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!

How I spent my summer vacation... err... my lazy fall

 I was going to do a catch-up post, but it started looming on me like one of those elementary back-to-school assignments.  (The teachers never accepted "I sat on the couch and watched cartoons all summer.") (Even when it was true.)  The only way to make myself stop procrastinating was to just gather a few random pictures, throw them onto the blank screen, and say a word or two.

So here goes.

I seem to have come unstuck from time somewhere in August - my last pictures show a few teal/aqua blocks.  Some Antique Tiles -

and a couple of cake stands.

Around that time someone seems to have stolen my batteries, 

because I don't have any orange blocks for September to show - which is a surprise since orange is always my favorite RSC month! 

I lined up my framed stars at some point,

and cut out at least one more.

(And does anyone know what this star is really called?  I've been calling it framed star for lack of anything better.  The newsletter I got the pattern from just called it block 5 or something...)

I started sewing some of my La Passacaglia blocks together.  This is a hand-piecing project that is going pretty slowly.  

I crocheted yet another afghan, but I haven't gifted it yet, so no pictures. 

I managed to cut quite a few pieces for Bonnie Hunter's newest Mystery Quilt - Rhododendron Trail -

and got a start on sewing them together.

And I was glad that I'd held off on sewing all those neutral triangles to the HSTs when Sally pointed out the easier way.  And then I remembered when Libby taught me a magic way of ending up with a large triangle sewn to the little winged triangle units without actually sewing any triangles, and I got a start with that.

I've only finished two of these Bonnie blocks so far, but it's a beginning.

and squaring up the little hourglasses is a nice end of the day activity while I'm watching a movie or listening to an audiobook.

There'll be another mystery clue tomorrow.  I'm ready to keep plodding on my Rhododendron Trail.

2021 is at an end at last

 Happy New Year!  

And here's hoping that 2022 really is a happy new year.

When the confetti settles a bit I'll have a post on what little I've been up to in the last few months.  Meanwhile, here's my first block in Bonnie Hunter's 2021 Mystery, Rhododendron Trail.

If they gave out gold medals for procrastination, I'd have a drawerful of them

 I'm two flimsies behind in the Showing Off department.

First - I finished the top for Grassy Creek.  (yay!)

(Disregard those corners on the right - they're flappy and full of mischief)  I'm quite happy with my sashing mods, and I found a perfect border fabric.  

It's a batik with shades of orange and yellow, with tinges of green and red (well, more pinkish I guess, but pink is red-adjacent) and has a leafy vibe that works with the grassy creek theme.  I'm calling it a success, and am now looking forward to this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt.

For flimsy two - against all odds I finally finished all the endless string-pieced borders (at least 92 miles, I swear) and finished up the top for Sand Castles 2.

My poor design wall is nowhere near tall enough, and the bottom foot or so of the top is dragging on the floor...

And thank goodness I read about faking a mitered corner just before I tackled the four corners on this top - trying to do a true miter would have left me gibbering!

(How had I missed that a mitered corner is just a half-square triangle in disguise?  You're never too old to learn a new trick!)

This one is for my grandson, so it gets bumped right to the front of the next-to-be-quilted line.

Of course, now for the hard part - clearing off the big table in the dining room so I can get the basting done.

Not to mention that I'll probably have to chloroform the cats to keep them from 'helping'...

On the Banks of Grassy Creek

It's no secret that I love Bonnie Hunter's quilts.  I've made several quilts from her books - and in the case of Sand Castles I'm almost done with my second one - and have participated in her mystery quilts for the last several years.  She's inspired me to work with color combinations I never would have tried on my own.

But when she first announced her mystery quilt last fall, I looked at the fabric requirements and thought "wow, that's a lot of gray."

And as we stitched various components each week, I again thought "wow, that's a lot of gray."

And when she did the big reveal earlier this month my first thought was "wow, that's a lot of gray."

Now I had my doubts going in.  Gray isn't a color I like to work with, even though people assure me that it makes colors pop.  I'll admit that dark charcoal grays function that way, but they're essentially black which really does bring out the color.  Maybe it's just the way my eyes/brain perceive color, but for me gray just leaches all the life out of any color near it.

I assembled the first block to see how it would look.  I really love this block.

Still quaking at the gray, I decided to take some of my spare bits and make up one substituting blue for the gray.

And again, I really really love this block.  As a matter of fact, I can foresee making a happy scrappy version of these blocks for a whole quilt.  (But not today.  Too much to do today already.)

Side by side.

Given the fact that I didn't dislike the gray, and I already had enough components ready to make 12 blocks, I went ahead and started assembling.

I had only made four of the sashing strips that Bonnie had set us onto, because I'd had a bad feeling about them.

And when I laid the first four blocks out with them on the design wall, I was glad I hadn't made all 99 gabillion of them that I was supposed to.

So much gray...  And so many strings.  While I love the look of string sashing, I've been sewing string borders for two Sand Castle quilts and I'd frankly like a break.

I decided that I needed to go in a whole different direction.  I'm making this quilt to please myself, after all.  After a quick toss through the oranges I found a big enough piece of something that would work for the sashing.

It's not perfect - I wish it was a shade or two darker - but like I said, I'm pleasing myself, and the lighter softer look pleases me a lot.  (And of course I always think that more orange is always the best answer.)

I've got columns put together and borders started.   Just trudging along on the banks of Grassy Creek.

It's still a good ways from being done, but I'm happy with the direction it's going.  It's going to end up as a nice smiley throw.

Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the scrappy goodness!