Design Wall Monday - 3/23/15

I had an excellent weekend!! Saturday afternoon I showed my friend Kim how to use her new sewing machine. She plied me with wine and brownies - our usual M.O. - LOL!!

The rest of the weekend was spent leisurely sewing and listening to audio books in my studio. It was heaven.

I completed 9 yellow box kite blocks for the RSC15. I might get a few more done before the end of the month but it's going to be a busy week so I'm not holding my breath. I have the strips all cut so I might just work on them another month. One can never have  enough yellow :)

I also completed 5 yellow puss in the corner D4P blocks and, obviously, several other colors as well. I really just periodically paw thru my pile of 2.5" blocks to find nice matches. So far I have over a 100 of these little 4.5" blocks. I'm still debating if I want every other block in the quilt to be a solid instead of pieced block. The quilt would come together faster, with fewer seams to match, and you would possibly be able to see the pieced blocks better, but I just adore making these and can't imagine stopping just cuz I had enough for a quilt...

I also worked on my hexie fabric I-spy quilt. I stopped by the LQS for more black-on-blacks and was able to make quite some progress on getting the blocks made and trimmed. These blocks are 3/4" smaller than the original blocks shown a few weeks ago but now I'm wondering if I need to get that last 1/4" trimmed off. I'm almost thinking it wouldn't be worth the effort since I can trim them to 6.75" in a flash if I leave 5/8" black past each corner of the center charm square. That's probably clear as mud but I think I just talked myself out of more trimming, Thanks for listening!

I sewed these up this morning and I think there are 4 more to sew up tonight. Of course then there are the 4 new hexie fabrics I still need to cut into charm squares. It's a never ending process LOL.

I have no idea when I'll be putting the i-spy blocks together since I'm still finding hexie fabrics. (Do you have any hexie fabrics I could barter for??) The quilt certainly won't be finished for some time since there are new fabrics all the time so I'm torn - make today's pile into a partial top just so it's not another pile in the studio or wait until much closer to my hexie trunk shows to have a bigger pile with more variety before assembly...there are nearly 40 blocks at this time. My other option is to make these into 4 patches so just get started on assembly. What would you do? Keep the pile growing  for as long as possible or start assembly just to get the pile out of the way?

PS - did anyone notice that I missed HeLP last week? I noticed just before I hit publish on the Feline Friday post. Oops - clearly too much was going on with my Dad in the hospital. Anyone interested in having HeLP this Wednesday??!!

Design Wall Monday - 3/2/15

Saturday evening I attended a chili cook-off at one of the local churches. It was free-will-offering for eat-all-you-can-eat and there was a Chinese Basket Auction as well. All the proceeds went to our local food pantry. There were 14 chilies to test. My first choice was tied for 2nd place and my 2nd choice (pulled pork but it was too sweet) won first place. It was a lot of fun and already can't wait for next year's cook-off!!

First order of business over the weekend was to kit up most of my remaining Value Proposition blocks. I pulled in some new teal fabrics for these 4 kits. I'll have to finish these and then lay out all the blocks before cutting the last 2 kits in case I want to de/emphasize any colors in this scrappy project.

Second order of business was to do just a little more pink for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I found 1 of the box kites when unpacking the box I had packed for my quilting 101 class and then I made 2 more, bringing the total to a respectable 8. I made just one pink basket block and worked on 4 D4P Puss in the Corner blocks (only 1 is shown tho).

Next I worked on this months scrap color: Yellow!!! I kitted 8 box kite blocks (yes I use cheap hair clips from Dollar General to separate the parts) and cut or found strips for at least 5 or 6 more. Can you tell I like yellow??!! I also worked on starting some D4P blocks and started prepping strips for 3 basket blocks.

I finally got all my hexie fabrics cut for my iSpy project. I do have a pack of 5 more fabrics that I am debating to use. They are not good quality fabric but I love the designs so they will probably be next on the cutting mat. I saved 2 others - 1 for a project for our hexie club (hopefully there will be a charm square left) and the other is a rather large design that won't show well in an iSpy so I think I'll just save it for a doll quilt backing.

Last but not least, I've made some progress on rosette #1. It's probably a little hard to tell but I have 7 finished hexagons to be added to the right side of the outer row and the last mostly-black hexie from the 2nd row is almost finished. I just need to finish 4 more outer row hexagons to finish this rosette. I think I'll have the hexies made in 4 lunch hours and then I'll have to put this together sitting at the table since it's already a monster piece. I never did get to picking fabrics for the next rosette...

Phew...it was a fun but busy weekend and other than a crockpot meal, never did get to the housework. Darn!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - February

Sew ... here it is, nearly the end of February, and I thought I should show you the "progress" on my RSC projects for the month. I suppose 2 weekend retreats, teaching a full Saturday class, taking EMT class twice a week, Tyler's hockey finals and bronchitis could be blamed for a slow month but I also suppose it could just be the color...


Pink? Ick!

In reality, I didn't set specific monthly goals for each of my three RSC projects so I really don't care how much I accomplish as long as it's something and I'm having fun!!! Besides these 5 blocks, I was able to cut up a few pinks towards the other 2 projects - I guess I just didn't put fabric to pressure foot very often. Heck, I haven't even finished a third audio book for the month. Can you believe it??  Now that's slacking!

On the other hand, my callus has torn thru twice so I *have* accomplished lots of hexies this month. It's all relative. Some of the hexies were even pink!

I have a funeral to attend on Saturday afternoon but I am hoping to spend the rest of the weekend prepping more Value Proposition rosettes, Millefiori block #3, a class sample in Seminole Piecing and maybe I can cram in another couple pink box kite blocks :) I suppose I ought to do some housework in there two but that is going to take some arm twisting...

Design Wall Monday - 2/2/15

Saturday we went to my nephew's hockey game. They won 7-0 but I completely neglected to take any photos. As my younger nephew says... Go Blues!! The game was almost over with just 26 seconds left when the players switched and Ty got to play one last time. In just two seconds he had scored the last goal. Go Ty!!!!

The rest of the weekend was spent with rotary cutter in hand. I cut pink and neutral strips for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. I trimmed scraps. I cut tiny 1" tumblers from the Civil War fabric I purchased in Gettysburg several years ago. I also cut the next 6 hexie fabrics for my hexie I-Spy quilt.

Please let me know if you find any hexie fabrics in your local store.
I would love a 5" charm square and can trade or pay...

You may recall from last week that I was debating whether the setting triangles should be smaller on the I-Spy project. I started this little cat mat with smaller setting triangles but I'm still not really decided. I think even if I do decide I want them to finish in this smaller size that I should still make them with the 2.5" black strips so I have room to trim them down.

I hope y'all appreciate this snow photo. I was kneeling out the back door at work to take the photo. As soon as I clicked the shutter button, a gust of wind blew it off the back steps into a snowbank. I had to take 3 steps in my socks and then proceeded to drop my iPhone in the same snowbank. It's not the best shot but we went with one-and-done!

Speaking of snow...we finally got a little last night and it's still snowing!! It's the pretty, fluffy flakes so I don't mind.

I had a little trouble getting out the door this morning since the snow came from the east instead of the west. Neither Squeaky or Zorro wanted out the door either. Z was happy to go out the window to sit on "his" table for a few seconds. He wanted out again as I was leaving for work. Generally he sits on the porch for 5 minutes while I suit up and then comes right back in for the day.

This time he went under the porch and refused to come back out. I was running late for work and had to leave him outside. He's gonna get chilly before I get home from EMT class at 10:30 tonight but Grandpoppa agreed to check on him if he had to go downtown. Kids!

Shoveling was slow going but after four rounds with the shovel my neighbors came over and helped me with their snow blower. Total shovel/blower time was >60 minutes but they probably saved me another 30 minutes. Thank God for good neighbors!!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - January finale

January's color was "blue." It was just supposed to be a regular blue but since I'm modifying the RSC for my own purposes, I used whatever blues I came across. And since I'm making things up as I go along, I only made as many blocks as I felt like - just to make 'some' progress. I had a ton of fun pulling different blues from my stash every few days and I can't wait to see what February's color is.

I finished 14 box kite blocks, 2.5 baskets and 3 D4P Puss-in-the-Corner blocks.

I also cut a bunch of blue square pairs so when I get through some other colors, I can make a lot more D4P blocks.

Did you participate in RSC this month?

Wordless Wednesday --> Box Kites!

Hello 2015!!

If you've been around my blog longer than 5 minutes you'll know that I'm not great on follow through. I enjoy the journey too much to worry about finishing each and every project. My three year old addiction to hexies is making that journey even more exciting but deeper in UFOs.

And yet, I have decided that this year I will join in two different BOM projects. One of them I'll tweak for my own purposes (imagine that??!!) and the other will need no tweaking, just a lot of hard work to keep up.

I finally decided to join the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge at Super Scrappy. Each month she posts a color and followers make blocks of their choice in that color. I think I'll blame this on Bonnie Hunter. Why not? She won't see this, right? Bonnie was working on her Box Kite quilt and I liked the block. What isn't there to like about 3 squares and 6 HSTs? It was about the same time I had read someone's post about the scrappy challenge and I decided to give the block a try "just in case" I liked it enough to work on all year.

Surprise! I liked it! I've decided to use the monthly color suggestion to cut blocks for my (now) three leader ender projects. I'll be able to prep some leader enders to work on while trying to get somewhere on my UFO pile. I see the January color was posted today and it's "blue." I'll get right on that when I get home!

I have 72 basket blocks completed. These will be set on point and I have yet to pick a setting fabric.

 

I also have 70 of these disappearing 4 patch puss in the corner blocks made. I'm gonna need bigger storage tho as tin#1 is full. These will also set on point with alternating squares of a yet to be picked fabric but there is a long way to go...

The other BOM project is Katja's Millefiore Quilt-Along based on her book "The New Hexagon."

My rosette #1 paper pack arrived yesterday and I picked up this fabric a few weeks ago as my focus for this rosette. Katja posted the first set of directions today so I'll be sure to get on this when I get home too. I best cuz #1 is a doozy with 37 blocks making up the rosette and it will take a while to decide how I want to fussy cut my fabrics.

Other than making class samples, Ryan's quilt and Bonnie's 2015 mystery quilt I really don't have any quilt plans for 2015 other than working on UFOs. Hexies will be a different story. I have a long UFO list to work on and bucket list that I was trying to hold off on but the stars have recently aligned on several so it looks like I'll be starting some more hexie UFOs...I'll share pictures some day...

That's it for now...Happy New Year and I'll see all y'all next year!

PS - Feline Friday, HeLP and Bibliophile Files will all be making comebacks in 2015. Woo Hoo!