My Sewing Studio: Purple Haze

It’s PURPLE month in March for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. And as this is also my birthday month (and a new iPad Air will be mine this weekend!), I am tickled purple that Angela at So Scrappy has chosen it for us.  The accent color, which is optional, is yellow. A little yellow goes a long way (especially with its complement, purple), so we will see how that goes.....

For the last month I have been dying from   suffering with dealing with the nasty 100-day virus.  Let’s just say that my personal color for February was green..... (ewwww!)   But even though it’s only been 4 weeks, I feel so wonderful today as I write this. It has been in the high sixties temperature-wise today, and I have thrown open the windows to get some fresh air. I’ve had no meds for 24 hours, and I even slept through the night with no coughing or nose-blowing. I have energy!!  It is common to feel good with this virus, then relapse, but I am hoping that maybe I’m finally over whatever it was..... Fingers crossed.

So, here is my Purple Progress for this week:

These are the Vintage Sheet Rail Fence 9.5” blocks. There are 12 of them, and they will join the 18 blue and 3 brown. At the end of the RSC (or maybe I should just say “at the end of the rainbow”) there will be enough to make some sort of zig-zag rainbow scrappy sheet quilt. Or something.

I did pull all my purple scraps and sort them by size. I have been cutting like a madwoman and the picture below is my proof.  It contain the makings of: 12 kittens (foreground on tray), Mama Cat (purple with yellow stars fabric pile on right, 2 piles of 20 Dresden blades to be made into two blocks (one on pale pink, one on pale yellow) and 2.5” squares which will be sewn into 10-12-ish 16-patch blocks with white and black centers.

I hope to get at least half of that done this week, as I expect Angela will be introducing our RSC Challenge Quilt Block for March. Then I will need to make lots of those, depending on size.   Whatever is left over from that will go into purple crumb slabs....

And although there is a purple haze in the studio this month, I am working on several other things (like any quilter worth her salt, right?)

I am playing along with the Splendid Sampler hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. These are my first five blocks. I chose those colors because they are what I have most of in my stash, and I wanted to trim them down. The result is a very girly-girly look, which is really not me, but IS perfect for my granddaughters. So who knows how long I will play along or how many quilts it will end up making. I’m thinking that by the time these 6” blocks are done (100 of them in the Sampler), I can sew up some basic alternate blocks to use with them. Another one to wait on and see....

The block below is my favorite. It was designed by Jen Kingwell, However, instead of using fabric circles as the pattern calls for, I went with my crazy-quilting background to add crocheted flowers, bits of lace flowers, yo-yos and some embroidered greenery.  And doesn’t that green fabric look rather like enamelware?

The project below is that Hoffman digital cityscape print that I am adding borders to. I have two of the prints and will do the  same for both.  They should both finish out at about 48x60, which is either a large wall hanging or small lap quilt. As I get further along, I will be using a lot of my Vicki Welsh hand-dyed batiks in the border piecing. Stay tuned.

And finally, my Birds and Bees quilt has been pieced and bordered. I have the backing sewn and the batting ready. All I need to do is baste it in order to quilt it. But I have not felt remotely like doing that for weeks.  If these good vibrations keep up, however, I expect I may baste and quilt it this week.

Sorry for the long post. The non-purple items should have been a separate post earlier in the week, but...... you guessed it. I didn’t feel like it.

If you like scraps, why not join us at So Scrappy for Scrappy Saturday, and see what everyone else has been doing with their purple!