Month End Celebration

We've all been collecting blocks for a while now.  Making rainbow blocks is fun and addicting after all.  Eventually though, it is good to start to turn some of those blocks into actual quilts.  This is our first special linky party for finished Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts.

I worked hard this month to get OMG together and one step closer to being a finished quilt.  Sadly, after a bit of a bobbin mishap, the quilting is not quite done yet.  I'm still celebrating though.  It is in the final stages of delivery. 

I am so excited to see the other quilts that made it to those final stages this month.  But wait, there is one more bit of celebration.  I happen to have some extra OMG blocks to share.  If you are working on OMG, Omigosh, the Birthday Quilt or want to start a similar quilt, just leave me a comment.  I will pick someone from the list and pass along my extra bits and bobs to share the love.  In case you are wondering, each of the nine patches are made from 1 inch squares.   So tiny!  All I ask is that you find some way to use the blocks if you win the giveaway.    

Farewell to January

Sea Green will be the color for February.  Anything between blue and green will work.  From teal, to aqua to turquoise.  Try to find anything that isn't happy with blue or green but plays somewhere in between.  

I've still got a few aqua circles to sew, but they are starting to come together.  Be sure to stop by tomorrow for our end of the month finished quilt celebration.  Any flimsy or quilt worked on as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge will work.  

Slow Stitching and Fast Stitching

I spent yesterday morning loading OMG onto the quilting frame.  This quilt was the ultimate scrap buster.  I'm not sure how many 1 inch strips I used in all of those tiny nine patches, but it was a lot!

First I had to extend the frame and clear everything off.  Pinning the quilt to the leaders and getting it all ready to go took most of the morning.  I got the thread picked -  light pink -- and had just finished sewing through the first bobbin.  

 Somehow, in the time that it took to load a new bobbin, I managed to loose the bobbin case.  I looked everywhere!  Hours later, everything had been cleaned and organized and searched.  The lost bobbin case was nowhere to be found.  So strange!  Stuck in the middle of a quilt, I finally gave up and went online to order a new case.

After dinner I went back again and started dumping things out.  Eventually, the bobbin case turned up.  Hiding inside a spool of thread.  What are the odds?

So OMG didn't get finished yesterday as planned, but more fast stitching will happen today for sure.

 After a few hours of fast stitching, I will definitely feel the need to settle down with some more slow stitching.  I finished all the prep work on my 366 circles last Sunday.  There are just enough circles sitting on the ironing board to finish off the quilt.  Now all that I need to do is to finish a tiny bit of hand stitching.  I'm linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday and Oh Scrap today.  So I guess a little blog hopping will happen before it is time to get back to stitching.

ScrapHappy Saturday #4 - Playing with Purple

I hope you are all enjoying purple this month. Today is your last weekend day to play with purple scraps. Hopefully you can start to see the bottom of the purple bin by now? Don't forget that our special end of the month finishing celebration is coming up soon. There will be an extra linky party starting Tuesday for anyone who has finished a RSC quilt. Be sure to check back then for lots of great motivation and inspiration.
Work has kept me hopping this week and I haven't had much time to sneak off to the sewing room.  So glad to have a weekend ahead to find some time to putter around with purple.

Slow Stitching Sunday - Circle Round Up

I started strong on the circles last year.  Then life got in the way.  It was a busy year for work and my sewing suffered.  

January

January has been done for ages.  Blue was the color of the month last year.  

February

Brown and pink are finished for February.  

 March

There are 4 more purple circles sitting next to my spot on the couch.  Those will finish off March.  

April

April needs 4 more blocks as well.  They are in my "to go" bag ready for stitching.  

May

May, I think I also needs 4 more.  I sewed a lot of green circles while we traveled to Nana's funeral after Christmas. 

 June

After that, it starts to get more sparse. 

Still that is half of the year almost done.  I'll get those odds and ends all sewn together and start to think about the second half of the year.  One step at a time.  This has turned into a two year quilt, but I do enjoy the way it is coming together.  

There isn't much going on today.  I did most of the laundry yesterday while most of the family was gone.  They all came home exhausted after the Lego Tournament.  Everyone has homework to work on today so they should not need much entertaining.  I'll sew up a few more circles before it the day gets into full swing.  First though, I'll head over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other people have going on in the way of slow stitching.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Purple Passions

I didn't make much progress on setting my purple nine patches last weekend, so that will be first up this morning.  Everything is all cut and ready to sew.  Finishing up the purple row won't take long at all.
Kurt has taken two of the kiddos off to an all day Lego Robotics tournament and the third is all engrossed in her science fair project.  Looks like a good sewing day for me.

Backings are the Second B

 I really wanted to use this turkey print on the back of OMG.  It didn't play nicely with any of the other high yardage fabrics in the stash, so I went searching and found a nice aqua and lime paisley print at the fabric store not far from the binding fabric.

 A framed square is my favorite pieced backing.  It looks like it is on purpose, but can be used with a nice combination of whatever lengths are available.  Lizzie came to help of course, she is a great fan of quilts.

This was her helping me with the borders yesterday.  She's great company.

When all was said and done, this is how much extra fabric was left.  Yikes!  Maybe I cut that a little too close?  I any case,  I sewed.  On a school night!  Shocking I know.  Kurt is out at volleyball and he will bring Ryan home from Robotics on his way.  Anna is starting to drive herself now and Sydney decided to skip lacrosse.  Just another nice calm weeknight.  I guess I'd better get everything up off the floor before everyone else decides to start traipsing across the family room.  

Border Patrol

As soon as a quilt get spread out on the floor, Lizzie is right there to help with the final inspection.  Both borders are on and the back got partially pieced before pizza showed up for dinner.  Sunday is usually pizza night, but we postponed it in honor of the three day weekend.  

After the pizza was safely away, I pulled out the broken dishes quilt to take a few more stitches.  Even though all the center blocks aren't quite done, I cheated and got a start on the borders.  I got quite a bit done while we enjoyed Alice Through the Looking Glass as a family.  

Design Floor Monday

It took all of Saturday to get OMG It's  a Churn Dash ironed and ready for borders.

After auditioning several options, I decided on pink and teal.  There was enough pink for a thin inner border, but nothing with enough yardage for a wide outer border.  Off to the fabric store!

First though, I pulled some backing options.  All the new fabric has been through the wash now and after a bit more time with the iron, I'll be down on hands and knees again for the rest of borders and backings.  

Happy Martin Luther King day!  So happy to have an extra weekend day to play.  

Sunday Funday

 I spent most of yesterday pressing OMG.  SO many seams!  I should have planned better how they would nestle while I was making the blocks.  That failure led to a lot of manual seam turning during assembly, which meant that all the seams needed to be re-pressed in the flimsy so that they would lie flat.  Planning!  So over rated.  Thanks to lots of spray starch and many hours with a hot iron, it is now flat as a pancake and stiff as a board.

I initially pulled a traditional red and blue for double borders.  Now that I am looking at the picture of the finished flimsy though, I see a huge lime green band on the large central diagonal with hot pink bands on either corner.  I might pull something along those lines and see if it is too bright.  

 First though, I might finish another broken dishes block or two.  It is a three day weekend, which leaves me with an extra day to sew!  Yesterday lost a lot of time to putting away Christmas and catching up on laundry.  Today the kids are asking for movies.  Tomorrow is all for me.  I wonder what I will be able to get done?
I am linking up with Oh Scrap and Slow Stitching Sunday today.  You should visit and see what everyone else is up to before you get going on your day.