Blockheads 7 - Block #1

Spring Walk by Vanessa Goertzen is the first block in the new Blockheads 7 series.  The name of the series is Friends and Neighbors. I chose to make this one in the 12" finished size, but knew right away that I would be tweaking this design a little bit. I believe the vertical striped blocks were supposed to represent a fence or maybe a walkway.  

My initial plan was to do this series in Christmas.  The first fabric I chose included a fat quarter of the cute Christmas-y elves/gnomes.  Fussy cutting 2 pieces for those corners instead of cutting narrow strips seemed to fit my own taste better.  

Following the Facebook group has yielded so many fun ideas, whether it was just color combos or ways to make the blocks unique.  After finishing my Christmas block, I saw a couple of people posted pictures of how they changed those striped areas into an actual picket fence.  So, using my Free Spirit fat quarter bundle that is what I did.  And it's pretty cute.

Today the second block will be released, and then we'll see where my plans go from here - do I make ALL the blocks? do I make the next block bigger or smaller?  

Saturday Sampler & more

The gnome mini has some progress.  All of the orange blanket stitching is complete, which only leaves the green and the brown remaining to be done. 

I've chosen the fabrics to make my 30s version of this month's Pizza Box challenge block. I hope to get this one cut out today, and to finish sewing the RWB version.  

This section for Saturday Sampler was a quick one - with the column of HSTs and a narrow vertical strip.  Then it was sewn onto the 3-square unit from a previous month.  And it was capped with a background strip at the top.  It took less than 2 hours to cut and sew. 

The section for next month will be time consuming with small applique, so I'm going to start working on it now.  These little 4" snowflakes will be slower to applique than the big ones I've already done. 

Design Wall Monday - October 12

This little pumpkin mini was on my weekly goal list last week, but nothing has changed on it yet because I never touched it last week.  Except for moving from the ironing board to the cutting table, and back to the ironing board.  So . . . it's back in my plans for this week.
 

We have the next Saturday Sampler instructions, so I'll be working on the second-to-last section of our quilt.  This is a smaller section and involves HSTs.  Then, it's time to pull out all of the little snowflakes and begin to applique them to the outer border areas which will be the final month's (November) task - right before assembling the various sections. 

Blockheads 7 began last week with the first of 30 blocks released.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make all the blocks, but was thinking I want to use Christmas fabrics.  However, after looking at the Sneak Peek info on this year's 30 blocks, I'm not sure that most of them will work well for a Christmas theme. 

While at Saturday Sampler this weekend, I saw this fat quarter bundle from Free Spirt.  It's a 25th celebration bundle, with Kaffe prints, Tula prints, and a few others.  The colors are wonderful - and right up my alley.  So I splurged and bought it specifically with Blockheads in mind.  I have more Tula and Kaffe fat quarters in the stash to add to it.  I've cut parts for that first blocks from these fabrics too.  

Since there are 30 blocks I guess I could do 2 totally different quilts with different fabric choices.  Guess we'll see how these go.

I think I'm going to also work on sewing more blocks for the RWB Ticker Tape quilt.  There are parts cut and laying on a design board, so I'm hoping to get a couple of dozen more sewn and get more rows assembled. 

Our Sew Vintage group met Saturday afternoon, and we have our next QOV star block pattern. Amy shared this pattern with us and I can't wait to work on it this week - in RWB and in 30s for my own project.

Add in some Rainbow Scrap Challenge sewing, and I should be busy all week.  I'm just aiming for progress on all of these projects, not actual finishes.  But I do hope to have the binding finished on a Quilt of Valor.  

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog 

RSC26 - Week #41

Scrappy Stars is a complete flimsy.  I don't use dark backgrounds often enough, but maybe this will prompt me to do so more in the future.  I really like how the black prints make the colors pop in those stars.  These blocks finish at 9" so this is only 45" x 54" - a nice size to snuggle under on the couch.  

One leftover block has become a hot pad for my kitchen.  It's already in the kitchen drawer with the other hot pads, and the bonus is I threw away 5 very worn out hot pads so the drawer isn't nearly as crowded.  Inside of the hot pad is one layer of Insulbrite and one layer of cotton batting.  There is also one more of these ready to bind, which will mean that every block got used for something.  Yay!!

I've sorted my smaller scraps by color for a lot of years.  It works for me.  The bin holding black scraps also has some brown and grey scraps that need to be sorted out into their own bins.  It's really overflowing right now.

One 9.5" string block was made with black strings from this bin, and then I pivoted to make a red string block because I had some red strips laying on the cutting table.  String blocks make great mindless sewing.  I've been doing these larger string blocks on muslin foundation squares, and usually do the smaller ones on phone book paper. 

In an effort to pare down those black scraps - this happened.  The parts are cut, and on a design board for more Ticker Tape, Hollow-9, and Tulip Swirl blocks.  I also have some scraps sorted out to make at least 1 or 2 black Gameboard blocks. Let me just say - a LOT more of this cutting would need to happen before making that bin of black scraps manageable again. It's still overflowing.

Now that the Scrappy Stars block set has become a flimsy, it's time to choose the next RSC block set move along toward the finished phase.  I was going to work on the Honey Bees, but am still looking for the right sashing and border fabric.  In the meantime I brought the Buckeye Butterfly blocks upstairs for some layout play.  Could these be next?

Today is Saturday Sampler and Sew Vintage day, so there probably won't be time to sew.  But the focus will still be on quilting.  It's my favorite Saturday of each month. 

Let's go check out more Rainbow fun . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Finished (or not) Friday

It's not exactly a finish, but I did get a Quilt of Valor trimmed up and a red binding has been attached.  So far I'm only 1/4 around with the hand stitching.  We're quickly approaching "QOV Season" surrounding Veteran's Day.  November is the month we award the most quilts. 

This one is specific to Navy because the border print has Navy dog tags, so we'll hold on to it until we have a Navy veteran.  I haven't gotten the paperwork for most of November's awards yet, but I'm hoping there is at least 1 Navy veteran. 

While I had leftover strips of backing, I took the opportunity to make a few QOV blocks. The Split Ohio Star was a pattern that has been hanging on my bulletin board all summer, and the Ticker Tape blocks are being added to a growing collection.  

My dining room floor currently has a pile of quilts washed and ready for QOV labels.  And the spare bedroom floor has a smaller pile of quilts needing to be washed yet.  

For more finishes, please visit:  https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/

This and that

Can I rant a moment on American restaurant portion sizes for a moment? Tuesday we went to Sioux Falls in the afternoon for middle school football to watch grandson Jonah.  We decided to eat supper before leaving town since it was already 6:30 when the game ended.  All the burgers at this sports bar/grill were 1/2 pound!!  We should have just split one. 

So I was thinking the flat bread would be smaller.  Boy was I wrong!!  I ordered a BBQ chicken flat bread.  It was delicious - but you can see how enormous it was compared to the fork on the table.  They need to list on the menu a warning that this is enough to feed 4 people!!!  The leftovers came home with me, in a pizza box.  

The October block for Garden of Stars is finished and sewn onto the first row.  This block has 120 individual pieces in it.  It was NOT difficult, but was definitely time consuming.  

We've done 3 of the monthly blocks so far, and they are combined with 2 of the alternate blocks to make Row #1.  Row #2 will have 3 alternate blocks and 2 monthly ones. 

Mid-week check-in

How is it already Wednesday again?  Today I have a DAR meeting in the morning and a Quilt of Valor zoom meeting in the afternoon.  I hope to find a little sewing time today in between.  

What a busy week so far!!!  

The rows have become a finished flimsy for Scrappy Stars.  I used a lot of different black prints for backgrounds in this RSC project.  I'll share what the whole thing looks like on the Saturday RSC post.

I'm also making hot pads from the 2 extra blocks.  They are both ready for binding.  I think there is even enough of that red print to use for binding.  But I'm not sure yet what I'll find to bind the orange one.  

The Garden of Stars (paper pieced) block for October is one step closer to being done.  The block isn't difficult, but it was time consuming.  It took me over 3 hours yesterday to get the units all sewn. Each 12" block has 8 units, and each unit has 15 separate pieces.  Opposite units will be sewn together into a quarter section of the block.  But first I'll need to take all the paper foundations off each unit - carefully.  I do use a smaller stitche length, but it still pays to be careful removing the paper.