TGIF

Did you see the announcement on Vicki Welsh's blog about the new fabric she has available for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2015?  She is calling them snack packs.  How cute is that?  She has made special collections of 6 fat eighths of each of the 11 colors for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2015.  She has them available as a package deal.  There is even a discount for those who order within the next 3 weeks.   I was lucky enough to get my own snack pack in the mail a couple of weeks ago as well as another set for the monthly giveaways for next year.  I'll be offering a drawing for a snack pack in the color of the month for each of the 11 months of next year's challenge.  December will be color free again, giving everyone a chance to put their quilts together or play catch up if they need to.
Part of the plan next year is for me to design another Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler Quilt.  This one will be a little more preplanned than last years.  There will be 25 sawtooth star blocks, each with a different 6 inch sampler block in the middle.  That will mean two blocks most months, with 3 block just 3 times.  So I sat down with my colored pencils tonight and started to play.  There is something so relaxing about sitting and playing with colors.  I still have a few changes to make, and the sampler blocks to choose of course, but it is starting to come together in my mind.  Before I jump in, I have the rows of this year's sampler ready to sew together.  I hope to get the borders attached tomorrow for a big reveal.  Be sure to come back in the morning to see the begining of the end of this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'll announce the winner of the last 2014 fabric giveaway, so be sure to leave a comment on last weeks Scraphappy Saturday Post if you haven't had a chance yet.  

New York Beauty Block 3

 I had a few minutes before dinner to draft another New York Beauty block.  After drawing two arcs at 5 and 9 inches, I divided the section between those arcs into 10 degree wedges.  I am fond of my pencil tied to a string and school geometry protractor.  They seem to be getting the job done pretty well.

The curved seam sewing on this one didn't go quite a smoothly as the first two blocks.  I'm sure it will get easier with practice.  Still loving the effect.  One block at a time.  Kurt had to go to work for a conference call with India, maybe I will draw another block?  Maybe I'll just snuggle up in bed and fall asleep with a good book.
I did make a Pinerest page with ideas and tutorials about how to make New York Beauty blocks.  Check it out if you want to see more NYB blocks.  

New York Beauty Block 2

 I had so much fun drawing the first New York Beauty block that I thought I would try another.  This one is divided into 15 degree wedges.  The outer circle is then divided into geese with the inner circle separated into wedges.  I am having much fun with freezer paper, string and protractor.  Who knew?

There isn't a lot of contrast in the inner part, but it shows up better in person.  I had academic team tonight or I would have sketched up another block.  We came in in first place for the regular season!  We came in second tonight, but the team that had been in first was 4th.  So we took home a trophy and will compete again in the championship match next week.  

Home Sick

Ryan is home sick today and I volunteered to stay with him to keep an eye on his fever.  His fever is under control and I've spent the time in between making quilt plans.  

 I was lucky enough to get a beautiful assortment of hand dyed fabrics from Vicki as part of last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge giveaway.  I was waiting for just the right inspiration and felt terrified to cut into such gorgeous fabrics.  I had a light, medium and dark color wheel stash pack to which I added a few coordinating batiks.  There is fabric enough for 13 blocks, I'll have one extra at the end just in case, and best of all, after making the blocks, there will be plenty of extra fabric to incorporate into next year's challenge blocks!

After playing with a sketch book and making a practice block over thanksgiving, I finally felt ready to jump in.

 So I started by sketching out a paper piecing template on a large piece of freezer paper.  Not having a large enough compass, I used the handy pencil and string method of drawing two arcs.  I used a protractor to make hash marks each 9 degrees and then used those as a basis for 4 whole spikes and two half spikes.

 I cut those apart carefully on the curved lines, leaving plenty of room around the outside for seam allowances and squaring up.  

 After that I ironed the freezer paper to to the outer in inner circles and paper pieced the center arc.  Easy peasy?  Well, not too bad anyway.  It helped to leave plenty of space around the outside for squaring up later.  I'd like each block to be different.  Maybe flying geese for the next one?  Best of all, the fabulous fabrics are getting put to good use instead of hiding in a cupboard.

We had family portraits made over Thanksgiving break.  That was before Ryan started hacking up a lung and Sydney started tossing her cookies.  I think the in-laws were pretty glad to see us head out the front door.  

Home Again At Last

 As nice as it is to visit family, nothing quite beats the feeling of being home again.  I was just rounding the second corner of the border on my little blue Dear Jane quilt when we exited the highway toward our house.  

 I felt the urge to sew a bit when we got home, so I drafted this test block for a New York Beauty quilt that has been running through my mind.  I need to get a bigger compass, so this little guy is just 6 inches, the biggest size I can make with the geometry compass and protractor I borrowed from the kids' school supplies.  I meant to make the darker orange spikes on the inside.  Oops.

So Thanksgiving was interesting.  My sister was due to host this year.  My family was scheduled to host last year, but ended up driving to North Carolina instead when Kurt's mom was diagnosed with lung cancer.  My sister came down anyway and went to Disney, but we never got to see each other.  Well her youngest son Zac has been in the hospital for the last three weeks with a variety of life threatening illnesses.  So instead of going to her house for turkey on Thanksgiving, we all ate at the hospital and visited with Zac.  While we were there, they decided that they were going to do open heart surgery to replace a valve that had been eaten away by infection.  So we took the oldest two with us to Kurt's brother's house and hung out with them while the surgery was going on.  The surgery went well, they got a new mitral valve installed and patched up another area that wasn't fairing so well.  Turns out he had a hernia as well so they fixed that up while they were in there.  We were planning to head home yesterday because Kurt was supposed to be leaving for India today, but his visa has been delayed and we get to keep him for a few more days.  Yeah!
Can I just say how nice it is to be home again with nothing exciting going on?  We are all planning to settle in for a quiet evening of leftovers and maybe a movie.  As tempted as I am to run out for some quilt block drafting supplies, it just feels too good to be home again. 

Handwork

Doing a little appliqué in the car.  I have some hand quilting for the afternoon.

Last Light Blue Day

Today is the last official "light blue" scraphappy Saturday.  I know that a lot of us are already starting to finish things off though!  Yeah!  Feel free to post your last bits of blue, or the beginnings of the finishings.  There will not be a new color for December, so if you need a 12th color for the last block of your quilt, feel free to fill in with whatever you have the most of.  I've seen some lovely golds, lime greens, burgundies...... There are so many shades we have not had time to delve into this year.  We also didn't have a light neutral month this year, so that is always an option for people looking for a broader range of colors.
Because we are getting ready to start the LAST month of the year, I am also holding a drawing for the final RSC14 fabric giveaway of beautiful hand dyed fabric by Vicki Welsh.   To enter the drawing, leave a comment please with the name of one quilt block you would most like to see incorporated into next year's rainbow scrap challenge project.

I've already received the fabric for RSC15 and I am SO EXCITED to get started on the new challenge quilt!  Vicki will be posting more details about the fabric in her December newsletter for those thinking about joining in, and I'll try post some of the details and plans at about the same time.   I can't reveal everything of course, what fun would that be?  You are also welcome (of course) to use your own fabrics (hopefully scraps), but Vicki is going to have special packages available for those who are interested.
Don't forget to leave a comment to enter the drawing.  I'll check in as soon as I'm back from my turkey travels.  As I'm scheduling this to post ahead, I should be back pretty soon to see what lovely projects are starting to come together.  I'll draw for the fabric winner before next Saturdays post.

Thanksgiving Doodles

Hanging out with family sketching quilts.  Hope you are all having a great day.

RSC Sampler Progress

I was so happy to get my RSC sampler blocks done early and thought I would rush to the finish before everyone else.  Live happens though, and I am still plugging away slowly.

I was trying for a diagonal, corner to corner placement of colors.  It didn't work out perfectly of course, but in general, the top left corner was brown, next came pink, purple blue, teal, green, light green yellow, orange, and red.  Black filled in the bottom right corner.  I had 100 blocks, so I chose a 10 by 10 setting which should end up with a queen sized quilt after the sashing strips and borders are added.

I chose this light and dark grey fabric from Connecting threads for the sashing.  I think it would work in light and dark ivory or cream as well, but I was going for "modern".  Not my specialty, but I am branching out.

So I had seen an alternating split light and dark sashing and wanted to try for  a similar effect.  I started by cutting strips of dark and light fabric that were 3 inches wide.  I cut these into 3.5 inch rectangles and pieced them together to make a 6.5 by 3 inch sashing strip.  I sewed 90 of these split strips.  Of course it occurred to me later that it would have been more efficient to cut 3.5 inch wide strips, and sew them together before sub cutting them into 3 inch widths.  I guess that would have been too easy though!

The rows were divided into even and odd.  The odd rows had the sashing strips sewn between each block with the white facing down toward the bottom of the quilt.  The even rows had the sashing strips sewn in between the blocks with the white facing up toward the top of the quilt.  

The horizontal sashing strips are in progress now.  5 horizontal strips are light and 4 are dark.  Each takes two 3 inch width of fabric (WOF) strips sewn together.  Those are trimmed to 83 inches, which should be the width of the quilt  (10 six inch finished blocks plus nine 2.5 inch finished sashing strips and 2 quarter inch seam allowances on the ends).  

The first white strip goes between rows 1 and 2 with light and dark alternating down the quilt, ending with light between rows 9 and 10.  I've gotten as far as rows 1 and 2, but I am loving how it looks so far!  

The border will just be a slightly wider continuation of the same pattern.  Grey will frame the top and bottom -- 4 or 5 inches perhaps.  Then I'll have to do alternating blocks of light and dark for the side borders to continue the effect of the "split" rows.

I'll do a real tutorial when I have it all together, but I think you could get started if you are planning on a similar setting.  People are doing all sorts of different finishing so far.  So much fun!

I had the nicest comment from Pamela who is a "no-reply" blogger.  She just found the RSC Sampler from a Facebook post. (Thanks Andee!).  Anyway, she was having trouble with three of the links from the RSC Sampler tab at the top of the page.  I fixed those and they should be working now.  Please let me know if there are any other issues or questions.  

I am SO much enjoying seeing all the samplers starting to come together.  Angie commented that I must feel like a mother hen.  I really do feel so proud and am enjoying all the wonderful block collections and projects that you are creating from SCRAPS!  

Congratulations to ALL the participants and followers.  What a wonderful challenge this has been for these last few years.  Even more great scrap using projects are already in the works for next year, so I hope you will all think about joining in -- again or for the first time.  

Quilting with Friends

Sherie, my good friend from work, went to work part time this year and has taken up quilting.  She chose a tutorial from Oh Fransson for a New Wave Tumbler quilt.  She's been bringing it in to work for help along the way, and when it was done, I invited her over to finish it off with some quilting.

After a few practice runs on scrap fabric, she decided on a loop pattern that alternated up and down in the tumbler parts.   With just a little help from me she had it all quilted up and ready for finishing touches.  So much fun!