Handwork Hexies

I've been thinking lately that I need a new handwork project.  Though hexies seem like an obvious choice, I wasn't sure where to go with them.  I planned out several fabulous medallions for later.  For now, I want something simple and discrete.  After much pondering and pinteresting, I decided on some 9 patch diamonds in the colors of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Check out this Simple Things blog post for and idea of where my diamond hexie blocks are headed.   There was a larger rainbow diamond block on pinterest that was tempting too, maybe next time. 
On Sunday I dug out some light blue to put together my first diamonds during Victoria.   I'm enjoying this show as a replacement for Downton Abbey.  It is on in the same time slot on Sunday evening, which is a great time to settle in for stitching and TV viewing.
Before the speech last night I found enough fabric for 5 blocks of lavender.  Unfortunately, I couldn't start watching the speech until after the 9 pm robotics pickup up, and I was fast asleep on the couch before the second standing ovation.  Kurt has been out of town this week though, and I'll take advantage of the alone time after the kids have disappeared upstairs to sew a bit more.  Right after banana bread that is,  it is fresh from the oven and smells so good!  Hopefully I'll make it awake past 9:30 tonight.  

New Month, Purple is Coming out to Play

Purple and lavender are the colors for February.  With some careful digging, you can find enough variety to get contrast in your blocks between light and dark shades of purple.  I'm planning to go and dig through mine a bit to find some fabric to play with during the state of the uniom.  I can't sew for long though, Ryan is at robotics and I'll need to go and fetch him right in the middle of the speech.  There is an super blue blood moon tonight.  I might set an alarm to get up and look at it early in the morning.  It is really cold right now though, so maybe not.  

Puttering Away a Sunday

I've been pondering the border for this four squared quilt.  After much stewing and sitting, it decided to ask for an extra round of four patches all the way around.  I scrounged up this many in random colors, but was reluctant to make more.  I always seem to gravitate toward monochromatic blocks now.  

 A little more digging led to another bag of 16 patches with 20 extra four patches saved for the alternate blocks.  Not quite enough, but a pretty good start.  I could easily disassemble some of the 16 patches for the rest.  As much as I hate to unsew, I also love to put what I have to good use.    If you are one of those use what you have kind of quilters too, you are sure to enjoy Oh Scrap! at quilting is more fun than housework. 

My next task is to find a new long term hand sewing project.  I've got a few bits of applique hanging around, but those always seem to get bogged down in the preparation stage.  I thought I would try some LeMoyne Stars with Inklingo, but they are very preparation intensive too.  I want something I can keep ready to go for whenever hand sewing time might pop up. 
I've been admiring all the hexie quilts and thought about starting a medallion quilt of my own.  Though I've sketched a few ideas of graph paper, I've not settled on anything quite yet.  If you are thinking about hand work, be sure to visit Slow Stitching Sunday to see what long and slow projects other quilters have in the works.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Light Blue Day

I'm really enjoying light blue.  It is going to be a shame to put it away to move on to the next color.  That is all part of the fun though, there are plenty of other colors waiting to come out and play.  I worked this week on a few more mini log cabin blocks.  Each one will be 2.5 inches in the finished quilt, so it is going to take quite a while to get enough.

The last time I was playing with layout ideas I think I settled on a streak of lightning setting.  Its going to take quite a while to get enough for a nice big quilt though, so I'll just keep adding to the stack for now.  

Misterlinky is below.  I look forward to seeing what everyone else has been working on this week.  

Slow Sunday Scrappy Roundup

 I'm chipping away slowly at the Dear Jane border triangles.  This is block 13 from the bottom row.

 Here is block 1 from the right side.  Pretend that the bottom isn't all wonky.  Or better yet, pretend that it is supposed to be.

 Here is 13 from the right side.  I've saved it for slow stitching on Sunday.  I had printed out paper  piecing templates, but somehow the bottom part was not included.  Lacking any clue as to how to get the triangles to all fit together, I decided to just prepare some applique bits to sew on top of the block.

 I've been rounding up lots of leaders and enders lately and had plenty of random and 16 patch blocks to put together this four squared flimsy.  Maybe some more dark four patches for a border?

 Lizzie seems unimpressed with the decision making process.

 I was on amazon a few days ago and saw a lightning deal for sewing clips.  These are so handy for bindings and such that I couldn't resist picking them up for $11.84.  There are 160 clips in there!  Even at the regular price, it is still a great deal. It is nestled in the middle of my favorite quilting hoop.  Kathy asked us all to talk about our favorite quilting tool and this one has been around for quite a while.  I broke a couple of wooden hoops before switching to this plastic version and it works quite well for the center of the quilt.  I usually switch to a rectangular PVC frame for the borders, it seems to work much better near the edges. 

We had to tidy up a bit for the progressive neighborhood party last night.  I was quite happy to have a reason to convince Anna to finally clear off the dining room table now that her science fair project is done.  Ryan is upstairs finishing his data off right now and Sydney is supposed to go in this afternoon to count bacteria for her results.  I can't say that I will be sad to see the end of science fair season.  All my students are frantically work on their projects at the most inappropriate times.  I've found the first two episodes of Victoria on PBS.com, so I'll be streaming that while I catch up on a bit of sewing.  I think there are some tiny log cabin blocks in the works. 
I'm linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday as well as Oh Scrap!  be sure to visit and check out every some great quilts in progress.  

ScrapHappy Saturday

Pardon me if I'm a little bleary eyed this morning.  I was up late watching the government shut down.  I'm not going to go off on a political rant.  I think it is safe to say though, that everyone in Washington is pretty bad at running the government.  We have an air force base here, and NASA, so there will be quite a few people not going to work on Monday.  Hopefully they will figure out something soon, I'd hate for the Giant Panda Cam to go down. 
Today though, I will sew a little bit and clean a little bit.  Our neighborhood is having a party tonight.  Each house makes some appetizers and then everyone parades around from one house to another. The neighbor planning it is retired military and he has a schedule all planned out with a timer to keep everyone moving.  Kurt has a pork butt on the grill and we will make barbecue pork sliders.  First though, he's off to take Ryan to a math competition somewhere near Orlando and I need to take Sydney to school to finish off her science fair.  January and February are going to be a little bit frantic, but maybe it will slow down after that?  I always think it is going to slow down later, I'll let you know when later gets here. 
Hopefully you have found some time to play with your blue bits this month.  Misterlinky is below, please share with us all.  I've been playing with strings again, so everything is a happy scrappy mess at my house. 

ScrapHappy Saturday #2

Already two weeks in to the new year!  Where does the time go.  It is a three day weekend for us for MLK on Monday.  I am looking forward to an extra day to sew.  The boys are gone all day at a robotic tournament, so it is just us girls hanging around in our pajamas. 

These blue 16 patch blocks will be my leader and enders.

I think that the main project will be some more blue Dear Jane Triangles.  I would be really fabulous to get them finished up this year.  How are all of your RSC project coming along?  I am hoping for a year with lots of fabulous finishes.  As much fun as starting new projects is, it can get ahead of the finishing of old projects in a hurry.

Slow and Scrappy Sunday

 It is the last vacation day before school starts again.  That seemed like the perfect time to pull out Dear Jane again and try to make some progress toward finishing the last three borders before the end of this year.

5 blue triangles seemed like a great place to start.  I picked this one because it needed some applique work on the melons.  Applique is the perfect activity for Slow Stitching Sunday.  

The last three days have been busy madly stitching on Squared Away.  With those blocks all done for the year, I am ready to catch up again on all of the scrappy leader and ender blocks produced along the way.  I'm linking up with Oh Scrap! and with Slow Stitching Sunday today.  Then I guess it is back to reality and I'll start thinking about lesson plans again.  

RSC18 First ScrapHappy Saturday

For all the people joining in to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the first time, welcome.  To everyone else, welcome back.  A new year is always a great opportunity to think about what you have done and what you want to do.  Hopefully you finished off a few projects last year.  Maybe that leaves room for something new this year?

My new project this year is the squared away sampler.  Mari and I worked together to plan a sampler quilt of 5 by 5 blocks.  She has posted a tutorial for making the block in the 10 inch size.  

I made test versions in 5 inch and 7.5 inch  sizes before deciding to make the quilt with 7.5 inch blocks.  Mari has more information on a tab on her blog as do I.  So feel free to read more about it if you are thinking of joining in.  

 I used a slightly different color arrangement, but here are a couple of charts to let you know how many squares and half square triangles you will need for each block.

Mari's color placement

first blue	5 squares
second blue	16 HST
background	4 squares

Angela's color placement

first blue	4 squares, 4 HST
second blue	1 square, 12 HST
background	4 squares

 Here are my three finished blocks.
If you would like the directions in a handy PDF, that is ready to go, and at the RSC18 Sampler tab above, you can find a link of all the block tutorials for the year.
Misterlinky is below.  Share your progress on squared away or your other Rainbow Scrap Challenge Projects.  Light and medium blue are the colors for January.  Please let us know if you are new so we can welcome you on board.

Sewing in the New Year

 I have been frantically sewing for the last two days, but not on a project that I am ready to share yet.  Instead, here are the leader and ender blocks that I have accomplished along the way.

 There is always a stack of 2.5 inch squares sitting next to the machine, and eventually, they turn into bigger blocks. 

At some point I will put these together into quilts, but for now, I will just let the collection grow. 
This morning I went to the dentist and had to scrape ice off of the windshield!  I don't have an ice scraper!  We tried to buy one once for a fiend moving to Colorado, but no luck.  So I used my handy library card.  That and a few minutes waiting for the defroster to kick in had me on my way.  Hard frost doesn't happen here very often, so it is always quite an event.  We had to bring the tortoise in and I'm sure the palm trees are not happy. 

Here is a photo of our recent ski vacation.  We were waiting for our time on the tubing slope.  I think that might have been everyone's favorite day.  Kurt is back at work this week, so it is just the kids and I bouncing around the house.  The girls want to see a moving this afternoon and Ryan has a potluck party to go to.  I will wrap up my sewing and be on my way.