RSC24 - Week #35

Did I just write Week #35?  Really?  It can't be September tomorrow already!! 

I've been going through my RSC block sets, and making some plans for finishes.  The Kitty blocks are nearly enough.  Five rows are now sewn together.  But I still need 10 more in a variety of colors to set these 8 by 10.  The blocks finish at 9".  And you know what? I enjoy making these blocks so will probably continue making them for RSC for a future second quilt.

Dutchman's Puzzle has 19 blocks so far, and I've been aiming for 20. And yes - I've taken over the putting green again!  LOL  My original plan for these was to sash them and add a border.  But after laying them out next to each other I'm liking how they look just like this.  So now I'm thinking 30 blocks set 5 x 6 will no sashing would be even better.  Please share your thoughts on that as I need some input.  

The Shooting Stars blocks are adding up, but there is a definite shortage of the alternate block.  So going forward I'll be making a lot more of that simple block and not many more of the star blocks.  I haven't decided yet on a size for this one.

One of the sets of Hunter's Star blocks made this week had orange.  But that was pretty much the only orange that came into play.  This project has a rainbow of colors, but isn't a "scrappy" project, as it's using up a couple of layer cakes that have been languishing in the stash.  

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

August in review

August was a productive month plus we had a bit of a vacation, so I'm happy in spite of all the red Failures on that list below.  I was definitely over estimating what was even possible.  But - in several categories I just wanted to get 1 thing done from the list and that mostly happened.

I didn't do well on bag making this month, but there is always next month to finish the one started.  That would be the Chubby Charmer which is partially assembled.  I have a couple of other bags kitted up as well.  

The best accomplishment is keeping up the the BOM programs.  This block is part of the paper-pieced BOM from Carol Doak on Facebook.  It's called Circle of Friends.  She is posting the September block sometime on Friday, as she wants people to have time to sew over Labor Day weekend.  I'm looking forward to it. 

• Personal goals
• Walk at least 1 mile at least 5 days a week - weather permitting! - FAIL
• Continue decluttering (tackle basement bedroom closet) - FAIL
• Play more golf - CHECK!
• Binding & other hand stitching
• Ohio Star - CHECK!
• Shibori Blues - HALFWAY
• work on hand quilting projects (either Seasonal Cats or Vintage Stars) - FAIL
• Block of the Month piecing
• Saturday Sampler - month #5 blocks - CHECK! 
• RSC blocks in new color - orange - CHECK!
• Tranquility mystery quilt clue #3 - CHECK!
• Carol Doak paper pieced stars - block #2 - CHECK!
• Star of Wonder mystery quilt - finish the top & choose a backing
• RSC quilt top assembly - at least 1 of these
• Kitty blocks - not yet
• Dutchman's Puzzle - not yet
• 16-patch Churn Dash - CHECK!
• UFO projects - at least 1 of these
• quilt Bright Happy Blocks - FAIL
• Quick Strippee baby quilt - FAIL
• small zipper bag (tan color with Hexies) - CHECK!
• PIG (new projects) at least 1 of these
• Chubby Charmer bag - FAIL
• Hemingway Pouch - FAIL
• Yellow/black travel pillow - CHECK!
• Whatever else I want to play with!!

The travel pillow is checked off the list as a finish, but I do still need to buy a 14" pillow form to put inside.  This will be a gift.  

A book recommendation

Some wonderful book recommendations are made on the blogs I read, and I'm rarely disappointed when I follow up by reading one of them.  I began this one while on vacation and finished it on Tuesday evening - wanting more.  

Remarkably Bright Creatures was actually quite surprising.  I believe it's the first novel by the author, and if so, then I look forward to her next one.   The 3 main characters (a captive sea creature, a troubled young man, and a lonely old woman) made a unique connection that kept me reading.  

Mid-week progress

There was some productive time spent sewing yesterday.
 

Eight more batik Hunter's Star blocks are completed, and another 12 are in the process of adding the star points to the trapezoid strips.  

I also kitted up 4 new blocks for Quilts of Valor, and kitted up 2 pillowcases for a gift.  It sure felt good to sit at my sewing machine after being gone a week. 

Today I'll be having lunch with a group of retired staff from the school I spent many years in, and then meeting my husband at the golf course.

Back to real life

 I never did get to my sewing room yesterday, so that's my plan for today.  Withdrawal is real when I've been away from my sewing machine for a week. LOL

Some hand stitching was done while on vacation.  The binding on 9 new mug rugs was a perfect car project.  I like having some hand stitching to do while just riding in the car.  

Design Wall Monday - August 26

While on vacation the past few days there were 3 quilt shops visited.  And I did find a few things that wanted to come home with me.  
 

I found this panel among the clearance items in a shop in Rapid City.  There are 6 squares - mostly sea turtles.  The color are so beautiful.  I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with this but for $7 it had to be mine!  

And in the same shop (Quilt Connections) they carry the patterns by a local designer that I've purchased before.  She designs the most amazing and fun applique projects.  I couldn't resist this one.  The fun thing is that it's so adaptable - how many ladies do I want to put on my project?  

You know what most of today will involve - unpack, do laundry, go through a week's worth of mail, replenish the groceries.  Probably no actual sewing.  I'll share a bit more about our mini vacation some other day.  

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

RSC24 - Week #34

It's Saturday already and almost the end of August.  Summer is flying by too quickly.  In looking at the calendar I realized that today would have been my mother's 100th birthday.  She has been gone for 35 years already.  

One of my goals for August was to get this RSC quilt top assembled.  Happily, I can check it off my To Do list - as a flimsy, but not quilted yet.

The 16-patch units make awesome centers to a basic churn dash block.  The same would work in the centers of star blocks too.  These were 12" finished blocks, and came together this year as a monthly RSC project.  There are still zillions of 1.5" squares in my cookie tins, so there might be more 16-patch units in my future.  This flimsy is approximately 70 x 90.   

The little zipper bag is fixed and done.  It has a little hand quilting around the hexies on the front and back of the bag.  It would be a good size to hold cords or medications or jewelry when traveling.  

Just a few orange blocks were actually made for RSC this week - String Beads.

One Shooting Star and its alternate block, plus one Kitty block.

And several of the batik Hunter's Star blocks (new project) have orange in them.  

I'm linking up to the RSC linky party today . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Being a tourist

 It's fun to be a tourist for a couple of days, even though the location is somewhere we've been dozens and dozens of times over the years.

I don't get tired of visiting Mount Rushmore.  

We also drove down to Crazy Horse, as we haven't been back to see the progress in several years.  My husband decided on the drive yesterday morning that he wanted to do a helicopter tour.  So we visited both of these monuments the traditional way.  And then got to see them both from the air.  That was definitely a fun adventure.

Road trip

 My golf clubs are loaded in the truck.  And so is the Quilt Across the Dakotas shop hop booklet.  I hope to make good use of all of it in the next few days.  And maybe there will be some tourist-y activities too.

Hand stitching

 Hand stitching projects are ready to go on vacation.  

I will have plenty of "down" time the next few days, either in the car or in a hotel.  So it is critical to have plenty of hand stitching along to keep me occupied.  A large quilt needs binding, and 9 new mug rugs need binding too.  And there is a small hand quilting project in the bag as well.  

Design Wall Monday - Aug 19

This will be an unusual week, with very little sewing time beginning mid-week - other than some handwork.  But I may get to visit a quilt shop or two or three while on a mini vacation with my husband.  I'm tagging along while he plays in a golf tournament.  I can play in the practice round with him, but the other days I'm hoping to connect with some friends.  And check out some quilt shops. 

I did manage to get the 16-patch churn dash quilt top assembled that I was working on last week, including an outer border.  It was getting ready to rain yesterday when I took it outside for a picture.  I'll try to remember to show the whole thing later in the week. 

Some of the handwork I plan to do is to finish the President's blocks for guild.  I'm doing both mine and my sister-in-law's blocks.  Applique isn't her favorite thing so I volunteered to make hers.  LOL  Once they're embellished, we'll sign them and turn them in to be presented to last year's guild president.  I'll have other handwork with me too - mostly binding and a small project to hand quilt.  

Since I'll only have today and tomorrow with access to my sewing machine, I decided to deviate from my August To Do list, and try to finish more blocks for a project that I started earlier in the summer and then set aside.  This Hunter's Star is using a couple of batik layer cakes plus a black for the star points.

Since all I had done before was cut a bunch of the pieces from the batik layer cake squares, this project was in danger of getting lost in the chaos that is my sewing room most of the time.  I really need to develop more discipline toward starting things and then setting them aside.  So yesterday I started sewing the blocks together.  There are 24 blocks so far, and lots more ready.  

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

RSC24 - Week #33

I do believe this week I did more shopping for fabric and rearranging of the fabric I already have and less time actually sewing fabric.  LOL  Wednesday I sewed a little but then did some major rearranging of a couple of UFO and PIG projects with some new ideas.  Thursday I drove a friend to the airport and then went on to a quilt shop I've never been to before - with fabric swatches and a list in hand.  I found one good background for a future project . . . and a brand new kit for a table runner.  The rest of the afternoon was then spent at my daughter's neighborhood garage sale.  No sewing.  Friday I played golf, and then went grocery shopping.  Again - no sewing.  

 

Hmmm - there was a little bit of scrappy sewing early in the week.  Some was orange, but a lot of it was a variety of other colors.  Scrappy makes me happy.

Two orange Brighten blocks were kitted up, and then sewn another day this week.  There are a lot of these, so it's time to lay them out and see how many more I might need. 

I finished the binding on an older RSC project.  This was the second Ohio Star quilt that used blocks from back in 2022.  It's 50 x 60, so a nice size for cuddling on the sofa. 

 I have a good start on another RSC quilt top.  The 16-patch churn dash blocks are going together in an on-point layout.  There are 3 more rows to add, and then I'll decide whether or not to do an outer border.  I think it will need an outer border of some color to give some ending to all of that white.  My husband's basement putting green has become an awesome spot to lay out quilt blocks.  Since it's just around the corner from my sewing room this my be my new "design floor". 

Dutchman's Puzzle is one of my current RSC block sets.  Each one is made from 8 flying geese, and the trimmed off corners have been making bonus 3.5" hourglass blocks.  The hourglass blocks are then paired up and sewn into a 6.5" block. I'm not 100% sure yet how these will go together, but there are a couple of ideas percolating in my head.  

Last week I made a Facets block in orange on this black background.  I really loved how the black made the orange pop.  So I made a pink one.  Bam!  Another color popper!

You know where that led me . . . aqua and green came next.  These are fun, so I'll continue adding the colors from previous months of RSC - red, yellow, blue. and purple.  And look - the background is NOT white or cream!  I'm liking this dark background.

One of the projects this week was cleaning up and organizing the little bin where I've been collecting batting scraps and small blocks that I planned to use for mug rugs.  The pieces for this set of 4 were in the bin, so they were quick to stitch up.  These are now quilted too, but need some binding. I'm sure there will be something in the stash that works. LOL

I'm linking up with more scrappy fun at . . .
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

New ideas

 Aren't quilters just the BEST kind of people? They so generously share ideas - and I know that a good share of the inspiration for my quilting ideas come from the quilters I follow online - via Facebook, blogs, and other social media.

My friend Nancy at Wyoming Breezes gave me a whole new idea of what to do with 2 sets of blocks I have going.  She suggested the suitcases would work well with the car blocks I have using the Row By Row license plates. 

Of course I immediately went to my sewing room, pulled out the project box with the car blocks and grabbed the hanger holding the suitcase blocks. The car blocks are the same width as the suitcases, but an inch shorter top to bottom.  The suitcases could be easily trimmed to the same shape. No problem.  Suitcases are all on scrappy beige background, and the cars on scrappy white backgrounds - again, no problem.   

There are more suitcases then cars, but there are also some additional car blocks in the box that are not finished.  No problem - I'll continue to make blocks.  This might just have to be on my 2025 UFO/PHD lists which would push me to get this one made.  

What do you think?  Would it need sashing?  A different layout?

I'm excited to have a plan in mind finally, but am being realistic too.  I won't be diving in to sew these blocks together right away because there are too many other projects in progress.  But for now I can do some planning.     

Ohio Star is finished

Today I'm taking a friend to the airport, then dropping off some things at my daughter's for her rummage sale.  Then we'll see what else might be on the day's agenda. 

One more UFO quilt can be checked off the list. 

This is the second of 2 Ohio Star quilts I made over the past couple of years using blocks made each month for Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  The other version has the colors in the background (scrappy) and white stars.  Both quilts are 50 x 60, so a good size for snuggling on the sofa.

The backing is a pretty bubblegum pink, and I used a pink/white stripe for binding.

I also did the binding on this little 5 x 7 strawberry mug rug.  This is the same small strawberry pattern from the bed runner I made this summer.  But without borders around it.  Dare I admit that there is a similar pumpkin one that is partially done . . .

Mug rugs are back on my To Do list - probably because I spent some time reorganizing the small bin holding all the parts and pieces I had laying around for them.  There were some scrappy parts, some mug rug flimsies, some already quilted but needing binding - just a hodge podge of parts.  The bin is more organized, and I've sorted out some that are ready for binding.  Those could be a perfect project to work on in the car next week when I ride along with my husband to Rapid City for the state seniors golf tournament. 

Mid-week update

The suitcase blocks have been my "travel" fabric project the past couple of years.  I've made suitcases using fabric purchased in places I've visited.  Or in a couple of examples, the fabric was gifted to me by someone else who traveled.

One member of our Sew Vintage group moved to Florida last summer.  We really miss her in our little group, but have Facetimed with her during one of our recent group meetings.  And someone usually sends her photos of what we're working on.  Last month she sent fabric so each one of us got a 10" square of a really cute Florida beach print.  I used most of my square to make this suitcase block.  I can think of Connie each time I see it.

All day sewing

It was a grey drizzly day yesterday, and I'm a fair weather golfer or walker.  So it was my excuse for staying inside and sewing.  Besides, if I'm in the basement sewing I'm not snacking. 

The 4 new blocks for our Saturday Sampler are finished.  These will be part of the center of this particular quilt.  This was #5 of 10 months.

All 8 of the blocks for the Tranquility mystery are also done.  That means we have a total of 24 blocks made so far in 3 months.  I'm not super pleased with some of these as the outside edges are a bit ragged.  The instructions had us make the HST using large squares marked with diagonals so we ended up sewing 8 at once.  I wish I had cut my squares slightly oversized because some of the HSTs were not quite the right size.  

One more little project . . . the monthly project for the Tilda Club hosted at the local quilt shop.  Each month they demo a small project via Facebook Live.  A sewing night is usually held later in the month too. But this month they challenged everyone to come up with their own project - using their basic instructions.  We were to cut 3" strips WOF in 2 fabrics, sew down each long side, and then cut into HSTs.  Yield would be 16 triangles.  Well, I decided to use fat quarters, so I cut 3 strips of each fabric.  And I used the slotted triangle trimmer ruler to cut slightly bigger triangles.  There are only about 5 stitches across that top point, and they pick out easily.  So, I have 18 HSTs to play with.  Now to decide what to do with them.  There is plenty of both fat quarters left if I need to cut any more.

I just had to play with another of the Facets blocks.  Of course I couldn't stop with just one.

Since I'm still procrastinating on that bag finish, I cut the pieces for 2 more Facets blocks.  And pieces for some other orange RSC blocks.  And organized the bin holding all of the mug rug parts and pieces, which led to finding a couple of other small UFO projects mixed in with the mug rug things - because I get lazy sometimes and just set things aside anywhere.  Much more cleaning and organizing is certainly needed in my sewing space.  

Design Wall Monday - August 12

Another week!  Wasn't it just Monday yesterday?

Sunday afternoon I went to the local community theater production with a friend.  This was the second Church Basement Ladies production I've been to.  So delightful - especially if you grew up in a rural Minnesota community in the 50s or 60s.  These plays are right out of my childhood - uffda!!  So funny and the music was great.

The 3rd clue for the Tranquility mystery is nearing the finish line.  Two of the 8 blocks are finished, and the remaining 6 should be easily done today. It will be interesting to start seeing how these all will work together.  That's the fun of a mystery.

Saturday Sampler is NOT a mystery this year.  We know exactly how it should look when finished.  This month we are making only 4 blocks, but they are the center of the quilt.  My block parts are all cut out, so I should be able to finish these today too.  

Once these monthly blocks are done - hopefully today - then I'm going to see what strikes my fancy to work on next.  There are several projects in the queue, just waiting . . .

*  determine a layout for the 16-patch churn dash blocks
*  finish up some QOV blocks that are kitted up
*  hand stitch a binding on a UFO quilt
* make binding for another quilt
*  play with more orange for RSC blocks
* cut out the autumn door hanger project

I'll probably go through Olympic withdrawal this week.  I watched a lot of great Olympic events while sewing the past couple of weeks.  One of my goals last week was to finish a bag I've been working on. Well, that didn't happen. I did get the 2 big sections quilted so there was a little bit of progress.  But I'm rethinking how I want the handles to be made, so I've set aside  all of it while I figure those out.

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

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

I'm also linking up with Monday Musings . . .

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC24 - Week #32

 A whole new color to focus on, and some progress has been made in several directions.

There are now 30 of the Churn Dash blocks with the 16-patch centers.  After laying them out square like this, I also tried setting them on point.  Both options work, so I'll be playing with these in the next week before making a decision on the layout.

One set of blocks for Shooting Star were finished in orange.  

Night Vision blocks are beginning to add up nicely too.  

A week ago Angela posted some new Hens & Chicks blocks for her RSC Sampler, and I fell in love with the block she calls Facets.  I usually test new blocks using red/white/blue scraps because then the blocks can end up in a Quilt of Valor sampler.  Well . . . based on the 2 I've made so far, I think Facets will look fabulous in a future Quilt of Valor!!  I also pictured these made with dark backgrounds and bright colors.  

So, you know what happened.  I just HAD to make one.  Oh yes - these will be fun to make for RSC going forward.  Thanks for sharing Angela!!

A little bit of play with strings happened this week too.  These make good leaders/enders in between whatever main project I'm working on.

What else is happening in the RSC world this week?

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/