Revving up the Sewing Machine

Welcome to 2016! I hope you, like me, are ready to kick off another year of sewing, stitching, quilting and fun.

I am starting with the super-fun Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela at So Scrappy. Today, like every Saturday, we all have a linky party to show our progress for using our color-of-the-month scraps. Now, Angela just announced January’s color yesterday. It’s blue, from icy shades to deepest navy. However, we are leaving out the green-blues because they will have their own month down the line.

Needless to say, I don’t have too much progress to report in one day, but I did piece my first block.  It is 9.5” unfinished, and sitting on a design board (it’s NOT framed, LOL). This year we are doing a column-along (optional), and each month will be a new block/color. For the size of quilt I am doing, I will make a total of 8 of these blocks. They will not be matching, but scrappy.  I thought it would be cute to use some of my blue Lori Holt Modern Minis leftover squares for the 3.5” center. Appropriately, I chose the “Just take one stitch at a time”  for the center of my first block.

After I finish those 8 blocks, I will sew some Dresden Plate blocks. Each flower will take 20 petals, and as the pieces are fairly large (for scraps), they are the next to be cut and assembled. I hope to get 2 Dresdens per month, and this will be an ongoing project until I decide I have enough for a quilt. All I know is that the background will be a pale pink cotton (vintage-y looking) that I’ve had sitting around for years. I must have 4-5 yards of it.

I also want to make some of Sally T’s kittens. Alfalfa and Darla are wary of this idea, but I think it will be fun.

This year two of my goals are to make a quilt from my vintage sheet, and a quilt or small wall-hanging from my selvages.  I also have a lot of waste triangles, and I need to begin clearing some of those out.

L-R:  Blue selvages, Blue waste triangles (some with white), Blue vintage sheet fabric

So here is the plan. Every month I will do a block or two from the selvage pieces in the color of the month. I eventually want to assemble each block to look like library shelves. See the quilt here; it’s my inspiration.

With the sheets, I will sew rail fence blocks and eventually assemble them in a zig-zag rainbow patterned quilt.

The waste triangles I will sew up into HSTs and trim, then throw in with the crumbs tiny scraps; I’ll come back to that in a minute.

I really miss working on the wonky log cabins I did last year with color plus black/white. So, any strips of fabric I have in the color of the month will be made into 9” strip blocks, pieced diagonally then with two white/black corner square triangles. Here is an example by Amy Smart, a local quilter that I really admire. I hope to have some in the next week or two to show you.

Finally, I’ll put any 2.5” squares into 16-patch blocks. Anything that is too small to use there will be thrown in with the waste HSTs and I will just improv my way through them, making odd blocks or “slabs”. I have no idea what those will become eventually.

So, is that too much??  Believe me, that is my pared-down list. But still, some thing(s) may have to go. I will give it a try this month and then revise plans accordingly.

Until next time,