Orange stars, Monday Minis, and slowly expanding BS

Finally some RSC content!  (You knew I wasn't going to be able to resist orange, right?)
I grabbed the bin of my sadly neglected Centennial stars, and got right to work play.

Check out the star points in that block in the lower right corner of the picture.  I could only squeak out seven triangles from my orange pindot scrap, so I rummaged through my pile of scrap triangles for an eighth one.  Luckily I found an orange polka dot scrap that would work perfectly as long as I wasn't picky about dot sizes.  Win!

I made a sixteenth Burgoyne Surrounded block, but apparently forgot to photograph it.  It's the blue-centered one being cut off at lower left -

and then I whipped up a couple of quick nine patches and tested out the 3" sashing version of BS.  I like it better than the narrow sashing, which is going to result in a much larger quilt.  (Fifteen inch blocks with three inch sashing is going to be honkin' huge.)  This means I might as well stop making more blocks.  Or start another BS quilt.  Whichever.

Proceeding from large to small, I next turned my attention to my Monday Maniacal Minis.  (Was that the name of it?)  I counted up my little blocks and what with the extras I'd made (because my math skills don't seem to include counting), came up with twenty-three.  There's no sensible layout I could think of that used 23 blocks, so my choices were to discard three blocks for a count of twenty (like in the Temecula pattern) or to forge ahead and make two more blocks for a total of 25.
I forged.

A couple of framed square-in-squares gave me the desired total, and I started sashing these itty bitties.

Cue the dithering for the second sashing color.
Green?

Yellow?

Orange?

Pink?

Red?

Rainbow swirls?

What's that last fabric again?

I found a backing for Are We There Yet.  I love these big multicolor circles sooooo much!

(And my Monday Minis are currently in timeout while they think about their total lack of cooperation in sashing choice.  I'll get back to them when their attitude is a little better.)


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday, and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what all the happy scrappy folk are doing!

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!

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!

This clucker's got stars in her eyes

Or, more accurately, she's got stars in her butt, but eyes sounds better...

This little biddy went together a lot more smoothly than her predecessor.  Hardly any swearing at all, and that's counting the fact that the background is all stripy and not completely whacked.
I think I'm making progress!
I really didn't get a lot of blue done this week for the RSC, but since this Burgoyne block has some blue in it, I guess I can claim it for this last Saturday in July.

This is now Burgoyne #13, which means I'm apparently not stopping at twelve.  I thought I was stopping at twelve.  The plan was to stop at twelve.  But for some reason, I'm still choosing colors and cutting bits for more Burgoynes.  I think Cathy's gorgeous finished Burgoyne flimsy might have a certain amount of blame inspiration to it.  Can't quit now!

Speaking of not quitting, the Mad Monday Minis were quite a trial this week.   Seriously?  Itty bitty 36-patches?  Itty bitty 36-patches composed of 1.25" squares?  Itty bitty 36-patches composed of 1.25" squares that measure 4"?  FIVE of them?!?

(Edit:  Diann's comment reminded me that the squares were actually 1 1/8" rather than 1 1/4", which  made it even more ridiculous.  So, the following paragraphs should refer to 1.25" strips cut into 3.5" sections to make the strip sets, and 1 1/8" slices for the actual assembly.  (Note to self - don't just rely on memory for blog posts, especially when hungry...))

I immediately tossed out that 1.25" squares idea.  Nope.  Not going there.
I cut 3.75" lengths off a double fistful of 1.5" strips and sewed together a bunch of pairs, then trimmed them to 1.25" wide before pressing the pairs open.  Then I sewed on another 1.5" strip, pressed, and sliced them into 1.25" units of three squares.

I sewed these units together in sets of six, trimmed them to size, then sewed pairs of the 3x6 units together to make the 36-patches.

The directions said that if they didn't come out to exactly 4" square to adjust the seams.
Nope.   Not going there, either.

Most of my blocks were a bit too big, but no way was I going to mess with seams.  I centered my ruler on the center seams and slivered off a smidgen from each edge.  At this size, there's no way that such a tiny discrepancy is going to show.  (If anybody comes at this quilt with a magnifying glass and a ruler, I'll just gently show them the door.)  (Well, pretty gently...)

Amidst all that work, I did manage to get a few more blocks built for Long Time Gone.  (Maybe I'll call it "Are We There Yet?")

I'm going to have to make that sashing decision soon.  In the meantime, I'm still liking the golden yellow.
Though that stack of oranges over there on the shelf are starting to make hooting and whistling noises...


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

Monday's Mini Madness

This week's Marvelous Monday Mini was fun, though I departed from the instructions to make the block.
I took one look at the 'draw a line corner to corner on 1.5" squares and sew on either side of the line' direction and said a big 'Nope!'  Instead, I grabbed a couple of handy 3" squares and  did the 8-in-1 trick.

A bit of squaring up to get those teensy weensy 1" HSTs

and I was (almost) done.  The only problem with the 8-in-1 trick is that you only get eight HSTs, and I needed nine.

So, I made and trimmed one more HST, this time using a couple of scraps, and filled in that center.

Some 1" strips were added as the borders, and another week is done!

I've made better triangle points in my time, but these pieces are so tiny that I'm not going to unpick and re-sew.  It's certainly good enough for a galloping horse - even a lumbering turtle would have a hard time spotting such itty bitty booboos!

Long Time Gone Auditions and a Marvelous Monday Mini

I'm still caught up with the Temecula Monday Minis!

Between these little cuties and the Long Time Gone blocks, I'm getting so used to working with 1" strips that a charm square now seems humongous.  Even the 1.5" strips are starting to look a little chunky...

Speaking of Long Time Gone, I've started auditioning fabrics for the background sashing.  (Even though I'm far far far from finishing.  I'm a bit of an optimist.) 
First up was this fabric that I've had hanging around for almost forever.

I originally ordered it for a background for a quilt, but for some reason my brain thought 'light tomato' meant red.  Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be pink instead.  Now I audition it for everything, and I've yet to find a use for it.  I may have to just sit down and design a quilt especially for it.
It's definitely not what I want for this quilt, so next I tried a cream print.

Nope.  It's slightly darker than this photo makes it look, but still is just a bit too quiet, and not warm enough.

Moving on.

This dark red is a little more promising.   It's definitely going to stay in the running.

And I had a nearly-black batik that's okay.

I think I'd like it better if it was a true black, which would make the colors pop more than this almost-gray does. 

I'm going to keep digging through the stash, seeing what I can come up with.  I'd really like to make this just with what I've already got on hand, but a bit of shopping wouldn't be the end of the world.
Maybe a nice indigo? 
Or maybe orange...