Roll Out the RED Carpet!

Roll out the red carpet, because it’s red month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  Woo-hoo! I’ve been waiting for red for months because my red stash keeps growing and growing.

Last month was a sort of “color rest” month for me, and it gave me a chance to finish up or greatly advance a lot of the projects that I want to have done by year-end. But before I get to those, let me show you my start on Red. It’s not much, as the announcement was just made last night. But it is a good start, and I`m excited (did I say that already?)

My Dresden and Mama cats are already cut out (in the foreground). The rest of the scraps have been sorted by HSTs, strips, and size of scrap. No, that is not all of them - that is just one tub. I have almost another dozen partial FQs or F8s.

There will be no red vintage sheets this month, because I have never seen or collected them. The Vintage Sheet Rail Fence quilt I am making is mostly pastels, so I took last month as an opportunity to sew up the last color - yellow - into 11 rail fence blocks. And then, before I knew it, the top of the quilt was pieced.

I’ve also pieced a back out of miscellaneous pastel floral fabrics, and it is waiting its turn in line to be basted and quilted.

I finished my Aria quilt top and backing. Here is a picture of it lying on the floor before the borders were added. It’s a monster; 86x103”

This one was delivered to the long-armer last week to be quilted. The binding is made and waiting for the quilt to return, which may or may not be before the end of the month. We’ll see. There was no way I was going to attempt this one on my Bernina.

But I am quilting the Notting Hill quilt. I decided that, being a sampler, an overall quilting design would probably not be the best choice. So, I am quilting each block individually, even though many of those individual designs may be simple and repeats (like stippling, loops, etc). Here is a portion of what I have done so far.

Now, if it seems like I’ve done a lot, please remember that this is just the time of year when things start coming together. Most of the actual sewing work has been done month after month. In fact, I only have 5 finishes year-to-date through August. So the three above that are so close will bring me to the one finish per month average.

And this week I also did another block for the Cozy Christmas sew-along hosted by Lori Holt. This week was the Cozy Tree Block. I have sewn my three blocks together, added the sashing, and here is the first row.

And finally, I cut out two new quilts that will be Christmas presents this year. The first is Magic Carpet for son Shane (see info here in my 3rd Quarter Finish-Along goals) and the second is for my DDIL Kim (who is married to my other son, Ryan).  

This will go quickly, because they will be machine appliquéd to the background, not hand appliquéd. And cutting out those orange peels gave me lots more red scraps, too.  :-)  There will be a quilt for my son Ryan, too, but I won’t start that until October.  And I hope to do another Christmas quilt and a Christmas tree skirt, but those are likely just pipe dreams for this year. As you can tell, I am banking on having a lot more sewing time once the garden and outdoor work are done and indoor weather returns.

I’m linking up today to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Why not hop over and check out some other great eye candy?


SaveSave

First Finish of 2016

I actually finished this quilt (which I’ve dubbed Seeing Red) several days ago, but finally gave up on getting some decent weather in which to take a picture.  I’m not particularly thrilled with it - just not my colors or style. It was a quick sew for my brother-in-law whose favorite color is red. We are taking it to him when we visit him in Arizona next month.

The “batting” is just flannel, and there is not too much quilting on it; just ditch quilting, squares outlined and a couple vertical rows of quilting in each square. He just doesn’t like fussy stuff.

The main red and gray fabrics I bought on clearance earlier this month, when our LQS Thimbles and Threads was trying to clear out stuff for their big move into their lovely new building. The rest was just stuff I had on hand. The backing is a navy field with white coffee beans on it, as Dennis looooooves his coffee. So while it will never be anywhere my favorites list, it is so Dennis, and that is what matters.

This is finish #1 on my first quarter list for the 2016 Finish Along.  I’m linking up to my first quarter goal list here.

And how about something cute?

Darla, the girl with the polka dot tummy

Darla (above) loved the old green woven rug I had in front of the refrigerator. Every morning she would lay on it, rolling around back and forth and meowing (the only time she ever vocalizes). Back and forth, back and forth, rolling and meowing. It reminded me of the “Roll in Ze Hay” scene from Young Frankenstein, so we called it her roll-y song. When I finally replaced the hole-y roll-y rug (sorry, couldn’t resist) with this red one, Darla was not happy. She wouldn’t go near it for a couple days. Finally, she relented and began rolling on the new rug! Sometime I’ll have to take a video instead of just pictures .... But the new refrigerator is being delivered next week, so I expect there’ll be some more adjustments for Her Highness.

Meantime, Alfie is being his lovey, looney self. Here is is below, rubbing on my sewing machine to let me know that it’s ready for me to begin.

Alfie

And that’s about it. I’m currently working on my valentine quilt from old stash fabrics. I would like to finish that one in January as well. We’ll see.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of my Rainbow Scrap January Blue blocks. And the results of my “fabric diet” for the month.

Quilty hugs,
Cathy

Sewing a Blue Streak

I hate blue. At the beginning of this never-ending month, I loved it. But I have been sewing like the wind. Sidebar: Have you ever seen the movie “Three Amigos”?  Martin Short, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase were in it. They encourage a tiny old-time western town to save itself from the coming bad guy, El Guapo. But the townspeople’s only skill is sewing. So, he has them sew a big phony backdrop of the desert to hide the town behind. And sewed they did! He ran around encouraging them to “Sew Like the Wind!”. You can see the little clip here.

OK, so I really do like blue, but I am just OVER it for this month. However, I have more blocks to show you this week.  Next week I’ll just do a recap of my RSC blocks for the month as well as other sewing projects I hope to have completed. But I digress....

The three Dresden blocks are done.  They were machine-stitched onto a 20.5” pink or yellow background.

But first I had to back the doilies with a solid cotton circle. And because one of the doilies was age-stained in the center (and I had unsuccessfully to completely remove it), I decided to add yo-yos (Suffolk Puffs) to the very center. The yo-yos will match the block color.  I may do a tutorial on how I did all that some time.

I was going to work with my selvages this week, but just couldn’t decide how I wanted to use them. After much online research, I sat down to piece and realized that I really didn’t have enough to work with. That’s OK; I will table that project until next year. There is plenty on my plate without it.

So all that was left for me to do was to sew up the chunks and bits and leftovers.  From them I made 10 - 8.5” (unfinished) blocks.  I still had some blue fabric left over, but not much (probably about a fat quarter’s worth total in 4-5 prints; not enough for any variety).

Then I got this idea to pin up the ten 8.5” crumb slabs with the ten 8.5” 16-patches from last week. CHAOS. It is a certain bet that THEY will not be playing together in any future quilts!!

Once the blue was (finally) done, I turned to Seeing Red, the ugly monstrosity that I have pieced for my brother-in-law (although I didn’t intend for it to be so ugly). My trusty feline supervisors, Alfalfa and Darla were of enormous assistance.

Here is a BEFORE shot, as I had just laid down the quilt backing on the dining area floor:

Then I ran downstairs to my studio to get painters tape and the batting. When I came up, it was very clear that the supervisors had completed their inspection:

But somehow I managed to finish basting it, which was my only sewing goal of the day (I had to clean the floor first, no small feat).

Today I’ll start quilting it. As a break from quilting, I can finish piecing the Valentine Disappearing Nine-Patch (D9P).

I hope to have them both done before the end of the month, so I can get busy with February’s color as soon as it’s announced. We’ll be on vacation for a good part of February, so I need to get right on it!

Looking forward to seeing more scrappy BLUE goodness? Why not join us at So Scrappy for Scrappy Saturday? Participants from all over this blue planet are linking up their projects!!

Until next time,

Scrappy Blue Saturday; The Cat Edition

Welcome to Scrap Happy Saturday!  We are continuing with blue for the month of January for our 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Everyone links up over at Angela’s blog, So Scrappy.  We invite you to check out all the great blue eye candy!

First up: cats.  I adore Sally’s kitten pattern, so decided I had to make a litter.  But before they were all even born, they began mewing for a mom. So I drafted a Mama Cat pattern and sewed them up a mom. I didn’t like any of the patterns I found online because they either had weird ears or no tail or no paw or were just otherwise unsatisfactory.

To Sally’s kitten block I added a strip at the top so that the blocks came to an even 6.5 x 6.5” unfinished (6” finished).  Mama cat is 12” finished, so I decided that this setting (above) was perfect. All sewn together it measures 24.5 x 24.5”.  So, nine colors should make a nice 72x72” quilt.  That way I can skip a color if I don’t have enough scraps.

Here are my Mama Cat pieces cut and laid out on my mini design boards.  Yes, one of the boards has a cat fabric border. 

If you like the Mama Cat pattern and would like a copy, let me know. I’ve written it up in pdf format and can email you a copy. Feel free to share. 

I had enough large scraps to do three Dresdens, but they are not yet appliquéd to blocks. It took me forever, auditioning all sorts of background fabrics, to decide what I wanted to do. The point was to use my existing stash. Eventually I decided to stick with Plan A, which is to to use pink and yellow background squares. I’ll make as many Dresdens as each color’s scraps allow and alternate between putting them on pink or yellow backgrounds. I hope to have enough by the end or the year to make two quilts - one pink and one yellow (backgrounds). 

 

I saw a Dresden quilt on Pinterest where the maker had used old doilies for the centers, so I am going to borrow that idea (see below). 

Each doily will need to be backed first so the centers are solid. I have some white linen I may use for that. Altogether, there are about 18 or so doilies. I'll have to dig deeper to find more. There are bins of linens I need to go through - things that will eventually make it into my Etsy shop.  :-)

In addition to cats and Dresdens, I made 10 scrappy 16-patch blocks using my 2.5” squares. There are 12 squares of color in each, with for black and white patches in the center. I will continue making these and figure out a use for them later in the year.....

I also squared up and pressed over 160 blue and white HST’s for heaven-knows-what. But I will make HSTs every month and throw them in the box with those. 

And last but not least (well, they probably ARE the least) for this week are the miscellaneous blocks I either dredged up or sewed. The top tiny Dresden is a vintage piece I found in with my vintage blocks (more about that some other time). There are three strip blocks; 2- 8.5” blocks that I did straight instead of slanted (what was I thinking?), and one that is slanted strips @ 6.5”. The other two 6.5” blocks are left over from last year. I think I will just throw together miscellaneous 6.5” blocks as I near the end of the scraps every month. Eventually they will find a purpose.  

I’m still continuing with my blue scraps for next week. (Will this month ever end?)  I’ll play with the selvages and make a block or two with those.  And finally, I have the remaining bits and pieces and will make some blue crumb slabs.  So, I will have all that to show next week. Hopefully!

Finally, I did manage to sew something besides blue this week. I pieced a very large block quilt in red and gray for my brother-in-law. It’s his favorite color. Yeah, it’s pretty simple and pretty ugly. I’m calling it “Seeing Red” because I hated working on it. It will get basted tomorrow and quilted over the next couple weeks when I need a change from the blue.  And a spur-of-the-moment Valentine Quilt is waiting in the wings.  

Thanks for dropping by! Until next time,