Red Roundup

We’re just about ready to turn the calendar page over to February and a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC).  It was a busy sewing week in my studio, although the rest of the week was quiet and uneventful. Bruce and I have finally beaten back our respective colds. Whew - we should’ve had stock in some tissue manufacturer!

Without further ado, let’s get started with what came out from under the needle. Last Saturday I attended my Quilts for Kids workshop and sewed up the warm colored blocks of split nine-patches that were one of my projects for last year’s RSC. Later in the week I quilted and bound it, and I’m pleased to show you this very cheerful quilt, Rainbow Candy.

I LOVE this little quilt! It finished at 42x48” and was quilted with small loops on vines. It was a total delight from start to finish. I still have some older cute Tamara Kate dragonfly yardage, and it was perfect for the backing. 

And there is still a yard of that cute print left for me to fondle use in something else! Then I used the cool-colored split nine blocks to lay out the other quilt, which I’ll finish up in the next week. These blocks are just slapped up wonkily on the design wall.

I did work on my Ribbons quilt on Sunday, and got the inner portion finished. Here it is just pinned over other blocks on the design board. It hasn’t been pressed or trimmed yet because I totally forgot to do that before grabbing a last-minute progress shot.

Hopefully, I’ll have time this next week to trim, add the inner stop border and begin the Seminole-pieced second border. As this is a personal quilt, I don’t feel any pressure to get it done in Red January. But it would be nice to finish it as a Valentine gift for myself!

Now let’s talk about the red sewing I did get done this week. 

I finally came up with a small workable plan for bear paw blocks, so I pieced just one at 12.5” and one at 6.5”. As we get to other colors I may do more or less of each size. but that was the only 12” block I could get out of my scraps because the center square was 8.5” and that’s all I had. Cutting into yardage was not an option! The tumblers were made from my Ruby Red Mt. Scrapmore, plus some chunks. I alternated whole tumblers with crumb-pieced tumblers to make two rows - one dark reds and the other bright reds. 

My last foray into the red scraps meant dealing with some of the strings. Here are 13 blocks at 6.5”. *sigh* I can’t help it. I think of one-colored string blocks as a basic to have when working with all the QFK remnants and scraps. 

They look a bit stiff because I haven’t removed the papers yet. 

I tried to do my usual collage of red blocks, but Befunky (my collage site - any recommendations for a better one?) started acting up. I did get a collage made of my red “Before and After” photos from the beginning of the month through today. 

That was a lot more work than it looks like! 

In addition to joining Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog, I’ll be joining Joy for the January Table Scraps parade. Here are the four placemats I made this week in red. They each measure 12x18” and are made from crumbs.

And if you didn’t see my mid-week blogpost about the progress on my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt, check out my last post. Here it is after adding diamonds this week. The SAHRR linky party is at Emily’s blog this week and there are some really fun things going on!

And now I’m going to put the red scraps away and wait for Angela to announce February’s scrap color. I can’t wait!