tie blocks put together and spent some time playing with my new Double Wedding Ring die.  If I keep practicing, I am sure I will master curved set in seams.  Pop over to Judy's Blog to see what is on everyone's design wall this Monday. 

In between all of that I worked on Orca Bay step three.  All the units are cut out, and it looks like about 50 of them have gotten finished up so far.  The rest are waiting patiently by the machine until I have time to get back to them again.  I'm not at all sure how these bits are going to fit together in the end, but I have faith that they will.  Can't wait to break out the hot pink, I think it will perk things up.  Be sure to visit Bonnie's Blog to see the progress other people are making on their Orca Bay mystery quilts. 

Bouncing Around

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to work on today.  A couple of things I've ordered recently have started coming in, leaving me wanting to try them all out at the same time.  I've always wanted to make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt, and thought it might be easier with a die to cut the pieces.  I'm calling that my Christmas present to me, and it came on Friday along with a 2.5 inch square die.  So I spent some time playing around with that yesterday until I ran out of the right pieces.  I might cut some more tonight to make enough for a small table runner or wall hanging type quilt in Christmas colors. 

Then this piece of fabric came in from Spoonflower.  I don't remember where I saw the link, but someone had made a periodic table quilt and I thought it would be cool to hang in my classroom.  I didn't start on that though, maybe it would be a good project for Winter Break? 

I started in on step 3 of Orca Bay of course.  Most of the half square triangles are cut out and some have started to work through as I was trying to finish off other things.  I'm just about done with the brown four square, I've just got a few more blocks to finish up.  I prepped some more bow-tie blocks to the collection, but not much has happened since then.  After all of that hopping around though, I thought it would be nice to actually finish something.  So out came the rainbow crumb parade that has been draped patiently on the frame, waiting for me to feel like quilting again.  I had picked out some backing fabric already, so that got put together while Kurt took the kids to see the Muppet Movie this morning.  He hardly ever volunteers to see movies, so I was happy to let him go.  He was out of town at training all week, so the kids were glad to have some time with him, and I was thrilled to let him. 

Despite a fair amount of time in the sewing room today, I haven't got a single finished step to show.  Crumbs are about half done, squares are almost there, DWR is just a suggestion of a quilt and Orca Bay #3 is still just triangles.  I think I'll spend about an hour and see what I can accomplish before cleaning it up for the week.  Tomorrow is the BIG district competition for Academic Team, I've got training on Monday and Tuesday, there are exams to write and papers to grade......I'm guessing not much will happen during the week.  Winter break is coming up soon though, and I am thinking already about the sewing I'll get done. 

Rainbows Again

I was in a mood for piecing today, so even though the Rainbow ScrapHappy Squares are still sitting on the frame, I went ahead and finished off the flimsy for Rainbow Crumb Parade.  I sewed enough brown and black squares together last night to serve as the first and last row before deciding against making another row of white blocks.  The proportions seem better this way so I think I'll let it be.  It isn't a big quilt, I think it will be about 52 by 72 when it is done, but it should be a good snuggle up on the couch size.  I've spent plenty of time in the sewing room this weekend and need to get back to real life again.  The house is a mess, I've got papers to grade and lessons to plan, but it was nice to have an extra day this weekend to play. 

Another Productive Day

After having school off yesterday and getting to spend quite a bit of time in the sewing room, I felt very spoiled to have everyone out of the house all day today.  First up was finishing off the flimsy for Scrapphappy Squares.  I'm so thankful for the design inspiration from Marlene that sent me down the Garden Rail path with the setting on this one. 

Then it needed a back of course. I had some nice black and rainbow fabric, but as I'll quilt it in white thread, I thought this soft yellow would work better.  I did add an extra rainbow stripe from fabric I had auditioned for the sashes.  Loading it on the frame seemed easier than putting it away and having to iron it all again later.   Though I started the first row of quilting, I was in more of a piecing mood and sewed up the extra half blocks that the Rainbow Crumbs have been waiting for.  I also put up the Cheddar bowties on the newly liberated wall space from the quilt on the frame.  Still having the house to myself, I started in on some more crumb blocks to finish off the rows.  I'm about done with the black and just started on the brown.  I'm still debating on the white, I guess it will depend on the final measurements. 

I was in the midst of my little crumb explosion when the gang came home with the EXCITING news that they qualified to go to the regional Lego Robotics competition during their tournament today. It was supposed to be just an early practice round but I guess it all went so well that they took second for the day. Most exciting of all, their robot got the top prize for design! Much happy dancing was done along with trophy posing and celebratory woohooing. 

Rainbow Crumb Blocks

I had a pretty good collection of crumb blocks going already.  I used purple and green in Lilac Potpourri earlier this year and had some leftover.   Then there were blue blocks leftover from the beginning of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  The red and orange are new today.  I still need another yellow though, and I have some pink blocks in the works.  I can't decide if I'm going to add the multi-color blocks in as a border with the stars for the corners.  I think I might just want to keep it simple.  I'm sure I could find another spot for the rainbow blocks.  So glad I got a chance to sew today.  Next week looks fully booked so I'll savor the rest of the evening before putting it all away for now.