Good riddance to 2020

 May 2021 be kinder to us all!

Happy New Year!  (I hope!)

Last of the RSC2020 posts, plus a little more Grassy Creek

 On Friday, Bonnie Hunter gave us clue #5 for Grassy Creek and I got right to work making little nine patches.  They went together pretty quickly, so next thing I knew I was spreading them out for a glamor shot.

As I marveled over how cute and flower-like they were, I had a sudden thought - wouldn't they be fun in other colors as well?  Keep that orange center and change up the four squares around it.  You know - like an RSC block.  (you can picture the light bulb going flash in my head)

I grabbed the nearest chunk of fabric and started laying them out, just to see how they'd look.

And then I thought - how about as a strippy?

At the point where I started grabbing other fabric chunks to see how varying the setting triangles would look, I reined myself in and put the blocks in the Grassy Creek box before I could get myself into any more trouble.  Even my squirrels are falling down rabbit holes these days.

Part 2 of Clue 5 is a nice stack of flying geese.  I made a few more than the half that I was shooting for, but am totally not worried about it.  Has anyone EVER said "Gee, I wish I didn't have a bunch of extra flying geese blocks laying around"?

Though when I started laying them out to see what else I could do with them, I slapped my hands and put them away.  Two rabbit holes in one day was entirely too much.

I'm still deciding about which blocks to do for RSC2021.  Cake Stands are a definite yes, and those cute little square-in-squares that were dragging me around the other day.  Postage stamp blocks will continue into the new year (PSP20 will roll into PSP21), and I'm thinking of a Single Wedding Ring (aka Georgetown Circle and about eleventy other names) like our friend Cathy has been making over at Squirrel Central.  Though if I'm not extremely careful, Cathy will inspire me into starting eight new projects.  Every single week...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday, and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

Grassy clues caught up, plus why I shouldn't visit Cathy's blog unsupervised

First up - I got some cutting and sewing done for Grassy Creek (well, the Half-Grassy Creek that I'm making anyway.)  Here's a stack of clue 4's, plus a couple of clue 3's that haven't been clue4-ed yet.

And into the box they went to await the next clue, which will drop on Saturday.

 So then I got to thinking about a quilt that Cathy showed the other day - one that she's planning to do for RSC next year.  

And then I thought about it some more.  She posts a link to the free pattern, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I could do a smaller block.  Because you know me - the smaller the better.  I love her idea of using black-on-white prints for the corners of the squares, and since I'm working on the borders for Sand Castles 2

my cutting table is literally and liberally littered with black-on-white prints.

So, a test block was in order, right?  I grabbed a 2.5" print square and 2 2.5" b/w squares, sliced the background squares diagonally, and sewed up a sample block.  (Technically that center square should be 2 5/8" rather than 2 1/2", but I can't be bothered to cut a bunch of 2 5/8" squares when I've got a bin full of 2.5" already on hand)

RSC2021 here I come!  I love the little block I ended up with - at 3.5" it will finish at 3" and I can make a gazillion of them before I have to stop.

Speaking of stopping -

it looks like I might have a problem with that.

But I'm absolutely done now with making sample blocks.

Well, almost done.

Mostly done?

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday, no matter what you celebrate!  Merry, Happy, Joyous, all!

Bring on clue 4!

 I puddled together a few more Clue #3's for Bonnie Hunter's Grassy Creek mystery -

and added them to the box with the others.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm just shooting for around half the units each week.  I'll be perfectly happy with a smaller version of the quilt (if possible), and if I change my mind and decide to go for the full size at least I'll already be halfway there.

That's pretty much it for the exciting sewing.  In the meantime, I've also been sewing strings for the borders for Sand Castles 2, which I wish was a little more interesting to do.  Some days I only add a few inches and sometimes I'm patient enough to go a couple of feet.  Slow and steady wins the race and all that.

And just to break it up a little, I've pulled out my plate of HST triangles and am sewing them together a few at a time.  There's a Tree of Paradise and an Ocean Waves somewhere in my future, so I might as well get ready!

Then there's the 4-patches bin which needs to be replenished (two back to back Sand Castles took a toll!) and Easy Peasy and nine-patches for Jack's Chain, all going on in the background.  Seems like these days I'm all putzy all the time.

And where would I be without my diligent little helpers guarding the stash?

I don't know what they're going to do when they're full grown.  I might have to get a bigger bin for my orange scraps...

What's more fun?

 What's more fun than a kitten in a bin?

Why, two kittens in a bin, of course!

After a certain amount of settling in, they napped in there for a good chunk of the afternoon.

This was unfortunate, since that was my bin of orange scraps, and I need orange strips for Clue 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Grassy Creek mystery.

Between choosing to let sleeping kitties lay (because non-sleeping kitties try to 'help') and the fact that sewing those triangles together makes my eye twitch (they're quarter-square triangles, not half-squares - what on earth is Bonnie planning?!?), I only got three more sets done.  I added them to what I've gotten sewn so far.

Three weeks in and I have no idea where we're going with this.  Which is half the fun!

And this appeared sometime this afternoon.  I have no idea how.  It's not like I'm making shoofly blocks or anything.

Is there such a thing as an Accidental Shoofly?

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday (even though I did doodly-squat for RSC sewing this week/month) and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the colorful goodness!

Hmmm...

 Bless his heart, he thinks he's helping...

Still puttering along

 Well, after November's abysmal showing, let's see if I can do a little better in December.  At this point in 2020, it's getting a little hard to rub two thoughts together, so mostly I've continued with projects already underway.

One thing I've been looking forward to is Bonnie Hunter's Mystery - the first clue dropped last Friday.  As usual, I'll be making roughly half(-ish) of the necessary components as we go along.  (I don't really need another humungous quilt top sitting around!)

(And also, I'm still not 100% convinced about this whole 'gray' thing, despite y'all's best efforts to tell me it'll be fine)

My biggest effort has gone into Sand Castles 2.  I've now got 40 done out of the 48 blocks needed.

I've been diligently putting together 4-patches and string corners, so the final push should go fairly quickly.  Then I'll just have the endless stringy borders to stitch - see this post for the wonderful awful wonderful idea I had for borders.

And I finally got a bit of RSC sewing done.  It's always hard for me to keep any kind of RSC momentum going in November and December.  Technically I should be trying to get a finish done, but since my blocks tend to run small and take multiple years to gather enough for a quilt, I'm highly unlikely to be thinking 'flimsy time'.

But, ta-da!  Here's a light green PSP postage stamp for January, which means I've got blocks for the full year of 2020.  I think I'll need at least another year to make these lovelies, so look for a flimsy no sooner than 2022...

I've been cutting mountains of 1.5" squares for my 4-patch collection and postage stamp blocks, plus those needed for Easy Peasy. (Bonnie Hunter's leader/ender challenge for this year, which is actually called Easy Breezy, but my brain rejects that in favor of Easy Peasy every single time so I give up)

Speaking of Easy Peasy, I've been thinking ahead to how I'll set them.  (I know, but I swear I can't help myself)

My first idea was just to set them alternating with a plain square, which would be easy and quick and not overly complicated.

But you know me - overly-complicated is my middle name.  So I got to thinking about another Bonnie leader/ender challenge - Shoo Fly Shoo, which was last year's block.  I'd managed to skip that challenge because those little blocks are OMG-cute, and I know a trap when I see one.

But, hey - what's the harm in just making a couple of the little things, just to see...

I think I'll need to make a few more shoo fly blocks before I decide.  (It probably won't work - it looks like too much work with just a load of mush for the payoff)  

Worst case scenario is that I might have started another quilt.

Oops.

(ETA:  I'd been planning to add links to ScrapHappy Saturday and Oh Scrap when the weekend got here and now here it is the weekend!  So here I am rushing back in here to link up!)

I could have sworn I'd posted something this month...

 Apparently that's not the case at all.  I wonder what happened to all those posts I wrote in my head?

Anyway.  Remember when I had that squirrel running through?  Well, it made another pass.  The diamonds that I'd made and set aside kept catching my eye.  I liked them, but I really wanted more purple.  I started scrumbling around in my 1.5" strip bin and pulled some colors.

I like this one a whole lot better.

And since those previous diamonds were just lying around taking up space, I set them around the new star just to see what would happen.  (The lime isn't quite that limey in real life, but it is a bit bright)

And then, because I've never been one to let well enough alone, I pulled some fabrics to audition for borders.

Then I had to pick it all up and hide it from myself because I'm trying to work on this:

(That's the first 20 blocks done.  I'm actually up to 26 done now, with the red lozenge parts done on seven more)  (Remember that part about writing posts in my head?  Apparently I'm also taking pictures in my head)

And then, because I can never let well enough alone (see above), I had an idea for borders that I had to try.

Running those stringy bits all the way around the perimeter of the quilt is generating an awful lot of extra work for myself, but once I saw the effect I was a goner.  Right now I'm thinking of sewing together red squares for an outer border, then binding in either red or black.  Or maybe I'll just take an easier way out and run another of those narrow black borders instead of the squares.

Ah, dithering.  My favorite part!

Halloween means the end of yellow

It's the last day of October (aka Halloween) which ends the month of yellow for the RSC.  All I got done this week is the cake stand that I showed laid out last week.

(That Kaffe print makes me happy!)

The other big deal about Halloween is that Bonnie Hunter announced the colors for this year's Mystery:  Grassy Creek.

I've been admiring the colors in her Appalachian Autumn quilt since the day she posted it, but had been trying to resist its charms.  As it turns out she made it out of the leftovers from Grassy Creek.  

Resistance was futile. Looks like I'm in!

I've got plenty of oranges (because I've never met an orange I didn't like) and I've got a ton of reds on hand from making Sand Castles 2 for my grandson.  (Red has been his favorite color practically since birth, so I'm stuck with it)  I'm pretty sure I've got golds left from Allietare and En Provence, and lime greens just seem to magically turn up in every nook and cranny.

I'm still debating whether I want to go with the grays (gray is so gloomy and I'm trying to chase gloom, not embrace it) or to substitute with blues.  I've got plenty of time to dither between now and Black Friday!

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come along and embrace the scrappiness!

It's still October

How is it that time is simultaneously flashing by and dragging by?  I'll be so glad when this year is behind us.

Most of my sewing time has been going to Sand Castles 2.  I've got 11 of the 48 blocks done and up on the design wall.

I've got several more reds cut out and kitted up and have been diligently sewing 4-patches. And then there are the string triangles for the corners - I've got them piling up and ready to go.

Once I get all the components lined up, the actual blocks go together pretty fast.

I did manage to sew a couple of RSC cake stands in yellow,

and I have another cut out and plated up.

Given how close we are to the end of the month, that'll probably be the last yellow cake stand until next year.  (Though there are no guarantees of that - they're such a lot of fun to plot and sew that it's quite hard to restrain myself...)

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

October continues to be yellow

 and covered in squares.  Here's my second yellow postage stamp block all done up and ready to go.

And another yellow cake stand, too.

And then because I just can't resist the magic of orange (and October is a pretty orangish month after all, what with all those leaves turning out there) or the magic of plaid (because seriously, who can resist the magic of plaid?), here's another cake stand.

The rest of my time was spent stitching 4-patches and b/w strippy triangles for Sand Castles 2, but since they basically all look alike I didn't think to take any pictures.  Now that they're starting to pile up, though, it's almost time to start assembling blocks.  I can promise that that will be a little more interesting!

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

I must have left a window open

 Because a squirrel seems to have sneaked in...

I'd been admiring Ann's Lone Stars for quite a while,  and Angie recently made one into a pillow.  

How could I resist the call of the star?

Of course, I constructed the diamond sections from memory instead of hunting up a reference to work from.  And being me, I needlessly complicated it by making the points of them different colors.

But here I am with diamonds to play with. 

Trying out different layouts.  Yellow to the inside, or purple?

Or why not both?

And now that I've got that out of my system, I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

(I have no idea what I'll use this for.  Maybe a center for a medallion quilt?  Ah, well, that's for the future.)