Saturday, August 26, 2017

Not there yet, but trying to catch up!

Busy busy busy!  I kept thinking I'd get a post thrown up (not in the vomiting sense) (well, considering how many pictures this post has, maybe it kind of is...), but didn't get it done.

I've actually been madly knitting and sewing here in the background, but some of those projects are for gifts and I don't want to spoil any surprises.  But I did manage to get some blogable stuff done.

I'd fallen behind on the Temecula Marvelous Monday Minis, but am now all caught up again.
This Anvil block from the beginning of the month was fussy, but doable.


 But when I saw the next week's mini log cabins using a 1" center square and 3/4" strips, I noped right into another plan.


Sewing together the ends of two 1" strips, I then trimmed the red square to 3/4" from the seam (to be that 1" center) and cut the light 1/2" away from the seam.  That was a whole lot easier than sewing a 3/4"x1" strip to a 1" square, I'll tell ya.


I proceeded with that same strategy, sewing my block-in-progress to progressively wider strips,


and trimming them to size afterward.



And just because I can't leave well enough alone, I made a second block using the traditional half-light/half-dark sequence.





And ended up with two rather nice log cabins, which gives me an extra block if I need one.

Then a quick shoo-fly for this week's block, and I'm all caught up.  Yay!


I even managed to get some blocks done for the 365 Challenge that I started (and floundered) last year.




That takes me almost to the end of May, so I'm only a summer behind now!  This could still happen!

And there was considerable work done on Are We There Yet, even though I made some epic fails that slowed things down a bit.
Like this block that I knew perfectly well what size grid was needed, but grabbed the bin of the wrong size strips anyway.  Directions?  Who needs directions?


Once I made the block the correct size, things went a lot smoother.


Of course, they weren't going quite as smoothly as I thought they were, since I discovered I'd left another mistake in my wake.

 There's a strip of checkerboard that's 1x14 (the blue arrows show the top and bottom of it) that I sewed in upside down, so some of the checkers are incorrectly boarded.
I went back through my photos and discovered that I'd laid out that section right, but had flipped it somewhere in the process of sewing things together.


My seam ripper is my best friend...


There.   That's better.

And now -


It's together, except for one last long vertical seam that joins the left side to the right side.  My original plan was to quilt it in sections and sew that seam afterward, then add the borders and quilt them.   But I just saw a tutorial the other day on quilting in a square spiral, and now I'm thinking that maybe that's what I want, instead of the straight vertical lines that I'd intended.
You all knew that I'd have to have one final dither about this quilt, right?

And I have a few leftovers from all the effort.


There's that too-small pluses block,  and there's an extra log cabin which I'd purposely made in case there was trouble in making the blocks show up against whatever sashing color I ended up with.  Then there's that leftover pineapple, which is a sad sad tale.  I'd been working on the pineapple blocks as I went along, since they're so labor intensive and fiddly that I know I would have burnt out on them if I'd done them all at once.  But they'd gotten a bit scattered, what with being a leader/ender among all the other Long Time Gone blocks.  When I had them almost done, I counted them.  Then I counted them again because I was one short.  Then I counted them again because I couldn't possibly be one short because that would mean I'd have to make another one.  From scratch.  And I was one short every time I counted.
Some of you may have heard the sound I made at that point - it was a cross between a scream and a sob.
But I pulled myself together and made a whole 'nother pineapple block, grumbling all the way, and added it to the stack.
And then counted them again.
And had one extra.
And then I made a whole different kind of noise - a sort of high-pitched keening that set all the local dogs to howling and made all the babies cry...


Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for this week's Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Orange is the New Neutral

(Y'all knew I was going to go with the orange, didn't you?)  (And since the RSC color for August is neutral, the only way I can be in this month is if I count orange.)  (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)


With my checkerboard blocks well underway,


and my nice neutral for the sashing in hand,


I've started assembling blocks for my "Are We There Yet?" version of Long Time Gone.


The left side is shaping up nicely.


I think I'm going to really like this!


Since this quilt is all about the scraps and the neutrals and the neutral scrap, I'm linking up with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday (late again!) and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  See you there!


Saturday, August 5, 2017

Are We There Yet?

Well, everything's done but the checkerboards for Long Time Gone - or as I'm calling my version:  Are We There Yet.


I'm still auditioning colors for the sashing -

There's a nice yellow with white dots that I like


and I've got a batik that's the same color, more or less, that I might combine with it, just for texture.

I've also found a nice green/white mesh print that isn't horrible.


And a melon color which is almost, but not quite, orange.


And then it was time for the orange to step up and sing.


Yeah.  Picasso had his Blue Period.  Looks like I'm having an Orange Period, because I always end up liking the orange the best.
How many orange quilts is too many?

Some of the sharper-eyed LongTimeGoners might have noticed that I've made some non-standard blocks.  The two bowties blocks just didn't capture my heart, so I made a couple of Georgetown Circles, instead.  It's always been one of my favorite blocks (I know, I have so many favorites...) and it has that same circular vibe about it that the bowties were contributing.
I wasn't sure which I would like better - a scrappy version, or a two-color version, so I made one of each, figuring I'd make a second one of whichever style I liked better.



Turned out I like them both, so I'm going to use them as is.

And I wasn't entirely thrilled with the version of Jacob's Ladder that was part of the pattern, so I decided to keep that diagonal aspect, but hunt around for a different block.


And then I realized that I had a small bin of Buckeye Beauties that I've been lackadaisically making for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the last year and a half, and I had one of those lightbulb moments.  It didn't take long to stitch together a handful of those little cuties to make just what I had in mind.

So once those checkerboards are done and I make a final decision on sashing color, I can start assembling the top.
I'll probably go with the orange.  Or, you know, maybe the yellow.  That was nice, too.
And that blue wasn't bad at all...


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday, since I actually used some rainbow blocks!  Woohoo!  And Sunday I'll be linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the pretty progress!





Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Mini Monday strikes again

This week's Marvelous Monday Mini was a little easier than last week's.   An easy churn dash!


Though I have to admit I made it even easier yet by cheating a little.  Well, a lot, actually.

I started with this stripe -


 and cut some 1" squares, some on grain and some on the bias -


and stitched them together with a random plain square in the middle.


Instant churn dash.  Ta da!

I may or may not go back and make a proper block, but for now I'm feeling smug and moving my other projects forward.

Onward to Are We There Yet?

Linking with sew stitch snap SHARE at Koka quilts.  Come see all the fun everyone's up to!