A Rainbow Recap for 2016

I have had such a blast this year participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If you sew or quilt, you might want to consider joining us in 2017.  It’s run by Angela of So Scrappy, and every Saturday she holds a linky party where we show our progress. Today’s linky party is HERE.

Here’s how the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) works: At the beginning of every month, Angela assigns a new color for us to work with. We dig through our  scrap piles, boxes, bags, drawers, etc. and set to work.  You can pick what you want to create: blocks with a purpose, blocks with a purpose yet undetermined, quilts or anything your heart desires. The best part is that you go at your own pace. There are no minimums or guidelines or accountability. Angela posts a linky party every Saturday morning on her blog, and you can post (or not) as your progress dictates. And you get to visit others’ work, get ideas, make new friends and generally just have fun.

Also, there is an optional quilt-along where a block design is given monthly by Angela (with the finished product being another one of her stunning quilt ideas!). Again, that’s optional.

So, think about it for 2017, mmmmkay?

And since the end of the year is virtually upon us, I figured this is a good time to recap my quilt makes for this year.  Some are Rainbow Scrap quilts (and I will show the flimsies that still need to be quilted too), and some are “other” quilts - mostly gifts. Ready?

RAINBOW QUILTS AND FLIMSIES

First are the three Mama Cat & Kittens quilts I made for my three granddaughters. Each quilt is a litter consisting of a 12” Mama Cat (my pattern, write me if you’d like a copy) surrounded by 12 - 6” kittens. The kitten block is a pattern by Sally T (visit her blog and check it out under her Tutorials tab) and it inspired the whole idea. Thanks, Sally!  These quilts finished at 52x72” each. 

OOPS!! I  just noticed that one of them (on the left) has a 2” white border down the center that the others do not! So, let me correct that to say two of them finished at 52x72” and the third finished at 54x72”. 

And in 2016 I also chose to participate in the RSC Sampler, since I didn’t have the skill set needed to do it in 2015. (Really, I tried and failed miserably). But this year I did it! Thanks, Angela, for great patterns and inspiration. 

RSC Sampler Quilt, 60x72"

The following three Rainbow Scrap projects are still in the FLIMSY (top only) stage except for the one I just basted (see captions)

RAINBOW DRESDENS - still a flimsy

Rainbow Rails (Vintage Sheets) - basted this one on Thursday

Rainbow Improv in Cools

I also have improv blocks in pink, yellow, orange and red that will be pieced into a WARM version of the improv quilt above. The sashing will be white or gray. That will finish up in first quarter 2017.

Finally, I have 90 blocks of 16-patch blocks; colors with black and white measuring 8.5” unfinished.  They will be set 9x10, yielding a quilt 72x80”. Also planned for 1st quarter 2017.

 OTHER QUILTS & WALL HANGINGS

In no particular order, here are the rest of the quilts I finished this year:

Aria Quilt.  October, 86x103"

Seeing Red, February, 58x76"

Valentine Quilt, January, 62x62"

Birds & Bees, April, 56x64"

Magic Carpet, November, 75x89"

Cityscape Wall Hanging, April, 48x54"

Notting Hill Sampler, September. 58x72"

Petals, November, 64x75"

November Rain, December, 67x83"

Cozy Christmas, December, 58x71"

Big Game, December, 62x74"

 Totals were: 15 quilts, 3 flimsies and blocks for 2 more flimsies. Not a bad haul!

This week we attended Bruce’s Christmas Party. He works at The Leonardo, a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) museum in Salt Lake. Anyway, they had an Ugly Sweater contest and Bruce won the $200 first prize (hooray!). His sweater? Butt Ugly. We got him an ugly blue thrift store sweater from the ’90’s. Then he set about crafting it to look like it was a Bruce History of 30+ years. We captioned the additions with names and “dates”.  Burnt hole - check (“Great Aunt Mabel, 1986”), Mustard stain - check! Half-smoked doobie - check (it was really just cotton rolled in toilet paper, then burnt), BBQ sauce stain - check! Dead mouse - check (an old cat toy. He wanted the mouse on there because in their Tech Take-apart museum activity, they actually found an old desiccated mouse in a computer last month). Baby poop - check (not real, of course), Chewed gum - check! Cheetos - check! Peanut butter - check! Axle grease - check!  ETC ETC....  Between the way it looked, the IDEA of it, and the smell (axle grease, mustard and BBQ sauce together, ugh!) it was so ugly on so many levels.

Next Saturday I’ll be talking about my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects planned for 2017 - and there are several. After all, scraps come in strips, itty bitty pieces, chunks, etc. So that is how I sorted possibilities, then narrowed down from there. What are you doing next year for RSC, and how did you make your decisions?

A Quilt Finished, A Living Room Unfinished

What is a living room called when you don’t live in it? It’s just another room, or in our case, a Room Under Construction.  I knew it wouldn’t be done by Thanksgiving, but I still have my fingers crossed for Christmas.

What I forgot about, however, is that instead of hosting Thanksgiving for our family (kids are married and go to in-laws, etc), we have Fiesta. Fiesta is on the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving, and everyone comes for Mexican Food (so, by the end of the month, we are sick of turkey leftovers AND Mexican food leftovers, LOL). But there will be no Fiesta this year. Because....

Yes, Alfie is inspecting (lower right)

This picture was taken a week ago. It took our contractor the better part of a working day to level out the sub-floor (long story having to do with the height of the cement base of the former hearth). But after this picture, he was able to get about 25% of the hardwood flooring down. The cats love to thunder around on this floor (subfloor and the new hardwood); their toys roll really well. This weekend we hope the living room flooring will be done and then we are expecting the custom cabinets and mantel to arrive, all of which will flank and surround the fireplace. That means Thanksgiving weekend will see a lot of activity of the construction variety, if not the family celebration variety.

In between painting the hallway walls, trim and doors (ongoing), I did manage to sew another litter of cats this week; the penultimate litter. Green. Now there is just one pink litter left to sew before Kitty Quilt #3 can be assembled. Why not join us over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog for Scrappy Saturday? The participants of this year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge are all putting together their rainbow quilts!

If we ever have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge Slumber Party, Sally and I will be the ones sewing these kitties in our sleep!

This week I also finished a quilt. The quilting on Magic Carpet took For.Ev.Er. (It finished at 75x84”). After looking at several pictures of other finished quilts online, I realized that the color choices and piecing pattern would dictate what stood out and what receded, so I just  ended up choosing some basic quilting styles for each color.

I am not crazy about the lines on the bright pink, but they are staying. Other than that, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.  Below is a detail shot of some of the quilting I did. Keep in mind that I am a quilting hack. But practice makes better, and I’ve been getting a lot of practice lately. This quilt is also a finish for my Finish Along 2016 Quarter 4 goals. My list is here, and this is #5 on my list.

Now I am working on the quilt for my DIL Kim. I got half of it quilted yesterday and plan to finish the quilting (and maybe the binding) today.  This is also a Christmas present. I’ll do a separate finish post for this one later this week.

On Wednesday, my cousin Kim came over and we basted two quilts; the above orange peel and my RSC Sampler. I will start quilting the sampler this week and hope to finish it. If I can do that, I will begin on the final litter of pink kitties and baste my Cozy Christmas quilt this week.  Luckily, my new 25-yard roll of batting arrived last week, so I am good to go for the season.  :-)

I am on track to finish everything in time for Christmas gift-giving. Christmas presents for family will be quilts and gift cards, so that is covered. Presents for friends and neighbors are jars of apricot jam, prepped last summer. Nothing to decorate for Christmas (except put up a tree? that would be nice....)  So, all I need to do is keep the house relatively tidy and SEW. Not a bad prospect....

What a Week!

Thank goodness it’s over!  The week, that is. You may remember from my last post that I had a “procedure” scheduled for Monday. Oh heck, we’re all adults here...... it was a colonoscopy. After my weekend of fasting, the procedure finally took place on Monday at 2-ish. Missing the food was not the worst of it. Neither was the frequent trips to the bathroom. The worst was drinking the POISON - a solution that can be best described as warm seawater. But the results were perfect, and I don’t have to do THAT again for ten years!

And if that wasn’t enough crap (literally and figuratively), the election was on Tuesday. The results, to most of us, are devastating. Talk about CRAP. And by “most”, I mean the majority of voters (because H won the popular vote), educated women, minorities of any variety, and the rest of the peace-loving world. My daughter (age 30) called me, crying. My neighborhood friend’s daughter (age 24) called her, crying. Bruce’s co-workers (many are gay or minorities) were in a deep funk on Wednesday. We are still trying to come to terms with what this means for us going forward.
End of political discussion. I just deleted a paragraph of rant here. You’re welcome.  

So, back to why we're REALLY here - faaaaabric and those wonderful things we do with it!

I didn’t get much sewn this week, but I did finish the litter of purple kitties from last week. That is 4 litters down, two to go on the third and final Kitty Quilt.  As this is a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, I am linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday party. Swing by and see all our rainbow projects coming together!

I also got the green and black borders sewn onto this pre-printed panel from Pattern Jam that I bought a year ago. Our son-in-law Mike is a hunter and this has his name written all over it.  The backing is pieced and it's ready to be quilted (behind several others in line!) And yes, I realize I need to pay more attention to how I pin quilts up on my design board. Sorry for the waves, LOL.

I finally began quilting the Magic Carpet quilt last night. After a false start that required some frog stitching (rippit, rippit), I decided on some basic stippling for the blue sections. The quilting on all the colored squares will be simple and medium to large scale. I don’t want to interfere with their color punch. The black bits will probably be X’ed or ???

I am not enjoying the quilting of this one, mainly because of all the stops and starts, changing thread colors, etc. I just want to put the pedal to the metal and stitch because I have so many quilts to do. But I am being patient, though it’s hard.

As far as my Christmas quilts go, there is only one left to start, and that is for my son Ryan. I have a jelly roll of Black Tie Affair by Basic Grey, plus lots of light and dark neutrals and some matching yardage for a border. Originally, I was going to do a Ribbon Star (MSQC) pattern, but decided it was too much background, and the stars were too cutesy for my athletic son. So now, the four patterns I’m considering are below, and they’re all in fabric colors or lines that are similar to what I’m working with. Which one do you like? I’m leaning to the strings one in the upper left (a la Three Dudes quilting).

One of the projects I’ve set for myself for 2017 is to make and contribute small kennel quilts to charities. These quilts are for cats and/or small dogs and measure approximately 12x18”. To find a local charity, I contacted our local Best Friends Shelter, a no-kill shelter and organization from whom we adopted Alfalfa and Darla two years ago. They were enthusiastic about the kennel quilts, and indeed accept quilts of all sizes for not only the kennels, but for fostering families and other uses. My cousin Kim and her granddaughter Trinity and I will begin sewing these in January. Our goal is to complete and donate at least a half dozen per month. Here are some kitty fabrics I ordered just for the fun of it, but any fabric will do, of course.

Along with the fabric I got a great new book, Modern Selvage Quilting by Riel Nason. I ordered it because I was having difficulty finding a pattern to use my selvages for. After getting the book (and seeing what she has coming in 2017 - a book of Halloween selvage patterns!), I am now having trouble narrowing it down, LOL.  But I think this quilt, pictured below, will be a great one to use for my selvage RSC project in 2017.  I will do it as a column quilt, working on one color - two columns - per month. The selvages themselves can be multi-colored (which will allow me to continually collect them), while the alternating solid pieces can be sewn in the color of the month. And those solid-color pieces can be one piece or scrappy/crumby. A solution that really works for me!

Finally, in remodeling news, the living room is fully painted, with new outlet and vent covers installed. The hallway is getting its second coat of Agreeable Gray today by yours truly.  Then, since Sunday is Sewing Day, on Monday I will start painting all the hall doors and door trim white. The baseboards will be replaced along with the baseboards in the living room. But unlike the living room, the hallway will not have crown molding.

All our living room furniture is moved out; we have temporarily relocated  the TV and Bruce’s recliner to the library/music room (our back bedroom). I have the futon to curl up on. It’s cozy, but the cats think we are crazy. So what else is new. The living room carpet comes up today, and the old ceiling lights are coming out and new can lights are being installed.  Our cabinetry may be done as early as next week, but if it’s the week after, that’s OK. In the meantime, the hall painting needs to be finished (me) and floor laid (contractor). Once the flooring in the living room is done, we will move the recliner (etc) back while the flooring moves down the hall and into that back bedroom. Such fun; musical furniture. And we are still on track for the new furniture delivery on or around December 7-8. And padded white cells shortly thereafter.

Quarter 4 Finish-Along Goals

I’m running out of time to list my 4th quarter goals for the 2016 Finish-Along, so here I am sliding in under the wire by a day or two.

Last quarter I only finished one of my four goals, and I even did a post about it (my Notting Hill quilt, here). But then I forgot to link up to the 3rd Quarter Linky Party. Just so much going on....  But I am determined to stick to the program, LOL.  Without further ado.....

1.   Aria Quilt
Edited to add: Finished. Post is HERE.

This finish didn’t make it into last quarter, but only by a few days. I got it back on Oct. 3 or so, then trimmed and bound it. It is now done, but I will do an official post about it next week.

2.  Cat Quilt for Remington
Edited to add: Finished. Post is Here.

The below quilt, pictured when it was just basted, is almost ready to be revealed. It will be shown in its own post later this month.

3.  Cat Quilt for London.
London’s quilt is basted and will be quilted by me this weekend. Reveal post will be after numbers one and two.
Edited to Add:  Finished. Post is Here.

4.  Cat Quilt for Abbie - right now it’s just a pile of cat squares; you can actually check back on my blog to see the yellow litter (yellow is not in either of the above quilts).  This was a later addition to my Must Make Cat Quilts because I didn’t know until last month that Abbie was in love with cats!!
Edited to Add:  Finished. Post is  HERE.




5.  Magic Carpet Quilt for Shane
Edited to Add:  Finished.  Post is HERE.

This quilt top was so much fun to piece! It’s ready to be basted and quilted.

6.  Vintage Sheet Rainbow Rail Fence

This top is also pieced and ready to be basted and quilted. I’d wanted to do a vintage sheet quilt for a long time, so used this year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge as an opportunity to work with my sheet scraps. I rather like it!

7.   Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
Edited to add: Finished!  Post is Here.

This one is a column-along quilt. The tenth and final column will be a yellow one which I’ll sew up as soon as it’s announced. Not pictured are the red, green and gray columns, and the blue column is folded up at the foot of the teal and pink columns.

8.   Christmas Quilt for Mike
Edited to add: Finished! Post is HERE.

This is a deer-themed printed quilt top from Pattern Jam. The green and black polka dots will be thin and thick borders. The newsprint fabric will be the backing. This will be for one of my dear sons-in-law Mike, who is a hunter.  My other SIL is on assignment overseas, so he will get a quilt next year.

9.  Petals for Kim
Edited to add:  Finished! Post is HERE. 

My daughter-in-law Kim picked out the pattern and the Bonnie & Camille fabrics. These orange peels need to be machine appliquéd to the blocks, then stitched together, etc. Should be a quick and easy make for Christmas.

10. Ryan’s Manly Quilt.
Updated to add: Finished!  Post is HERE.

Unlike my artist son Shane (who picked out the colors of his Magic Carpet quilt above), Ryan is more comfortable with darker, more sedate colors. This fabric is Black Tie Affair by Basic Grey for Moda.

11.  Cozy Christmas
Updated to add: Finished! Posted HERE.

Right now I’m participating in the Cozy Christmas Quilt Along. I plan to finish all four blocks, the borders, etc. and give it as a Christmas present.

This quarter, I am confident that I will finish at least 80% of this list, as they are slated as Christmas gifts.  Then I can start the new year with very little on my plate!!  YAY!!

I’m linking up to the 4th Quarter Goals for the 2016 Finish Along. Why not hop over and see what others have planned?

And Just Like That..... It’s October!

Another month means another color at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. But since today is just the first of October, all I have is a recap of my reds in September and a recap of my busy sewing week.  But you can join us over at So Scrappy to see what everyone else is up to!

Well, this isn’t really everything, but it will do.  There were actually THREE litters of red cats, two of which have been sewn with other colors into quilt tops. More on that in a moment.  Last week I showed you my red Dresden, and all the other colorful Dresdens pinned up on my design wall.  With the final block for October, the top will be complete.

In the lower left of the above picture, you can see four 8” strip blocks I made from reds. Those are going to join the two blue and one pink that I made earlier in the year; strip blocks will be one of my projects for 2017.  Then (bottom right) there are the 10 16-patch blocks, bringing my total to 90, and finally (center, with dark background) the 8 - 8” improv blocks I made. I love red and white. Maybe I should just mix all the red and white blocks together and make a red and white quilt!

So.... last week I showed you one of the pieced Kitten quilts. Here’s a memory refresh.

That quilt is still awaiting basting. But, I did piece the second quilt and basted it. That one is here (lying on the floor, pathetically), posing for a Picture of Proof.

The third quilt is in process and so far only has a red litter. This month I hope to piece as many of the remaining litters as I can; yellow, green, purple, pink and blue.

And speaking of purple, pink and blue, I got my son Shane’s Christmas Quilt top pieced this week. Shane picked the colors and pattern himself. It is called Magic Carpet by Christina Cameli. I tweaked the pattern in two places. First I enlarged the squares along the top and bottom so they are square (pattern has them as rectangles). Then I added a 3” black border on every side so that the squares float against the black. The flimsy measures 75"x89”.

Each color will be quilted with a matching thread (or black for the darkest purple). Not sure how I want to do it yet as I would like to keep the squares visually advancing. Any ideas or suggestions appreciated. I've been searching out what others have done and with the exception of 1-2, I’ve not been gobsmacked by any.....  Not that I could replicate any brilliant quilting anyway, but I do want to at least give it a try. The kitten quilts, on the other hand, will get simple loops or stippling.

So, from here on out until Christmas, my goal is to baste one quilt and quilt one quilt every week (not necessarily the same one, LOL). And in addition to that I need to keep up with the RSC (this is the last of the new colors for the year) and get the tops sewn of the remaining Christmas quilts. 

Oh, I also sewed this little guy this week. Mr. Cozy Gingerbread Man is block #7 of 12, so I am still on course there.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Finally, I plan to have some demolition pictures in my next post (either mid-week or next weekend). The demolition last weekend was minor; we (our general contractor and the fireplace guy) needed to see what they were dealing with, so only removed the fugly brass surround and knocked out a few bricks. We have now ordered the fireplace insert, and it will be installed on October 21. 

As it turns out, the brick along the entire end wall of the living room that we thought was a brick veneer is actually whole bricks - and stuck right to the exterior brick of the home. Weird. So, the protruding hearth/bench will be the only part that is demolished.  When the built-in cabinets on either side of the new fireplace (which will be more centered) are built, they  shouldn’t portrude out into the room much more than the existing bench. And once those are done, the place can be painted and the flooring laid. 

We have ordered the flooring already, as it will take a couple weeks to arrive and then need to acclimate itself in the living room (still in boxes) for a couple weeks. It’s going to be a lovely Thanksgiving! Not. But we are shooting to be done by early December. 

So, this week, the bench will be ripped out. The contractor will hang plastic to protect the rest of the house from dust (as if). Over the next three week he’ll build the false wall, run electrical, etc. Bruce and I are going to pick out the tile for the fireplace surround, and I have to sit and design a rough sketch of the the shelving and cabinets we want for the carpenter to begin his design process with. I do have a background in design (and did design our existing kitchen), so it will not be a problem. Yeah, I am Crazy by Design....

I am really enjoying this process! I’m learning a lot and have no reason to dust or vacuum the living room, LOL!

Quarter Three Finish Along Goals

Hi! I’ve been so busy for the past two weeks, I sometimes don’t know if I’m coming or going.
I will share some pictures below, but first I want to list my goals for the 3rd Quarter Finish Along. The Finish-Along is hosted by several lovely ladies who work their tails off to coordinate our goals with our finishes, hosting link-ups and gathering prizes from so many fantastic sponsors. If you have never looked into this, try the linky in my sidebar or go HERE to see the 3rd Quarter Goals of the many participants.

Without further ado, here are my goals:

1.  Shane’s Magic Carpet.
You’ve seen it in my goals before, but hopefully this will be the last time before I finish it. I intend to work more on finishing quilts this quarter rather than starting any more.

2. Notting Hill Quilt.
This project has always been to add 2 blocks per month to what I had at the beginning of the year. I have sixteen completed and plan to do 2 in July and 2 in August. It then just needs to be sashed, quilted, bound.

3.  Aria Quilt.
The blocks and rows are all sewn, and about half of them are sewn together. A good hour would allow me to finish this top. I will have to piece a border and backing with all the leftover fabrics. I plan to send this ASAP to a professional quilter because it will be a queen bed-sized. If I hurry, I can get it back by the end of the quarter.

4. and 5.  Cat Quilts.
I have 8 litters made. Each litter is a 24x24” square consisting of a 12” mama cat in the middle surrounded by twelve 6” kittens. The litters will be set 2x3 with sashing and should finish about 54x74”.  The two quilts will have some different colors, so when I finish, you’ll be able to see that they are actually two separate quilts. I have some cute cat fabric to back both of them. They’ll be Christmas presents for the 2 granddaughters who are cat crazy like their grandma.

6. Farm Girl Quilt.
This one has been on and off my lists for a year. I have enough blocks to finish the quilt in a 7x7 setting. (By the way, see the new watermelon block? I just made that at the Farm Girl Retreat last wee - more about that below).

The problem here is that I was really a beginner last year when I started these. Yes, I had been quilting for 2.5 years at the time, but I had never learned the finer points of flying geese, measuring 1/4” seams, etc.  The blocks range from 12” to 12.5” finished, in various eighth-inch increments.  I hope I’m up to the challenge of fudging on the sashing to make up the differences. And I think cornerstones would accentuate the issue, so those are out for sure. We will see how it goes. Needless to say, I am much more careful on getting my blocks more accurate. It’s a continual challenge...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Last week we had another Farm Girl Retreat at Thimbles and Threads with Lori Holt. This was called our Instagram Farm Girl Retreat  (#igfarmgirlvintageretreat) because we were there to greet our friend Cathy (Tazzie) Purdon from New Zealand, who is visiting the USA for 5 weeks. So the whole IG group of friends was there, as well as some of Lori’s “peeps” - her personal group of crazy and delightful friends. There were 22 of us, including teacher Lori and guest of honor Cathy.

At the retreat, Lori introduced four new blocks (coming soon) and her Farm Fresh Quilt Pattern (now available at the Fat Quarter Shop). It was pure craziness and laughter with all these women. Beth B (@kitqueen) made everyone their own IG block. Isn’t it cute? She has the most infectious laugh! And several other ladies, including Lori, passed out gifts for everyone.

Here is Lori and Cathy P just as they were presented with the USA Flag Blocks that each of us made for them. They will each have enough (signed) quilt blocks to make their own quilt.

Lori Holt and Cathy Purdon

L-R: Cathy K, Betty, Kristie, Rae Anne, Suzanne

Joanna Cotton and me

Can you believe this amazing dress (below) that Cynthia Horst (@dreamquiltcreate) made for herself from selvages?!?

I met some incredible ladies and had a blast. Yes, I did feel totally out of my league, but as always, I learned a lot and made new friends. It was wonderful, and I was certainly humbled to have been invited.

Finally, apricot season is here. If hubby and I are not out picking apricots (and cleaning up our and our neighbor’s yards from them), we are dehydrating them or I’m making jam or freezing quart after quart..... It looks like an apricot tornado in my kitchen. And did I mention that my daughter Megan is visiting from Seattle this week??

And then there are the contractors. Today they measured for new sliding shutters for our sliding glass doors. The rain gutter/soffit contractors will be here Tuesday to do their repairs and install heat tapes. DH has just about finished making the new porch pillar bases (they are 3/4 installed), so I will be painting the pillars next week. And I have a month to paint the kitchen (and get someone in to paint its ceiling). The shutters arrive 3rd week of August, as does the custom light fixture we are having made from a woodworker on Etsy. Once the kitchen is done, the living room demolition will start. And somewhere in there will be vegetables to harvest with grapes following after that.

At least I’m not bored!!