stand

 

Happy New Year!

 

And here's hoping 2024 is kinder than 2023.

Gobble gobble!

 To all my readers who celebrate -

To everyone else - have the best Thursday ever!

(And trust me to be someone who would do an "I'm back" post just before wandering off for an extended visit with family.  I swear I'll do better soon!)

Okay, lets see if I can remember how to work this thing...

 I didn't mean to wander off for quite so long.  Stuff happens and then more stuff, and then I kept thinking "oh, I'll need to make a long blog post to catch up" and that seemed too exhausting to even start...

So.

I'm just going to pretend I've been here all along.

I've had a great yen to make Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips quilts for a long time, and when Cathy made hers using 2" strips rather than 2.5" strips, I was sold!

I started cutting 2" strips at lengths of a smidgen more than 12", and then had a sudden inspiration.  There's another quilt I want to make using a lot of 2" squares sewn in strips - Quilted Twins Dots and Dashes.  Here's the picture from their website:

The block needs strips consisting of 5, 7, and 9 squares sewed together, and the 6-square strips I was already cutting for Scrappy Trips would give me a lovely jumpstart. 

 I started cutting longer strips for sewing into strata, cutting off the 6 units I needed for my scrappy trips block, and then cutting more 2" units to use toward Dots and Dashes.

Sometimes I even get a little bonus of 2 or 3 square offcuts.

Next thing I knew, I had 16 Dots and Dashes blocks assembled.

It's like leader/enders on steroids...

How did it get to be Sunday already?!?

 I could have sworn that yesterday was Second Monday, and the day before that was Warbleday, but I'm being assured that today is indeed Sunday.  

So.  

Seems like I've got a photo or two of what I've been up to this week.

I've got a heart of cake stands,

and a handful of chips.

And two more Antique Tiles have joined the party.

There's even a new PSP20-22 block done.

I counted up my Hawk's Nest blocks (which I type as Hawk's Next every. single. time. and have to go back and correct), thinking I had 10 or 11 done. It turns out I'd just finished number 20, so I'd better get moving and clear that design wall.  Which means it's border audition time for my Jacks top.

I pulled out some likely candidates - two different stripes and a couple of batiks - and pinned them up.

I really like the second batik (the one on the left), but sadly I've only got one yard and it won't be enough.  I'll keep scrumbling and maybe an idea will pop out at me.  In the meantime, I'll start making the alterate blocks for Hawk's Nest (nest not next. nest nest nest) (dammit) so I'll be ready when Jacks flies off the wall.

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

Hey, look! Another post!

 Already July is going better than the last six months.  Well, slightly more productive, anyway.

I got a couple of purple cake stands done for RSC,

as well as a couple of Antique Tiles.

I've got more of both of those blocks cut and ready to sew, which is what I've been doing in between sewing more Hawk's Nest blocks.

I lay out a block,

and stitch,

and lay out another,

and stitch,

and repeat, each time having a new block waiting in the on deck circle.

Luckily I've been sewing kabillions of those little HSTs right along, (I've been planning to do an Ocean Waves someday, as well as a pine trees quilt) so it's a simple matter of raiding the bag when it's time to lay out the next block.

And it's nice to have something ready to go when I first sit down at the machine.  None of that "where will I start" nonsense!

Can a Hawk's Nest be considered a squirrel?

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what pretty purples are in play!

well now, let's see - where was I?

 I seem to remember that I have a blog laying around here someplace.  Let's just dust it off a bit and see what happens.

I don't think I got much done in the way of RSC sewing, or at least I didn't think to take many photos if I did.  June's blue was a pretty abysmal showing - just these two sad little fellas.

But there was quite a bit of faffing around with purple all spring.  

This - 

and this -

became this -

 

and this.

The second one is a completed top, and the first one is awaiting borders.  (I'm still dithering)  (You know me, right?)

Of course, that makes this mess on my cutting mat a real treasure for July's RSC color - purple!  (Thank you, Angela, for picking such a perfect and well-timed color!)

Speaking of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, anyone remember these blocks?

After making them for a couple of years for RSC, I decided that I had enough for a quilt, so I sashed and scrambled and got them to this stage.

All the rows are sewn together, and some of them are sewn to each other.  I've just got three or four more long seams and three corners to sew on and it'll be ready to go.

Unless I go with some crazy kind of stripe for a border...

I'll just dither for a bit, shall I?

While all that row-sewing was going on, I used these blocks for leader/enders.

Here's the first four blocks of Hawk's Nest (from Bonnie Hunter's book "Scraps and Shirttails II")

Why, yes.  I did start another quilt.  Is anyone surprised?

And it wasn't all just piecing going on.  There's been some quilting, too.

Notice what's in the extreme right of that picture?

Yeah.

I've got Moxie.

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see where the RSC is leading us next!

Also linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  There's another fun crowd!

End of the (Rhododendron) Trail

So when I last checked in, I had wandered off the Rhododendron Trail this far: 

so I carried on a bit farther into the weeds and made a couple of test blocks.

A bit of scrumbling around in the stash gave me that nifty blue border, and I decided that a touch of red wouldn't go amiss as a stop border.

At this point the sensible portion of my brain (you know, the bit that isn't mostly made up of gumballs and squirrels) whispered "Psst...  If you were making a baby quilt, you'd be almost done already..." 

and for a wonder, I actually listened.

Tada! I'm thinking a binding of either red or yellow (or possibly red AND yellow?) would finish this off nicely.  Or maybe pink...

I enjoy doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts every year and will happily join in on the next one.  It just cracks me up that I ended up with something SO different this year!  You never know where the trail will lead you!

My RSC Chips blocks made dandy leader/enders while all that rhododendroning was going on.

Now I'm be marching on to March's yellows and golds.  

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

Off the Trail and into the Weeds

 I've never been very good at sticking to the path, but I've really gone way off into the wild this time.  Bonnie Hunter released the final reveal for Rhododendron trail and I basically tripped and face-planted.

I'd always planned to substitute another color for the aqua in her vision (I am so over the whole pink/red/aqua/teal thing), so I tried a few other ideas for the narrow sashing she called for. 

A couple of browns...

That was a couple of nopes.

This soft green?  

Maybe...

And then I didn't go up to my sewing room for days. And days.

Now, I am a World Class Procrastinator, but when I'm ignoring something this hard it's a sure sign of it being something I just flat don't want to do.  I love the basic block, I love the hourglasses, but the two together just weren't doing it for me.

Time to drop back and have a think.

So I thunk and I thunk and decided that I'd just go off the Trail and into the woods in a completely new direction.

Grab your canteen and a couple of sandwiches and I'll lead you along to where my fizzy brain took me.  Mind you don't step in whatever that is.  And watch for bears.

My first thought was to try putting the blocks together with sashing.  I had a (not-so) brilliant thought to repurpose some of the bits I'd already sewn.  The pink flying geese blocks were my first victims.

Oh no.  Way too much pink.

Try again.

The yellow triangles making friendship stars at the crossroads looked interesting, so I left them in.

Maybe if I made some flying geese like the pink ones, but used green instead?

And throw in some of those vast stacks of red hourglasses?

A slight adjustment to the hourglasses in the middle of the sashing unit.

And some red squares for the cornerstones instead of hourglasses?

Busy busy busy...  Hmm...

I pulled out the two hourglass blocks I'd made and tried them as alternate blocks with this sashing,

but it wasn't any better.

At this point I pulled everything off the design wall and put it all in a plastic bin and sent it to time out.

And I stewed.  And I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the internet looking at quilt blocks, hoping an idea would spark.

Maybe a different alternate block?  I made a couple of test blocks,

and pulled stuff out of the bin again.

Nope.  Not even if I set it straight rather than on point.

Back into the bin.

I kept looking at the Rhododendron Trail logo on Bonnie's website -

and trying to figure out why I really liked this image but didn't like my version of it.

And then a lightbulb went off in my head.

What if I just recreated the framed corner effect, but using HSTs instead of hourglasses?

I did a quick mockup of corner units,

and decided I was onto something.

(So of course I had to try out a sashing idea too because my brain wasn't overloaded enough)

But I wasn't totally happy with that green.

Maybe try a blue?

Oh my.  Blue is better.

I quickly tried out some of the closest blues and I'm all in.

And there goes that test sashing again.

Now I just need to decide whether to use one constant blue or if each block should have a different one.  (More test blocks?)

I think I'm done procrastinating for awhile.

Oh and those test dummy alternate blocks I made way up there?  Before I knew what I was doing, I'd made a few more in this month's RSC color since they're ridiculously easy to make.

Dammit.  Did I just start another quilt?

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what goodies everyone's building!