Design Wall Monday - June 24

This weekend I didn't expect to get any sewing done, what with all the water issues, etc.  But we have been fortunate and were able to stop the water seeping in, clean it up, and our new sump pump is keeping up.  It was kicking in about every 2 minutes on Saturday morning, and by evening was every 6 minutes.  With each day it is slowing down more, which is really good.

It felt like any sewing that happened over the weekend needed to be relatively mindless, but colorful.  There are 2 of these little shoebox sized bins (top of photo) with 2.5" squares cut from scraps.  I pulled them out to hunt for some more variety of neutrals for another large  strawberry block.  That led to making little piles on the ironing board with additional greens, pinks, corals, reds - you get the picture.

By late afternoon on Sunday I had made another 20 Chaser blocks, and paired up with the ones already hanging up . . . this is what happened.

Once I do a little rearranging on these blocks, I'll be ready to sew these into a kid sized quilt top.  That will be my first priority project this week.

Once the Chaser blocks were done, I added a couple more rows of HSTs to this project that was in a bag on the end of the ironing board.  Each of the HSTs is 2.5" square, so it's easy to keep track of what size this is getting to be.  I have no idea what this will eventually end up being, but you know I can't throw away those trimmed off triangles.  This is what happens to the red and blue ones trimmed from QOV blocks.  

 And yes, I did get the big strawberry block all sewn together, along with another small one.  So my second project for this week is figuring out how to lay out these blocks for the bed runner I'm planning with them.  

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday . . .

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com

and with Monday Musings . . .

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC24 - Week #25

The main blue project this week was this quilt top that I managed to finish assembling.  

The pattern is called Trailing Squares (Missouri Star), but I'm calling it Shibori Blues as that's the name of the fabric line in the layer cake I used for this quilt.  I'm already planning a Quilt of Valor version of this as I found a patriotic layer cake in the stash.  I can picture this in a scrappy version too - maybe using fun novelty "kid" prints.  

 

Three new Chaser blocks were added to that collection early in the week.  One of them is more on the aqua side of blue.  These are made using 2.5" squares from my bin of squares cut this size from scraps, so the colorful sections are quick to do. 

Dutchman's Puzzle (and bonus Hourglass) blocks turned out even better than I expected.  I kept thinking the blue wouldn't have enough contrast with the aqua.  I'm very pleasantly surprised at just how pretty these are.  

I also finished up a Quilt of Valor top this week, and then tested out a new possible block design.  This is Card Trick Star.  It will look better with 4 different fabrics, but these scraps were handy, so I used them.  I saw a sketch of this on Pinterest and the idea was to paper piece a fairly small version.  I just used my Tri Recs rulers - easy peasy!

And since the shop hop bus trip was cancelled due to extensive flooding - I did have a little time to sew on Friday.  The blue pinwheels for the Liberty Box project needed to be finished, which didn't take long.  The borders are all sewn together now and next week hopefully I'll get this quilt top done.

And speaking of the flooding - this was a photo someone shared on Facebook about 11:30 pm on Thursday.  This is our Main Street, which was water from store front to store front.  No river or creek overflowing caused the flooding here.  It was all about 4-5" of rain falling in 2 hours, after a whole day of steady rain had already saturated the ground.  An awful lot of damage was done by flooding around town, but we were pretty fortunate to only have a little water in the basement on tile floors, and also had to replace our sump pump.  

I'm linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge . . .
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Shop hop day - cancelled

UPDATE:  We got a total of 7.25" of rain with this storm, and expect more heavy rain later today.  The geranium in the photo below has been stripped of those pretty blooms by the 2" per hour that fell in late evening.  And my petunias are laying flat.  Sigh!  Probably no sewing today as we'll be cleaning up some water in the basement.  We have all tile floors there - and my sewing room stayed dry overnight - but we did get a bit of water as the sump pump died.  Thank goodness we checked on it frequently!  It was dry in the sump hole at 10 pm but overflowing by midnight.  We switched that out about 2:30 this morning with a small backup pump.  That will need attention today. 

This was supposed to be the day of our guild shop hop.  Unfortunately it was cancelled due to Mother Nature.  It's still raining, but by the time I went to bed at 3 am we had gotten over 7" of rain - most of that falling between 9 and 11 PM.  I have been afraid to look at the rain gauge again since getting up this morning at 5:30.  I'm going to need a nap later! There is no travel recommended in town and the interstate is even closed thanks to flooding over roads.  This part of the country doesn't do well with that kind of rainfall - hence the cancelled bus trip.

I'm glad I went out on Wednesday evening to take a picture of this little geranium, because all of the flowers are looking a bit worse for wear this morning after nearly drowning.  I don't remember the name of this geranium variety but it's a miniature one and the flower petals are variegated with deep fuchsia and bubblegum pink.  So pretty!!

Quilts of Valor sewing

The top is done for the QOV sampler I've been working on.   

This looks so drab in the photo, but is actually nice and bright in real life.  It was another grey overcast morning when I took the photo. 

Playing with new block patterns is one of my favorite things to do.  This is one I saw on Pinterest, but it was paper pieced and smaller.  I decided to try it using the Tri Recs rulers and made it 12.5" so I could use it for a QOV project with other blocks the same size.  It would look even better with 4 different fabrics but these were the scraps most handy.  I think it was called the Card Trick Star.  This could be the beginning of another QOV sampler.  It would be an awesome block to make totally scrappy too.

And I got a good start on the Liberty Box project.  Pinwheels are something I make often and have rarely used the paper pieced method.  But the papers were in the box so I decided to go ahead and use them.  32 pinwheels with 4 pieces each - that's a lot of paper to remove.  You know what I'll be doing in front of the TV tonight.

The red/white strip sets for the Liberty Box project were quick to sew.  And they'll be quick to cut into the remaining 6.5" sections.  

Mid-week already

Tuesday was a no-sewing day.  I got a pedicure in the morning which always makes me feel pampered and spoiled.  The afternoon was spent playing cards with girlfriends.  All-in-all a good day!!
 

On my way out the door in the morning I noticed the stargazer lily has exploded with blooms in the last couple of days.  And so many more buds ready to open.  I wish this bloomed all summer.  There is a dark red one of these on the other side of the house but it's looking a bit sad so far, with only a few buds showing.  I'm starting to wonder if something is nibbling on that red one.

I did sew up a couple of these quick Split Back Star blocks on Monday afternoon while digging around in my Quilt of Valor stash of fabrics.  This was a free pattern on the QOV website a year ago.  Our group has used it in several quilts now.  I've added these 2 blocks to the growing stack for another one.

Monday evening I finished the binding on this table topper.  The flimsy was found in that tote I cleaned out and I decided it was worth keeping.  I absolutely love the stitching design that Carol used on this one.  I plan to have her use this design again for me in the future. 

To Do Tuesday

I had my doubts that I would end up making any Dutchman's Puzzle blocks this month using blue, because I just didn't think there would be a good contrast with the aqua I'm using in all of them.  But one of my readers said I should try out some shades and it might surprise me.
 

Well - she was right.  After some auditioning I chose 2 lighter shades of aqua batik and 2 darker shades of blue batik.  And the results are really good.  This should be a whole quilt because these really work together beautifully.  I have a total of 14 blocks so far - scrappy white backgrounds, with batiks in aqua paired with another color.  

Since I can't bear to throw away those trimmed off corners from the Flying Geese I've been making Hourglass blocks from them.  There is a stack of these on the corner of my ironing board.  They make perfect Leaders/Enders when working on other projects.  Once sewn the Hourglass blocks get trimmed to 3.5" and go into a little bin.  Some day they will become something pretty.

The Quilt of Valor sampler is almost a flimsy.  The rows were all sewn together yesterday morning.  Next step was to check the QOV stash for border fabric.  This flag print was trimmed from a backing recently, and the strips came from a wide back. So the strips were long enough to not need any piecing at all.  It should be a complete flimsy later today. 

While digging into the QOV stash I came across this patriotic layer cake that I forgot I had.  That was an exciting find because a reader suggested on Monday that the Shibori Blues pattern would look good as a Quilt of Valor.  So . . . you know what was just added to my goal list for this summer.

One final thing that happened on Monday was cutting the pieces for the Sparkers quilt that was in the Liberty Box (Fat Quarter Shop) that arrived last week.  The reds and blues were in the box along with the panel.  The white background was in my stash.  I will need to buy enough of the blue - or a similar color - to add the accent pieces above and below the panel.  There is no rush on this project, but it will be fun to work on a little at a time.  The box also contained a pattern for a mini quilt, and even included a small metal hanger.  There should be plenty of scraps left to make that mini. 

Design Wall Monday - Shibori & a QOV

One project is coming OFF my design wall today, and another is going ON to the design wall.  The project coming off the design wall . . . Shibori Blues is now a flimsy. 
 

Shibori Blues is actually the name of the layer cake fabric line I used in this quilt, but it's the name I'm keeping for this one.  The real pattern name is Trailing Squares from the Missouri Star Block magazine this spring.  I'm already picturing this pattern done in big prints, like Kaffe.  Or just plain scrappy. Very quick and easy to make.  It was raining when I wanted to take a picture of the flimsy so I went into our basement family room and layed it out on my husband's putting/chipping green. This may become my new design wall/floor and it's right around the corner from my sewing room. 

Up next on the design wall is a Quilt of Valor sampler.  In 2023, Pat Sloan did a 9-block sew-along called Autumn Wonders.  I made all 9 blocks in 2 different colorways - one was in autumn colors and one was patriotic.  The autumn version is a flimsy hanging in the closet, but the patriotic version needed to be slightly bigger.  So I chose 3 random blocks from the Moda Blockheads free blocks to make a total of 12 blocks - just right for a sampler.  Saturday afternoon I cut the blue sashing and red cornerstones.  I'll add an outer border to it later.  This will be my main project this week I think.

Bindings were prepped for 1 large quilt and 1 table topper, so there will be more binding in my future as well as assembly of this new Quilt of Valor.

Oh yes - and my Liberty Box from Fat Quarter Shop arrived on Saturday. I’m very excited to work on the cute project in that box.  

What's on your design wall today?
https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

I'm also linking up with Monday Musings . . .
https://songbirddesigns.blog/blog/

Father's Day

 Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.  We had rain yesterday and more is expected this next week, but maybe today will be nice enough to get outside for some fun.

My Stargazer lily is just beginning to bloom.  There are a ton of buds.  I really wish these bloomed all summer because they are so pretty.  There is a red variety next to the deck steps with buds too.

The hot pink geranium next to my front porch steps is doing well.  The wind has knocked this flower pot over about a dozen times, but the geranium keeps surviving.  I love the color of this one. 

RSC24 - Week #24

 Blue, blue, blue . . . and other colors too!

The border pieces are all ready for assembly on this blue and white quilt.  The Flying Geese in the border were made with the trimmed off corners of the blocks. It has taken me longer than expected to get this quilt to the flimsy stage, mostly because I keep getting distracted with other projects.  That just normal for me.

Night Vision is one of several different block sets I currently have going on with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  But it's definitely one of my favorites.  

This week I made Night Vision with 3 shades of blue - light, medium, and dark but bright.  I've been making 3 blocks each month with the color chosen but also did an extra one this month in peach because I had the peach pieces cut last month with the pink ones.  That means there are 19 blocks so far, and I really like how those colors spin when I lay them out together.

The bonus pinwheels are really cute.  These are 4.5" square, and I really have no idea what I'm going to do with them yet.  But they go into the project box with the blocks each month, and I'll figure out what to do with them eventually.

Usually the Brighten blocks I've made for RSC have used prints that are predominantly the color of the month, but as I poked through the scraps for blue, I came across that floral.  It has blue in it so I went with it.  When I hung these new blocks with the others I realized I never made any pink ones last month, which was easily remedied. 

Because I have pink scraps still out as I work on the strawberry blocks, it was easy to make one pink Brighten block right away.  Actually, I made 2 more pink ones yesterday but forgot to photograph them.   Because these are only about 8" square I'll need a lot of them to make a decent sized quilt.  There are 29 of them right now.  

So, my RSC block sets are steadily growing.  Which set will be the next one to become a flimsy?

I'm linking up with the RSC world today . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Strawberry bed runner ideas

The Strawberry blocks have reached the layout stage. 

My plan with these fun blocks has been to make a bed runner.  One possible layout idea is to use 4 big blocks and 2 small blocks, with some sashing in between.  The big blocks will finish at 14 x 18. Without sashing this is about 70" wide which would work OK, but might not drape as far off the bed as I want.  So maybe it will require more blocks, or possibly just make the sashing a bit wider.  

I also have 2 blocks (1 large and 1 small) made to take for our guild bus trip next week.  Depending on how much time I have, I might make another large one for the bus trip.

Murder and mayhem

 We had a murder on our deck 2 nights ago.  I didn't get any crime scene photos before the clean-up began but it was a big mess.  The victim was a dove, but we're not sure what predator was the perpetrator.  It happened sometime overnight, and before 6 am as that is when we discovered the body.  

Our best guess is maybe a hawk or a cat. We have both around here. We've watched hawks dive quickly to attempt to catch rabbits and other small prey.  But we also have stray cats around. We'll likely never know for sure what critter was tearing apart it's dinner next to our deck table. 

The mayhem?  A home improvement project.  After cleaning up the mess made by dead bird parts, blood, and feathers scattered across the deck, my husband decided to pressure wash the deck floor and that led to a decision to stain it again.  The chairs are out on the lawn, but my big heavy flower pots, the grill, and the stone table were just moved to one side while he stained one section.  The next day we moved it all again so he could do that other section.  About an hour after he finished that last section of staining - we had a sudden thunderstorm roll through.  We'll see how the rain impacts that new stain. 

My task - but not today - is to use the small sander to sand the railing and we'll eventually get that stained again too.  I'm not one of those people who enjoy doing these home improvement projects.  It cuts into my sewing time.  LOL

All 7 rows of Shibori Blues are assembled.  I need to cut the strips for the inner and outer borders yet, and finish the big Flying Geese for that outer border.  Before borders it's 60 x 70.  

Mid-week progress

The 42 main blocks made from the Shibori Blues layer cake have all been sewn into rows, and 3 of the rows have been sewn together so far.

Rows 4-7 still need to be pressed and added to the first 3.  Each block is simply a 10" layer cake square with a white corner added.  Hopefully I'll get this much assembled yet today.

In between the Shibori blocks, I made 2 of the Strawberry blocks for the upcoming guild bus trip.  However - looking at the photo as I write this post, the big block looks like the strawberry is sitting on a stick.  I'm surprised I didn't notice it when I had the rows all layed out before sewing.  That center bottom "neutral" square is a bit too dark, so I may replace it.  Picking out the seams around that little 2.5" square won't be a big deal.  

To Do Tuesday

As always, there are multiple projects on my To Do list happening all at the same time. 

A very important task on that To Do list was to get new cushions for my front porch chairs.  I've been looking locally and online and just never could find what I thought I wanted.  But Monday I tagged along to Menards with my husband on an errand . . . and bought these.  It's a huge improvement over the old faded solid red ones.  I think they look quite summery and nice.

Row 1 of Shibori Blues is all sewn together, and the other 6 rows are pinned into sets and ready to go.  This may be my primary project this week, but in between I have a couple of other things ready to sew as well.  When I get bored with Shibori, I'll just work on something else for awhile.

Last month while reorganizing some fabric and dealing with scraps, I cut the black and white parts for several more Night Vision blocks.  Each month I've been making 3 with the RSC color, so this month will be blue.  I have one block begun using a lighter blue, and the pieces are cut for a brighter/darker shade of blue.  Also, when I did the pink ones, I had cut one piece that was too "peachy" and so now there are 4 peach/coral pieces cut.  I need to find 4 more blue chunks for my third blue block, but haven't decided yet if I want to stick with those lighter shades or go darker.  

As a leader/ender this week I'll work on making a couple more of the strawberry blocks.  I need at least 3 more for my bed runner, but also want to make at least 1 for the guild bus trip in just over a week.  Maybe I'll get lucky and win a whole bunch of strawberry blocks on that bus trip.   

These 3 projects should keep me busy all week - in between more paper shredding for work.  

Design Wall Monday - Hanging the Sea Otter

 Time is flying by way too quickly for my comfort!  Yesterday was our oldest grandson's 13th birthday. How did he get to be a teenager already?  

Happy birthday Mason!

Meanwhile back at Grandma's house on Sunday, I got the Sea Otter wall hanging hung up in the guest bedroom.  I specifically ordered the metal hanger in a size (36") that worked for this quilt.  Every time I walk into that hallway I'll have a view of the Sea Otter hanging above that bed.  

The old maple bedroom set in that room belonged to my aunt and uncle originally.  Our girls slept in it when they were little and shared a room in both houses we lived in while they were growing up.  Now it is our guest room.  I have 2 different blue and white quilts that usually grace that bed.  Years ago for Saturday Sampler we were challenged one month to make a bonus block in blue/white and anyone bringing a block had their name entered into a drawing to win all the blocks.  My name was drawn and I used them to make this star quilt.  

I also got the 4 new blocks made for Saturday Sampler.  This was month 3 of Rising Above, this year's 

Saturday Sampler at our local quilt shop, The Pin Cushion.  Solids are not usually my jam, but I'm liking the bright colors and high contrast so far.

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday . . .
https//smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com

and with Monday Musings . . .

https//songbirddesigns.blog

RSC24 - Week #23

So far I've only made a shallow dive into blue for my various on-going sets of Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. But - my time at the sewing machine this week has "mostly" focused on blue in some form or another. 

First on my list this week were these Churn Dash blocks.  The centers were the 16-patch units I made back at the February retreat with 1.5" squares.  So the Churn Dash blocks have come together quickly using the monthly color.  Honestly - these 3 were all finished in about an hour one day.  I think there are only 2 orange and 1 aqua 16-patch squares still in the project bag.  There are currently 23 finished blocks, so I'm kind of aiming for 30 total, which means I'll need a few more of the 16-patch units eventually.  That's OK because I have literally thousands of 1.5" squares in cookie tins.

Blue Shooting Star blocks were next on my agenda, along with 1 Kitty block.   I also made 6 other scrappy Shooting Star blocks in other colors, along with 10 of the alternate blocks that the pattern calls for.  

The alternate blocks will make easy scrap management as the colored parts are all cut from 2.5" strips.  I actually sewed the 10 alternate blocks to 10 of the main blocks on Friday morning just to see how I like them, and scrappy definitely works well for these.

But my primary blue focus this week was the new Shibori Blues layer cake project.  I had hoped to have the top together by today, but obviously I got distracted with other things this week and didn't get quite as far along as I thought I would.  But hey - there has been good progress.  All of the big blocks (42) are done, and pinned into rows ready to sew.  I actually rearranged a few of the blocks after taking this photo but you get the idea.

About half of the HST blocks still need pressing and trimming, but they go into the outer border so I'm not too worried about that until they are needed.  Once trimmed to 5" square they will become 20 big Flying Geese for that border.  

I'm linking up today with RSC . . .
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/