Some Sewing, But Mostly Painting

Thank goodness for lists! I made myself lists of Things to Do this week, day by day, and I was able to stick to it.

On Monday, Bruce and I worked in the front yard. He finished up the front porch pillars, which I thought were already done. But he had filling and sanding, etc., to do. On Tuesday, I painted the pillars. I even tried some colored stripes, but it looked terrible. AWFUL. I couldn’t paint over them fast enough.  More pictures on those as soon as I get a sealer coat on the columns.

On and off all week (I call it pacing myself), I painted the kitchen. And sewed. I only have one wall left to paint in the kitchen, but we have to move the big china cabinet to do it. But it will be done by Tuesday, because the shutters will be installed on Wednesday.

On the sewing front, I sewed my column of bullseyes together. They were fun, but are not so pretty in the grays I chose.

Here is a little closer up; the grays range from lightest gray to charcoal to greige. And a print of grays, tans, etc, mixed up. But I know these will play well off the other bright colors of the Rainbow Scrap Sampler. Brown will be at one end and the gray at the other with all the bright colors in between.

Some of the columns are sewn together. Next to be sewn on will be either red or yellow, then the blue, then the green, then the other of red or yellow, then the gray. Clear as mud? I may have to do some shifting around depending on the width of the rows. I think that orange row should maybe have waited.....  But anyway, I am sure loving this!!

Then I wanted to do something with some of my black and gray scraps, so I pulled out the leftover lightening fabric (used on the back of Rainbow Orbs) along with the orange pumpkins left over from my fall table runner last year. I combined that with some text print and made a simple table runner of bullseye and 9-patch blocks. By playing with Pattern Jam  (a free online design tool), and coming up with my own patterns, I was able determine ahead of time which patterns and sizes would work with the scraps I chose. Have you ever played with Pattern Jam? I love it and have designed so many quilts I want to try some day.

Back to this table runner, the back is some cat fabric and the binding is some ancient black with white polka dots. It was a quick and satisfying little project.  I have a ton of HST scraps from the last couple years in grays and blacks, so I will be sewing those up. They may even make it into an improv block or two.

Finally (no picture), I found some light purples (lavenders, basically) in a bin of scraps I have set aside - and add to frequently - for a future “scrap vortex” or “scrap vomit” quilt. It’s where I throw those scraps that don’t fit neatly into one color category. What do you do with your multi-colored scraps?  Anyway, I know that I want to sew one of those crayon quilts (this pattern from Emily Herrick), so I made a lavender crayon. It will go into next year’s pile for RSC projects. When it comes to the purple month then, I will do the dark purple crayon. :-)

Today I will be sewing on my Aria quilt top, and I hope to finish it. Then I would like to start  quilting Notting Hill. There is also a door that needs to be sanded and painted, but that is down the list.....

Why not join us over at Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Saturday? Come and check out all the creative things that our friends keep churning out during these dog days of summer!