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...

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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!

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Yay - finished with red!

 And now on to the RSC color for October - yellow!

I'd cut squares for a yellow postage stamp ages ago, so that one went together quickly.

So quickly in fact, that I felt a little guilty about how easy it was, so I cut more squares for another one, this time in a deeper shade of yellow.

Meanwhile I got a cake stand assembled, too.

And that's where I stood three days in to the new month - a postage stamp and a half, and a cakestand done already.  October is looking up.  I'll be pulling my bin of yellows to see what else I can come up with. 

(Yellow was my mother's favorite color, so I feel like I should really commit to it when its turn comes up!)

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Even my squirrels are procrastinating these days

Though even my tangents are starting to develop tangents, I think.

I did get a few more Jacks blocks sewn for the RSC.  Since I'm cutting out red squares and triangles for Sand Castles 2 anyway, it's easy to just cut a few extra and make another Jacks.

I really need to get the Jacks bin down and count my blocks, though.  Seems like I decided long ago that I had enough blocks, but here I am still making them...

While I was scrumbling around in my fabric looking for RSC candidates, I came across the bacon fabric I got for the back of my dad's quilt.

 It just hooted and waved at me until I agreed to make a cake stand with it.  Who can argue with bacon?

My other sewing time pretty much went to sewing more 4-patches for Sand Castles 2,

and I've started string piecing the corner triangles for the blocks, figuring it will be less onerous a task if I get a head start on it.  (My method is here.)

In my typical mingy fashion, when I have strips that are too short, I just sew them together to make a longer string.

And then this squirrel came out of nowhere and I ended up watching a metric butt-ton of rulerwork quilting videos.  I have a bunch of quilts that I want to get quilted where working with a ruler would be perfect. (Especially as wobbly as my free-motion non-skills are...)  Had to give it a try!

I was smart enough to keep it small scale.  I cut two 10" squares of scrap fabric and backed them with squares of batting.

My first experiment was on this fabric where the quilting wouldn't show.  (Am I not wise in the ways of quilting?)  I didn't mark anything, just practiced sewing along the edge of the ruler.

For side two, I actually made some marks to keep me in line.  (That's what those little flashes of orange are - a washable marker)

You can see the quilting better from the back sides where I'm marking darts.

And ta-da!  For my practice piece, I actually made something useful!  A microwave bowl cozy, which is something that I'd been coveting all along!

And since it was a practice piece, I won't even mind if I spill gravy all over it!

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  I'm late to the parties as usual, but come see the fun!

Goofing off lately

 After that last huge push to finish the Totally Demented top, I needed some down time.  Mostly I've been cutting squares for postage stamps and for 4-patches (I'm going to need a bunch for Sand Castles 2), but I did manage to stitch up a couple of red cake stands for the RSC.

I've also been putting in some quality time fussy-cutting pieces for my La Passacaglia.  (Still unstarted - I'm just assembling lots of bits and getting ready to start stitching)

I'm planning to hand-stitch La Pas, but there's been a complication.

My stepmom brought home these two young hooligans the other day and they insist that my lap is the only possible place for napping.

Might make stitching a trifle awkward...

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

(Our beloved old cat Lynx went out for his usual evening ramble about 6 weeks ago and never came back.  We held our breath for the first week, hoping he'd come sauntering through the door, but as time passed we lost heart.  Since life without a cat is too horrible to contemplate, we've now got these two little kitties diligently training us in the fine art of Kitten Care.)  (And I've got the claw marks to prove it)

Phew! One extra!

I diligently sewed all those blocks together and ended up with one left over!  (Usually if I'm off, it goes the other way for me.)

I turned 256 of those blocks into 64 of these -

and then grouped those blocks by fours  -

and then kept going

and going

until I ran out of design wall when I'd hung up 9 out of the 16 big blocks.

Now I'm sewing those together by fours.

Luckily I only need four of these megablocks.  Almost there!

My RSC blocks came in handy for leader/enders during all that HST madness.

Two cake stands in red -

and a postage stamp block.

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

Purple's last hurrah

 Well, here we are at the end of August, which has been purple month for the RSC.

I made another cake stand -

and another postage stamp block for PSP20.

I'll miss you, purple!

And Demented marches on.  This stack has enough blocks to form the second quadrant, which means I'm past the halfway point of this stage.

I kept going and have another stack of blocks growing, but I haven't counted them to see if quadrant three is good to go.

The twosies are really piling up -

and here's what's left of the 256, waiting to be paired up.

Out of curiosity, I counted that little stack and - horrors! - came up with an odd number.

Since I'm sewing them together in pairs, this is Not Good News.

Possibilities:

1) I miscounted the blocks.

2) I made 1 too many blocks.

3) Or I made 3 too many blocks.

4) I made 1 too few blocks.

5) Or I made 3 too few.

I'm pretty sure I can throw out  #3 and #5, but the others are entirely possible.

I can go through and count everything again, or I can just leave it as a problem for Future Gayle and carry on sewing.

I'm going with the second option.  

After all, sometimes surprises are good, right?

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come enjoy the last of the purple!

45 Blocks and an Oops. Oh, and a Cake Stand. And another Cake Stand.

 Lately I've been making a big push to get Totally Demented to the flimsy stage.  (I'm trying to be good and clear the decks first so I can start Sand Castles 2.)  (Being good is hard.) 

The other day I put my head down and my butt in my sewing chair and turned out 46 blocks.

Well, 45 of them went smoothly, but as I was ironing the last one I discovered that I'd made an oopsy block.

When I sewed the two halves together, I'd spun one of them around the wrong way.  A few minutes with the seam ripper and a quick trip under the needle and all was good.

That means I now have 224 of the 256 I need.  I'm back to churning out quarter blocks and half blocks, and am hopeful that I'll be done soon.

Then as a palate cleanser, I made a purple cake stand.

And that was so yummy that I made another.

I'll probably be able to find another purple or two in my stash so I can make a few more.  Purple is the next best thing to orange, so I do tend to accumulate them...

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

And hey, it's my birthday!  Purple seems like a good color for my birthday month!

Okay, I give up. I"m making Cake Stands for this year's RSC.

This is actually a purple cake stand, but my camera struggles with purples so I admit it looks kind of pink.

So now Cake Stand is officially a RSC 2020 quilt and will roll over into 2021.  There.  That's settled.

I was really glad when Angela announced a new color for RSC, both because purple is my second most favorite color to play with and because it gave me something to actually show for all the stitching I've been doing lately.

It's not that I haven't kept busy.  Here you can see my nine-patches-in-progress in the upper left corner, with the postage stamp squares cut for PSP20 for August, light green for January, and yellow for whenever it might turn up on the calendar.  At upper right is a couple of platefuls of Easy Peasy leader/enders, with my four-patches-in-progress all across the bottom of the picture.

And I pulled out the Demented bits and have been diligently getting more demented by the day,

but it doesn't leave much to look at.  The pile of half-blocks on the left is growing higher, but one picture pretty much looks like another.

Four-patches for Sand Castles 2 are appearing, too.  Normally I have tons of these on hand for assorted projects, but the first Sand Castles quilt used up a metric butt-ton of them.  (Well, only 512 of them, but that's pretty close.)  But you know, you've seen one four-patch, you've seen them all...

The Easy Peasies are drifting in, too.  But again, not very impressive as a way to show progress.

Though here we go.

First purple Postage Stamp block.  That's a bit better.

Nothing like purple to give a little flash!


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday (I'm late again!) and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see what all the scrappy folk have been up to!

(And a New Blogger update - I thought I'd finally figured out and gotten settled in with New Blogger, but tonight it wouldn't let me create a new post.  I've had to revert to Old Blogger in order to post all this.  No idea what the problem is, but I sure wish they'd get their act together.)