Forever in Blue, Jean

I’ve had Neil Diamond’s song “Forever in Blue Jeans” running through my mind today. (You’re welcome for the ear worm). Referring to the punny title of this post, I don’t even know if there’s a Jean who reads this blog. And I don’t want to be in blue forever anyway. But for this month, those of us participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are concentrating on our darker blue scraps, from mid-range all the way to navy. And black or other dark neutrals if we have time. Angela is hosting Scrappy Saturday again and we’re glad that she has missed the worst of Hurricane Florence. But the inundation of the Carolinas is underway. If you live there, I hope you’re safe and dry.

Last week I forgot to post a picture of my some of my blue sewing. So, here’s the remedy for that. Selvage Squares - 17 at 6.5” and 3 at 4.5”. 

And as often happens. the Block Lotto block for the month of September happens to be the same color as the Rainbow Scrap Color - blue in this case.  Here are my two blue blocks. Aren’t they cute?

These are for donation to the group because I was one of the winners of the California Poppies blocks last month. Forty blocks toward a bright quilt! Stay tuned.

Moving along, I made the remaining four blocks I needed to complete the next round in the All You Need is Love quilt I’m making for my daughter Megan. Three “lollipops” and one friendship star.  

The lollipops on the left side are sewn to the main piece; the rest of them and the stars are just stuck up on the design board.  I will finish sewing that round and then put it away until later in the month or perhaps October.  But for fun, I pieced a few of the black and white checkerboard squares that will comprise the next round. What do you think..... will that be OK? Or should I do it in navy and white??

The hearts, all 54 of them, were pieced when we had the pink RSC month, so by the end of October I should have the next two rounds added on. The final row after that is an 8” block, yet to be decided. I’ll get more serious about it during the 4th quarter, since it’s a Christmas present.

I was playing with the collage maker that’s installed on my iMac, getting used to its functions since all the other free sites have either changed to paying sites or are so gooped up with ads and crap that they’re virtually unusable. 

Anyway, remember that awful block I pieced last week - my wacky take on this month’s lovely Squared Away block? Let me refresh your memory.... see the mess block at right? Well, when I put it into a collage maker, with just three blocks across and four down, with a bit of turning, it looked like this:

That might really look nice with more blocks - a full-fledged quilt. I’m going to at least tuck away the idea.

So what did I work on all week if there are no more blue blocks?  Well, I finished two quilts! YAY!!!

This is a safari-themed baby quilt that measures 46.5 x 55”. It went together so quickly! The fabric (all except the yellow) is an older line, Origami Oasis, by my favorite designer, Tamara Kate. I love the green block stuck in there with the blue. I truly was one block short of the blue (didn’t want to cut into the leftover stripe for the back) and had just the one green block.

I franken-pieced the batting, and quilted it with straight diagonal lines. Here’s the back.

It’s meant to be a gift for someone, but I’m not sure we’ll be getting together. So, it may end up in the donation pile.

My second finish was Linked Squares. All I had left to do on this one was finish the second half of the quilting, which I did last Sunday, and then bind it. 

Linked Squares finished at 64x80”. The binding is a great black and white stripe, and the backing fabric is a piece of abacus fabric I picked up somewhere on the cheap to use for an RSC quilt back. This was my Finish Along Quarter 3 goal #2 (see list HERE).

I’m planning on this being a donation quilt, but will wait and see if anyone else in the family asks for a quilt this year. 

And since we’re working with blue, I’ll add these pictures of my brother Steve’s hot rod, Hellion (named for our mom, Helen, who loved being called Hellion). Steve got all his stuff packed, loaded and delivered home right on schedule. 

Here’s one side of the 1930 Model A, looking from our front porch out to the street where it’s loaded onto a trailer.

And the other side of the car, looking from the street back to the house. Hellion had a rumble seat, but it’s been removed to accommodate something or other. Personally, I prefer accurate restorations, but Steve is all about hot rods and dragsters.

Now that Steve and his stuff are gone, I’ve got two guest rooms that will be getting refreshed over the next few months. The bedrooms, which are both along the front of the house, will get new double- or triple-paned windows. That will complete the replacement of all the windows upstairs, and all that’s left for next year is my studio window and a new screen door my studio outside door. 

Also, we'll be ripping up the carpet in the yellow “girly" bedroom so that the hardwood floor there will match the “African” bedroom/library and the hallway. Then I’ll have the ceiling, closet doors, and wood trim painted white (from the existing gray). I’ll complete that refresh by painting the wood-grain ceiling fan white and making a new quilt and jelly roll rug.  In the African bedroom, there are two walls to retouch or repaint since the futon we gave to Steve really scratched up the walls. I’m getting tired just planning it all..... the older we get, the more happy I am to pay someone else to do the work!!

Coming and Going

It’s been a crazy week.

My brother Steve arrived from Colorado to move his stuff. He came by Amtrak so he could drive a U-Haul truck back full of his stuff while towing his Model A on a trailer. The train was delayed before leaving and didn’t arrive until 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. THAT was fun - driving into downtown Salt Lake at that hour to pick him up. Train stations aren’t usually located in the nice part of town. But we got home safely,  I got my sleep, and Steve has been loading his stuff up slowly but surely. Today, Saturday, should be the last loading day, and hopefully he’ll be able to take off tomorrow. He has help unloading on the other end.

Bruce is working ComicCon (now called FanX) and doesn’t get home until 9-ish. That ends today, too, thank goodness. And since the commuter trains and buses run less in off-peak (non-commuter) hours, I have to take him and pick him up at the Trax station. Meanwhile, between running Steve around for errands and appointments, and shuffling Bruce, I’ve had precious little time for myself. But that’s fine - I was prepared for this week and its resulting chaos and messes. But not much sewing got done.

I did sew up two of the Squared Away blocks that Angela, our Rainbow Scrap Challenge hostess, and Mari of Academic Quilter  have cooked up for us.  After doing the first one on the right above, I started in on the second one. I didn’t like the lack of contrast in the fabrics I’d selected, so I just made it up as I went. The pieces are the same, but shuffled and with different shading to form a different pattern. I sorta kinda like it a tiny bit, but not as much as the original block. I may still do another blue block.

The Orange Lozenge top did get finished this week. It’s now awaiting its turn to be basted.

And finally, I got started on the quilting of Linked Squares. It’s halfway done. There’s not much to see at this point.

I’ll finish quilting it today and tomorrow (sew day with Cousin Kim!). It will be a finish for this week. My goals for the coming week are also to sew and quilt the baby quilt top whose pieces I showed last week, sew up all 7 bird blocks in blue for my Lattice Birds top, and baste the Orange Lozenges quilt. I have a mammogram on Wednesday and lots of housework to face during the week sometime. But at least there will be a slow return to normal - or what passes for it - around here. Thanks for dropping by! xo.

Even the Skies are Orange

Because of the fires in California (and probably other places too) over the last week, we’ve had orange, smoke-filled skies here in the Salt Lake Valley. Yesterday was the worst yet because there is also a fire burning in Utah County, just south of this valley. Orange skies might match the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, but it’s something I’d rather do without.

So, I’ve stayed indoors, used eye drops and sewed.  And boy, have I ever been slaying those orange scraps! To see more orange scrap carnage, hop over to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog.

I like to sew these Linked Squares blocks close to the beginning of the month, before I’ve used my scraps for the other project, because they require some larger pieces. I sewed up these two blocks, which completed the last 2 of 20 total blocks. They measure 16.5” each.

And since the planned layout was a simple 4x5 setting, I stitched up the flimsy in no time. It  measures 64x80”. The backing will be a single fabric (rainbow abacus).

But it won’t be basted for at least a couple weeks, because I have 3 flimsies ahead of it to be quilted.

Moving along with the scraps, I sewed up two of the Squared Away blocks. I used orange with brown accents in keeping with the suggested alternate color. I’m saving my darker browns for a limited-color quilt I have planned for wintertime.  As usual, these blocks were fun and the directions were perfect.

Then I checked my plans for the All You Need is Love quilt I’m doing for my daughter. It seems I needed two Friendship Stars and two lollipop blocks. 

And this is how it’s looking so far. It needs some darker blues. I’d love to add some greens in there too, so I foresee some fiddling around with this down the line. After this round is sewn on, there will be a small black and white checkerboard round next, and then a border of 52 pink hearts that I sewed when the RSC color was pink.

After the pink hearts - there HAD to be hearts for All You Need is Love - I have an 8” border to do. I’m torn between doing a round of 8” Sawtooth Stars (do I want more stars?) or two 4” borders of rail fence pinwheels, then bowties. If I do the 8” Sawtooth Stars, the centers could be some of my 4” selvage blocks, or anything for that matter..... I’ll just have to see how it all looks when I get to that point.

I love sewing these quarter log cabin blocks. They sure eat through a lot of scraps and strings. They measure 6” (finished) each. 

And since brown is sort of a footnote color this month, I decided to sew up my brown selvages to clear those out. They made 9 blocks at 6.5” each.

Finally, this month’s hostess for the Block Lotto assigned a block she calls California Poppies. The colors were to be brights (oranges, red, yellow, golds, - poppy colors) with a four green squares running diagonally through the piecing.  Here are my 8 blocks:

All that I have left to do with orange are the bird blocks (2 facing right, 2 facing left) and then my crumb blocks with all the leftovers. My goal is also to begin and even FINISH quilting Groovy Guitars. I’ve been putting it off, I admit it. Where’s that da** magic wand when you need one??

Alfie and Darla have written and entered a post in the annual Pets on Quilts show at Lily Pad Quilting. You can read their post HERE. 

I’m nearing the end (two more posts should do it) of my Africa Travelogue series of posts. Here is the most recent post, #7, which is the conclusion of our Kenyan safari. Lots of great pictures of animals, and the post contains links to all the previous posts. 

Sunrise on the Maasai Mara

Now THAT’S my kind of orange sky!!

In the Pink

It’s been a week of glorious weather here - and so much to do. I didn’t get too much sewing done other than to finish up the fusing of Groovy Guitars (see post HERE), and sew a few pink blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s May color. But there is lots more pink scrappy goodness over at Angela’s RSC linkup. 

So, let’s begin. I have so many pink scraps. Last year I didn’t sew enough of them up, and with adding to them all year I have quite a bit this year. Even my selvages were bulging. So, I was able to make 15 selvage blocks that will finish at 6” square. Plus I still had enough left over to make 3 - 4.5” blocks for some future use (not pictured).

See those really, really wide pink selvages? Those were given to me by Sally over at The Objects of Design. Her supervisor Molly must’ve directed her to cut them generously because I’m the hu-mom of her furry friend Darla. 

Then I worked on the Linked Squares Blocks. I always try to do these first (-ish) because they need larger pieces. Sometimes the larger pieces limit my choices, but overall I was pleased with how they turned out this month.

Even with a flash, my camera seems to take lousy pictures, but maybe they’re slightly better on an individual basis. Mental note: get a new phone/camera before leaving for Africa in July!!

I've touted Pattern Jam many times here on my blog. It’s a free platform for designing quilt patterns using basic blocks in the size of your choice and then calculating the yardage required. Last year they closed down, but were bought up and restarted earlier this year. It was fun to participate in design contests (and win fabric!). And I could use it to figure out patterns to use based on fabric lengths in my stash.

Anyway, with the transition, all my old patterns were lost (except the ones I’d already saved on my own computer), but I have been interested in a pattern of pinwheels and half-square triangles that I’ve seen on Pinterest and Sally’s blog - a pinwheel and HST combination. I wanted to find out a size combo that wouldn’t require measurements in the eighths-of-an-inch (note: fruitless). 

So, I played and came up with Pinwheel Parade, which happened to become the most popular (based on likes or saves or something) pattern of its week in April. Then it became the most popular pattern for the month in April. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing! But it’s sure fun and colorful to look at! Anyone can save, resize and remix this pattern as they wish.

The kicker is that even though the pinwheels and HSTs finish at 4”, the initial cutting is in odd sizes. HA! Never mind; I’ll be rounding up to the nearest whole number after all.

Today cousin Kim and I are going to a quilt show here in the Salt Lake Valley. I’ll do a separate post of pictures later on (hopefully!). Then tonight my son Ryan and his wife Kim and kids are coming over for dinner.  

Ryan, Lauren, Kim (Easton not pictured)

Kim (daughter-in-law Kim, not cousin Kim) and Lauren and I are the three that are going to Kenya together in July. It’s official. We’ve made our reservations and will be talking and sharing plans tonight!  

On Copyrights

As regular readers know, I am in the process of making a quilt whose working title is “Lattice Birds”. It’s a bird block that will alternate with a single Irish Chain to eventually become a queen-sized comforter. With my heightened interest in pieced birds, it’s no surprise that both my Pinterest and Instagram feeds are filled with bird quilt images. And I discovered an interesting controversy last week on Instagram regarding bird patterns.

Way back in January when I introduced my bird quilt project to my readers, primarily the ladies of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge group – our January monthly color was blue, the main color in my quilt – I cited the sources (with links) of my design. Here is a link to my post so I don’t have to repeat it all here.  But I will recap. I needed a 10” bird pattern to dovetail (pun intended because I love them so) with the Irish Chain blocks. I bought Margot Langedouc’s Feathers pattern (8” finished bird) AND found a source online for a 12” bird (I call it the blockhead bird, HERE). The diagram is free, although they charge for the pattern. The reason I’m bringing this all up again is that I do want to clarify:

1.    The bird quilt I’m making is for my own personal use. So whether I use someone’s pattern verbatim or merely as a jumping off point (called “derivative art”), it doesn’t matter.

 2. I recognize that the design elements I changed do not constitute a “new” pattern that I have any rights to. Again, the changes are derivative – based on the original birds. Yes, my birds have shorter tails, the wings are rounded (thanks for that great tip, Sally), the beaks are prairie points set into the seam rather than pieced in. And I like those changes more than either of the above patterns. But they are cosmetic, not substantive.

The fact that Margot was the first to publish a quilt pattern with directions featuring this bird gives her copyright protection. And that is why it was hard to believe that Linzee Kull McCray (@seamswrite on IG) published an identical bird pattern with the addition of piecing that formed small medallions between the birds. She claimed it as her own, and Moda was set to begin distribution. Linzee even acknowledged that her pattern came out months after Margot’s. But to most of us, it was obviously derivative (like mine), not a unique pattern. Well, IG’ers came to Margot’s defense and put pressure on Linzee. To Linzee’s credit, she did the right thing and pulled the pattern. Crisis averted this time.

Anyway, all of this is to say that if you have asked for pattern information on these birds (and several of you have),  I have referred you to the links in my second paragraph above. I don’t own the pattern and have never claimed to.

And while we are on the subject, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve also been doing a block I call “Linked Squares” that I found on Pinterest last fall. The link to the original picture source (a community board on the Missouri Star Quilting Company website) was broken. I tried for weeks, even months, to find a source for this pattern. In the meantime, I figured out the block for myself, in measurements I wanted, and have been making a few each month.

Late in March I was searching for something with the word “Celtic” in it and DID find the pattern, so I want to refer you to it. The pattern is called Celtic Family Ties, and can be found on the Quilting Company website here.  You’re welcome.

Most of us, at least most of my online quilting friends, don’t quilt or make patterns in order to formally publish and make a profit. Yet, when their patterns are shared, it’s usually with the understanding that they will be for personal use. We should all be respectful (and I am speaking as much to myself here as anyone else) to give attribution where we can. If we're creating for our own personal use, we avoid a lot of messy situations. 

Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here on Saturday.

And Even More Sewing O’ The Green!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Spring is coming our way, slowly but surely. We’ve had warm shirtsleeve bike-riding weather this week, as well as snow, rain and wind. Not all on the same day, but even in the same week - well, you know it must be spring. Things are greening up in the yard already. But they’ve been green in my studio all month!

I’m joining in with all the other lassies who are linking up to Rainbow Scrap Saturday over at Angela’s Scrappy Saturday linkup. Why not join us? You may not find a pot o’ gold at the end of our rainbow scraps, but you’ll definitely find some green!  :-)

Here are my Linked Squares blocks. The bottom one was done last year as a test block to see if I’d like it. But I never counted it in my production totals, so it will be counted this month. And just to give you an idea of how old some of these scraps are, you might be able to pick out the carousel horses on hunter green in one of the blocks below. It’s like the nineties threw up all over it, LOL!!

And then we have some green quarter log cabins. These are way too fun and wacky. I’m thinking that a quilt of just QLCs might be a bit wild. Maybe they’ll need to be tamed by an alternate block, like selvages or something.

And the last of my blocks are just the scraps and crumbs blocks. I even threw in some narrow selvages to make these 6.5” blocks. 

Since the selvage blocks (shown last week) and the quarter log cabins and the crumb blocks are all 6.5”, it gives me a lot of design possibilities. Maybe I’ll combine all blocks of one or two colors for a quilt. Or maybe I’ll just do rainbow crumbs. Or rainbow selvages mixed with crumbs. For now, I’ll just keep on sewing the color of the month.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

I got a bike for my birthday, a few days early. Good thing we bought it early so I’d have a chance to ride it at least one afternoon before the aforementioned snow and rain moved in. Unbeknownst to me, while Bruce was cleaning my bike helmet for me and I was testing out the brakes, my brother shot this rather unflattering picture of me. (I’ve given up on ever getting a flattering picture of me at my age ever again).  I’m just concentrating, not scowling. Honest. But I rather like that my gray hair matches my saguaro cactus t-shirt and bike. That’s one out of three. I’ll take it. 

And just to let you know - I’m having a giveaway here on the blog. All the details are on the previous post. Shortcut link HERE.  I’d love for you to join in!

February is Purple!

Participants in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are playing with our purple scraps for the month of February. Our intrepid leader, Angela, has assigned purple and lavender as our focus this month. It never ceases to amaze me how I can pretty much clear out my scraps one year, but by the time that color rolls around the following year, there are so many bits and bobs to play with. This year I’ve been adding in large chunks and fat quarters that have sat unloved or unused in my stash for many, many years. Cue the theme music for Rawhide here as I paraphrase:

“Move ‘em on, Cut ‘em up, 

Ride ‘em in, Head ‘em out...... RAWHIDE!  Our Scraps!

Ye-haw!  Ok. I’m over it now. 

So, purple.

First up were my Linked Squares Blocks. I did three of them this month, using the entire range of purples from red-purples to blue-purples. These blocks finish at 16.

I wasn’t sure how I was liking these until I put all my blocks together. There are the three purples, plus last month’s two blues. What’s with the one green one, you ask? It was the very first test block that I made to see if my pattern was correct. I’ll make more green ones when that color month rolls around. But this gives us an idea of what they will all look like together. I will need 20 total.  

And next I made four 8.5” (unfinished) string blocks for my Never-ending String Quilt that I started back in 2016.

All I have left to do with this string quilt is to make 2 orange blocks (to finish the orange foursome) and then one other large 4-part block in red or green.  This is so close that I may turn it into a monthly goal in March.  

Bruce and I are leaving Thursday to vacation in Arizona with family for a week or two. Our return is rather open-ended because we don’t have to rush home for anything. My brother is staying at the house to take care of the cats. Anyway, I won’t be around for the next couple Saturday link-ups unless I can borrow a relative’s computer. The iPad I’m taking is notoriously useless in Blogger edit mode (it won’t scroll, which they’ve known about for years but have never deigned to fix). So it’s unlikely I will post while I’m gone. But I always take lots of pictures, so I’ll catch you up when I get back.

Happy February!!

Another Blue Saturday

It’s been a good week of seeing family visiting from out of town and getting things done.    The weather has been mild (for a mountain valley winter), with highs averaging in the high forties and no snow.

Bruce and I have taken to mall-walking. We love it! Fashion Place Mall is about a mile from our house, and any time between 7am - 10am when the mall opens, you can find lots of people walking. The mall plays great music and there are two coffee shops that are open and a lot of old-timers congregate there afterwards. There are even parents and grandparents walking babes in strollers. And I love when we run into (metaphorically speaking) someone we know! Once the weather is nice, we’ll switch to walking in the neighborhood and at Wheeler Farm, a block from our house.

Anyway, there was also a lot of sewing happening this week. I have linked up to the Scrappy Saturday blog party and you can see lots of great blue happenings there. January is for our light-to-mid range blue scraps. 

These are my two Linked Squares blocks for January. I saw a quilt with these blocks in it on Pinterest, but there was no linked site or instructions, so I just figured it out on my own. The finished blocks will measure 16” and be set 4x5 in a rainbow quilt. I won’t use sashing, so it  should measure 64x80” when done. I’m thinking it will be a great 2018 start and finish for a donation purposes.

Next I tackled my selvages. Selvages reproduce in the dark, you know. They grow like mint in your garden. You can’t get rid of them. So, I made ten 6.5” squares of light blue selvages. The rest are going into a baggie, and at the end of the year I’ll give them away with my other color selvage leftovers.  

And finally I began some 6.5” quarter square log cabins. I had done several of these last year in mixed colors, trying to alternate light and dark colors. It was a failed experiment, and they reside in the parts department where they will eventually find a home in a donation quilt. In the meantime, here are my ten light blue (with some medium blue) quarter logs:

And since the logs and the selvages are the same size, I had to mix them just to see what that looked like. Hmmmm..... Well, they’re not really meant to go together, and this is still just January. My guess is that I’ll have plenty of both blocks by fall to make separate quilts. 

And then this happened this week...... Starry, Starry Day is a finished flimsy that is sandwiched and ready to be quilted. 

I’ll do that on Bernadette (my Bernina 550QE, returned from her annual “spa” treatment) this week. I haven’t decided on a quilting pattern yet, but I’m leaning toward simple lines or even ditch quilting. I think the only thing that would actually ruin it would be too too much (like matchstick) quilting. 

I’m so excited to have this one nearly complete and am planning on the reveal next weekend.