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 Rainbow Scrap Flimsy and a Finish

Wow, another exciting blog title, LOL.

So this week my main finish was decorating the living room. Most of the furniture arrived on Monday as planned, and everything was squeaky clean and waiting for it.  But wait!  See the Christmas quilt and drawers on the right?  Well, the drawers are now put away (oops); the contractor had to shorten the depth per our drawings so that media cords could fit behind. Done and done. And that Christmas quilt covers the boxes of flooring for the hall. It’s in a good place for now (until January), since the other couch and ottoman will not arrive until then.

Darla is sitting on her Turbo Ball Toy and Alfie is sitting on the couch. Their couch. The cats love it. Thankfully, they prefer to sleep on the folded-up quilt that’s there. And Darla loves that we decorated in her fur colors.  Anyway, the rug isn’t centered and the existing couch may end up on the right wall when the new one arrives. We just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I am searching for a nice large clock (Bruce wants an antique-looking map clock) and other wall items for the large wall on the right which you can’t see. More pictures when everything is really done, in January.

But for now, we are loving our evenings in our respective chairs with tables, lamps (not shown, but they would be in foreground), with the fire going, reading our books or watching TV. That smaller left cabinet is filled with grandkid toys, and the right one now houses our DVDs, turntable, media computer, DVD player, receiver, etc. The speakers will eventually be added to the shelving once they are painted white.

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Another quilt finish! This one is November Rain for my son Ryan’s Christmas present. It, too, is in Darla’s colors, which she asked me to relay. It finished at 67x86 (or was it 83?). Anyway, the quilting is wonky/wavy line quilting and the back is fabric from half a cotton duvet cover from IKEA.

The November Rain Quilt was #10 on my Quarter 4 Finish-Along goals, which is listed HERE.

And I also was able to finish the flimsy for one of my RSC quilts this week. Here is the Improv quilt blocks in green, blue, purple and teal.  It measures 72x72 and has a couple quilts ahead of it in line for quilting..... So it may or may not be finished this month.

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I’ve been trying to grab time to read this week, and the book is Rubbing Stones, pictured below. The author, Nancy Burkey is a longtime friend of mine and this is her first book. Nancy and I were best friends in our high school and early college years. We were in Job’s Daughters together (a Masonic organization for girls) and she was my Maid of Honor at my wedding in 1974. She went on to become an MD (OB-GYN) and then switched her specialty to Psychiatry, which she practiced for nearly 30 years. She is now semi-retired (does some locum tenens) and writes. She uses her psychiatry background in her writing.

The book can be found on Amazon here, which gives a good description of it.  The book is exciting and VERY good, and I am reading slowly, savoring every morsel. I would recommend it as a great read (all the reviews so far are 5-star), even though I’m only 1/4 through!  I’ve bought six hard copies (even though I usually read e-books because I can make the print bigger for my eyes), and lots of my family and friends will be getting copies of it for Christmas.

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Today I will finish up the third kitty quilt - it’s about half quilted now. That will complete the Christmas presents, and the shopping is done. All that’s left is for me to do some grocery shopping and baking. Just a bit; everyone is coming for brunch on the 24th or 25th, so I`m only worrying about those things. Bruce and I have a rib roast together that evening by ourselves.

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog, where the ladies are all finishing up their 2016 quilts. And I will link up to Oh Scrap! too (If I can remember on Sunday!!)

A Rainbow Scrap Finish!

Welcome to another Rainbow Scrap post! Today I get to show off (finally) my sampler for the 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. For the first 10 months of the year, Angela at SoScrappy gave us a new color and a new block pattern and away we went!  My sampler finally got quilted (managed it in one afternoon on my Bernina) and bound this week. It finished at 60x72” and was so much fun!

This quilt is a potential Christmas present for one of my dear step-daughters. She will have a choice of one of three: this RSC sampler, The Birds and Bees quilt, or the Notting Hill Sampler quilt. Anyway, this is backed in a cute hexie and bee print from Connecting Threads, and I noticed that there are actually a couple bee references here and there on the quilt with the fabrics used.

This quilt finish was also one of my Finish Along 4th Quarter Goals.  It was # 7 on my list.
I am also linking up to Angela’s So Scrappy blog for Scrappy Saturday, where everyone is showing their rainbow scrap projects as they finish up. Join us!

Moving right along, here is a promised picture of the black, white and red quilt that my cousin and sewing-partner-in-crime Kim finished (and I quilted) for her sweet granddaughter Zoe.  Zoe is in the picture and is absolutely THRILLED with the quilt. She is such a cutie (and may or may not have shorts on under her T-shirt, LOL). Kim took this picture with her phone and sent it to me, so I was not able to lighten it. Didn’t the quilt turn out beautifully?? Way to go, Colonel Cousin Kimmie!!

I had a blast this week finishing up the piecing on November Rain for my son Ryan. I had said I would do a mid-week post with possible layout ideas, but there were so many blocks and not enough design wall area to making playing around easy. And finally, I decided on the layout that Rob Appel used in his Man Sewing Video shown here.

So, the above picture shows all the blocks pinned and taped on (and over and under) my design wall. Below they are sewn together with a 1” black border and a 4” outer border added. The dimensions are 67x86", and it is slated to be quilted (by me) probably week after next.

It’s not perfect, but I LOVE love love it. It was so much fun playing with color placement and planning, sewing and matching up blocks. In the process I learned a lot about sewing on the bias (it is very forgiving, but you must be careful).  I definitely want to do another one of these quilts again in some outrageous interesting color way.  The backing for this quilt will be half of a duvet cover that Kim bought at Ikea for $10 (in the “as is” bin) - and it is 100% cotton. Those duvet covers have two sides, so using only one was the equivalent of a $5 backing. Small economies sure help when one is cranking out about 10 quilts for Christmas!

And you know I had to bore you fill you in on the remodeling of our living room. The cabinetry, bookshelves, mantel and surround were delivered on Thursday. Jeff will begin installing them this weekend. He has this weekend and next before the furniture arrives on Monday the 12th. Well, part of the furniture. We will get one couch, my chair, the rug and a small end table (to add to the end table and new recliner we already had). The leather couch and ottoman is coming from Italy and is back ordered until mid-January. Our salesperson is checking the warehouse daily for the possibility of someone changing their mind or scheduling later deliveries (meaning we could grab it), but we are resigned to patiently waiting until January. So, as per usual, Christmas seating will be scarce, so we’ll just have to pull in some kitchen chairs.  But there is a silver lining; without the second couch and ottoman, I will have room to place the Christmas tree without wracking my brain.

So here is Alfie on the new hardwood floor (the small part that isn’t covered with drop cloths by the front door).

And here is the current state of affairs. The baseboards are painted and mostly strung across the sawhorses waiting their installation - which is the final thing - in the living room, hallway and back bedroom. Also up on the sawhorses are the (wrapped from the carpenter) crown moldings. Leaning against the fireplace stone is the base of the mantel; the shelf and molding trims are somewhere in that mess. The cabinet bases (rear left) and bookshelves (upside down in left foreground) are ready to be installed. The drawers and shelves are either under the sawhorses or stacked in front (not in picture).

I have no idea how long it takes to install them from this point. Measuring, installing the toe kicks, bracing against the walls, shims and molding and cutting access to electrical on the wall, etc etc. But we’ll take whatever progress we get.

And all this has caused me to re-think the traditional Christmas carols to fit our situation this year.  My favorites include:

Have Yourself a Merry Dusty Little Christmas
O Little Town of Bethlehem House of Construction
Silver Bells Bills
Do You Hear What I Hear? (no change needed, but imagine the air compressor or hammers)
All I Want For Christmas (is my living room)
Away in a Manger the Back Room (no space for TV)
Rudolph Alfie the Nosy Cat-child (had a very frisky day...)

I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you. You’re welcome. Have a great week!

Rainbow Scrap Cats Again

This week I finished the pink litter of kittens with their Mama Cat. It was the final litter for the final kitten quilt. I am making three kitten quilts, and each has six litters.

A litter consists of 1 mama cat and 12 kittens. That means there were 18 litters total in the three quilts; 18 mama cat (12” blocks) and 216 kitten blocks (6”).  All were pieced this year as part of my personal use of scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

This is the only kitten quilt with yellow, and I think it adds a real bright, happy punch to the mix. I am thrilled to have the flimsy done. There are a couple yards left of the blue cat fabric that I backed the other 2 quilts with. This quilt will use that and some pink polka-dot fabric for the back.  It will be basted and quilted in a couple weeks.

And then yesterday I started piecing the final Christmas quilt. This will be for my son Ryan. All the rest of my Christmas quilts are either done or to the flimsy stage; some are basted and ready to quilt, some are not. But this one was just a couple jelly rolls until yesterday afternoon.  Anyway, these are the light and medium light strips in the set. The rest of the mediums and the darks are yet to come, and I plan for them to be more to the outside of the quilt. We’ll see how that goes. I’m calling it November Rain, because the colors remind me of November, and Ryan used to love (and still does) the music of Axl Rose (Guns ’n Roses) and their song November Rain. So there you have it.

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I have pieced 16 blocks of the 48 needed.  I put 4 black 1.5” strips and 5 colored 2.5” strips side by side and sewed them into a lengthwise strip set. From that I am able to cut out 3 14.25” squares. Two of those squares are placed right sides together, one with stripes running up and down, the other with stripes running across. Then they are sewn together on all 4 sides with a 1/4” seam. Finally, they are cut diagonally (X) and it yields four individual blocks. I am using the 1.5” black stripes at the ends (and a couple in the middle), and that really sets off the contrasting colors and directions. I am going to have a lot of fun playing with these blocks to come up with a final placement. Expect a post on that later in the week.

And if you missed my last post (because it was mid-week and not a Saturday), I finished my orange peel quilt for my DDIL. You can see it here.

I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog. If you mosey on over there, you will see lots of colorful eye candy as we all sew our little fingers to the bone trying to finish in time for Christmas.