What?!? It's the end of May already?

It's the last Saturday in May, so time to trot out the last of my red blocks for the RSC.

Three more Antique Tiles were stitched up.

I've been enjoying making these blocks.  With all those simple seams, they also make a dandy leader/ender. (Special thanks to Cathy for throwing her blocks out as bait and sending me off down this path!)

And I gathered all my Chips for May, and was happy to find I'd made 16.

(I always let myself be surprised with the total at the end of the month.  It's a lot more fun that way!)  (By the way, Cathy started me off on these blocks, too.  I'm such a copycat...)

And that wraps up red for May.  Angela just announced that June will be purple, and I can hardly wait!

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

Perserverence - now with more Glitter

If you cut up little bits of fabric and sew them together, and then cut up more and sew them together too, and you keep that up for years, you eventually end up with a quilt top. 

(In real life, it actually is square and everything, but I can't get a good pic.  There's no good place to stand to fit the whole wall into camera frame without a shelf unit trying to photobomb the picture from the right)

Here's a peek at some of the chaos going on in this quilt.  I went with just randomly grabbing blocks and sewing them together, rather than dithering for a month about color placement.  And then dithering for another month...

I've been worrying about the finishing of this quilt and whether to add a border or not, and if so, what kind of border it should be.  The idea of quilting and binding all the wonkity bits around the edges was making me twitch.

After discarding the notion of just running a plain narrow border around it because I couldn't make up my mind what color to use, I had a brainstorm -

and ran up a quick mock-up.  Still thinking about the top and bottom - pieces that each span two blocks, like in that pic, or matching them to the widths of the blocks?

I'm going to let that percolate in my brain for a bit.

Cherry cakes and fist bumps

 Well, despite an interesting week (I got my second dose!  I fevered up and had sludge for brains!  I got better!), I managed to get a bit of sewing done.

Another Antique Tile for my collection,

and more cake stands (polka dots!)

and even more cake stands!

I love that cherry print for the background on the right.  (You thought from the post title that I was talking about real cherry cake, right?  Nah.  Just cherry cake stands.)

And I got rows and rows of Glitter put together.

Here's the halfway point -

and here's all of the rows, absolutely overwhelming my design wall. 

I had a moment's panic concern when I was sewing pairs of pairs together (after making the eight trios that I'd need for the ends of the rows) when I had this pair left over.  This meant that I'd counted wrong by two, but was it two up or two down?

It was a real relief when I got the sets of fours sewn together and they came out even.  While I freely admit I could easily be off by 2, I was pretty sure I wasn't off by 6.  Sure enough, the rest of the rows went together just fine, and I have two little blocks that will probably end up on the back.  (No, I'm not going to save them for seed for another Glitter.  Much as I love these blocks, I am SO done with making them!)

I sewed the top two rows together before quitting for the day. 

While I was sewing blocks into rows, I decided that I was going to settle for "close enough" when trying to match those points on the edges.  We're talking a bunch of weird angles, y-seams, and some really funky bias here.   These blocks absolutely refuse to square up politely.  

It was even wonkier when it came to stitching together the rows.  For those top and bottom very pointy points, I realized kiss-me-on-the-mouth accuracy was never gonna happen - let's just go for fist bump vicinity.

I'm pretty sure that's the only way I won't end up gibbering in the corner by the time this thing is put together.

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what all us little scrappers have been up to!

The merry month of May

Mid-month edition...  (Seriously, how did it get to the middle already?)

I made great strides with my Cake Stands for the RSC.  I was scrumbling around in my reds when I had a vague memory of cutting some red blocks ahead, back when I was cutting pieces for my Sand Castles 2.  A quick shuffle through my pile of foam plates (thanks, Julie!) revealed the fact that I had cut at least eight backgrounds and set them aside.  These got matched up with solids and whooshed together -

and I've got two more in ready position by the machine.

Two Antique Tiles were next,

and then a PSP20-21 appeared.

Even some Glitter blocks dressed themselves in red.

Then, since I was so close to having all those glittery bits together, I really buckled down and sewed -

and sewed -

and sewed, until finally, FINALLY, the last Glitter block was done!

Now comes the big assembly, before I can put them back in a plastic bin and forget them for a year or two.  (I know myself too well.  My brain gets carried away with that whole "there, that's done" bit...)

 

I'm sewing them into pairs and tacking them to the design wall.

Here's where I left off today.

These are not in any kind of final arrangement - I'm just throwing them up there as I go.  You know me - I'll be dithering for a ridiculous amount of time when it comes down to the end.

Or maybe I should just go for random.  Random sounds really good, doesn't it?

Hmmm...  random...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.  Come enjoy all the rosy fun!

I've run fresh out of April

Apparently May has crept up on me and flipped the page on the calendar, so I'll have to wrap up the April blues and get onto the next RSC color.

Half a dozen Antique Tiles came into being in the second half of the month,

as well as another Cake Stand.

Then I gathered April's Chips together for their class photo.

I'm trying to decide if I'm superstitious or not about there being 13 of the little gems...

And then there were the Glitters.  Lots and lots of Glitters.

At last count (which I think is accurate) (well, which I hope is accurate) (or if it is inaccurate, at least let it be in my favor) I have 132 blocks done out of 152 needed.  There are a dozen more blocks kitted out next to my sewing machine, so I only have eight more to cut out.  (If, etc, etc, see above)  This project has officially moved from the Endless category into the End Is In Sight category.  Huzzah!

Of course, now I have to just buckle down and finish - and hope I don't suffer any sneak attacks by squirrels...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what fun everyone is up to!