A Predictable Week

Predictably, it has been hot as Hades. Predictably, if it rains (and it did, twice this week) it’s just enough to wet everything down and mess up the clean car. And predictably, you can find me in my sewing studio every afternoon, sewing away on my weekly goals. Bruce is either reading or playing in his workshop, and the cats are taking their afternoon naps (not to be confused with their morning naps or their evening naps or . . .)

This week I played some more with my purple scraps, turning out 6 Bear Paw blocks. It’s purple month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

The bigger one will finish at 9” and the other five will finish at 6”.  I decided it was time for all the Bear Paw blocks to have a family reunion on the design board. My secret objective, of course, was to see what “family members” needed to be constructed, and in what sizes and colors.

This not a final layout by any stretch of the imagination. I want the quilt to end up roughly 42x48”, so I’ll be needing several orange blocks, a bright blue to replace the lighter blue just right of center, and some more red. And I may replace those dull pink 3” blocks and the dark greens. A couple months, at least, to go on this.  In fact, several blocks may get replaced with brighter colors. Or, I may just expand the size. Who knows?!?

I also made a row of crumb tumblers (alternated with simple cut purple tumblers) for my Rainbow Tumblers quilt. I didn’t get a picture of it before sewing it to the dark blue row.  Sorry about the vertical picture; it will be a row, not a column in the quilt! 

On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time basting quilts - three of them, in fact. Of those those 3, I can show you one now. This is one of my purple quilts, from scraps I kitted up at the beginning of the year. The picture is just the flimsy.

The blocks measure 8”, so this will finish at 40x48”. I hope to get this quilted along with three others in the coming week so that I can show them to you before the end of the month. 

But I do have a finish to share - my Hearts for Ukraine quilt. Finally!

This fun quilt was a Bonnie Hunter free pattern. I changed the border so I could use up most of a blue and yellow jelly roll I’ve had in my stash for a couple years. The quilt finished at 54x62”. I quilted it with loops and hearts, except for the border which utilized the pieced squares as guides for crosshatches and loops. 

The backing is a chambray from a gently used cotton sheet. Below is a closer shot of the border and binding.

Of course, no quilt is really complete until it’s been inspected by one of the feline overlords. Here you can see Darla, carefully attending to her work. 

And how exciting to capture the *exact* moment that she purrnounced it worthy!!

Since I still have so many purple scraps, I thought this would be a good month/week to test out some new blocks for RSC2023. I’ve had my eye on several blocks, and keep potential ideas in a personal file on Pinterest. 

This first block is Overlapped Nine Patch, from Lynn Dykstra of KleinMeisjeQuilts. I believe Cathy L of Sane and Crazy is making these as well. I love these blocks. The top one doesn’t have enough contrast between the fabrics. But in the grand scheme of an entire quilt, it hardly matters. Lots of quilt makers do that intentionally.  However, I’ve decided this will not be an RSC project for me, but eventually a personal quilt down the road.

The second block, Little Bricks, was designed by Sylvia at Treadlestitches and introduced earlier this year during the Hand2Help drive. I had it saved in my idea file, but when I saw the cute blocks that Jenny  made, it moved its block to the top of my list. Here are my four.

Starting now, this is another RSC project that will continue through next year.

But wait, there’s more!

I pieced two elephants this week. Only one is shown below in the closeup. These wild print elephants serve as Color Coordinators (an official position!) for the elephant quilts I’ve been making.

Here are the blocks slapped up on the design wall. I haven’t sewn the sashing yet, but the elephants and borders are cut. 

This is one of the quilts I’m hoping to get sewn, pin basted, quilted, etc. before month end. So, I’ll be predictably in my sewing room for the foreseeable future!  Have a great week!