It's been quite a week. Or two.

Time has a way of getting away from me, it seems.  I just realized I haven't posted in almost forever...
Not much happened in the RSC realm.  I was much busier doing some costume sewing than I was piecing quilt blocks.
Like this:

(I had to chop off my son-in-law's head to show you that picture...)  (It'll grow back, I'm sure)

That project all started when I said, a couple of months ago, "I've always wanted to make a pirate coat, but didn't have anyone to make it for."  At which point my daughter pointed at her husband as he raised his hand.
But the pirate coat morphed into a colonial coat, as we all fell in love with Hamilton.  We found a pattern for a pirate coat, which I modified the dickens out of in order to make this green linen coat.  The pattern had decorative pocket flaps, but no actual pockets (that HAD to be fixed!), and was unlined.  I added the pockets and a full lining, learning how to do a bagged lining in the process.  (Note- if you do it wrong, you end up with a klein bottle instead of a coat.  That'll teach me to think I remembered the video instructions a couple of months after viewing it...)  I also added the collar and front trim, and modified the cuffs to something less pirate-y.  I finished sewing on the twenty-eight (28!!!) buttons the day before the costume party it was crying to be worn to.  And hey, look!  I actually finished something!

Then I headed for home, and it rained for a week.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but my car, which had been parked in the dooryard at home for the 6+ weeks I'd been gone, apparently decided I was never coming back.  It threw such a snit-fit that both the battery and one of the tires were flat.  Since I didn't really want to deal with either of those issues in the rain/drizzle/rain, I had to wait it out.
Finally.   Battery charged, tire pumped back up, all my sewing luggage packed up to head down to the studio.  Yay!

So, now my machine is set back up, I've spent some time organizing and getting ready for serious sewing again.  Four patch blocks, nine patches for Burgoyne cornerstones, and RSC blocks, here I come!  (Oh, and it occurs to me that there's a major gift-giving holiday coming up that I might want to do something about.) 

I even got fabric pulled for Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt "On Ringo Lake," which will be starting later this month.

I had plenty of aquas on hand, since it's in the range I'm using for my Storm-at-Sea/Sea-of-Tranquility quilt.

I had more coral/melon than I thought I did, since it falls in that pinkish-orange/orangish-pink valley.  More than once, I've bought something that I thought was orange or pink, but turned out to be neither.

And browns aren't a problem at all.  I'd been collecting them for my 365 Challenge quilt (blue/red/brown color scheme) (which I'm still months (and now years!) behind on), so I've got lots.  (I may or may not keep that bacon fabric in with my browns.  For now, it amuses me to see it in the stack.) 

I had intended to change colors this year if I did the mystery again, but since this is a grouping that I normally wouldn't work with, I'm going to go ahead and roll with her colors.

Life is all about the challenges, right?

Since it's all about the scrappy quilts, I'm linking with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

Another squirrel...

This time a squirrel with zippers!

No, not this kind -

 

Or even this kind -

This squirrel with zippers was a bag that my daughter and I saw in her local quilt store and fell madly in love with.
I tracked down the pattern and ordered the wire frames necessary to make this fabulous bag.  (And I know a good squirrel when I see one, so I ordered several sets of the frames...)  (Go HERE to do the same thing yourself.  Trust me, you're going to want to!)

Here's my (first, but certainly not last) Retreat Bag

and my daughter's (first, but certainly not last) bag.

(Note:  she folded the ends of her bag correctly - mine is incorrect, but I'm leaning toward just leaving it that way because I like this shape, too.)  (Note 2:  yes, hers is made from an exploding Tardis print. )   (Note 3:  yes, I'm jealous.)

Here they are open so you can see how nicely they stand up, due to that wire frame at the mouth.

Love love love this bag! 
And now I'll be off to have a good long dither about what to put in it. 
Oh, and to plan what fabrics to make the next one with.  And straps...  I think I want straps on the next one...

I may have to put in another frame order in the near future.

Well, dither my pumpkins!

(That may be my newest exclamation of dismay...)

I've hit a speedbump with the pumpkins.

I got all the puzzle pieces assembled, using my just-chop-off-the-extra technology(learned from my Gwennie medallion adventure) -

 

and got all the blocks to fit into one big pumpkin patch.

(Pardon my toes in that last picture.  I'm using my daughter's laptop and it has hidden from me all the pictures I just cropped and edited oh-so-tediously for this post.  Rather than going off on an extended period of searching and cursing, I'm just pulling them in raw off the smart card and calling it a day...)

My original plan was to use this print for a border,

but it's much too busy and just overwhelms my poor pumpkins.
So I tried laying out some intervening borders,

which I like, but still think that print's gotta go.
I went ahead with the dotty border, but that's when I hit the speedbump.

I've got two ideas, and am having a hard time choosing between them.

Green?

Or black?

I'll just be over here in the corner, dithering...

Someone liberated my pumpkins!

Pumpkins are continuing to pile up on my work table.  It all started when I saw a really cute table runner on Bonnie Hunter's blog.   "Ooooo!" I thought, "Pumpkins!  What fun!"   The next thing I knew, I'd grabbed some of the orange scraps heaped on my table and made a pumpkin.   And then another.
Only my pumpkins ended up not looking like Bonnie's at all.  A little voice in the back of my brain had started whispering things like 'Why should they all be the same size?' and 'Matching corners are no fun at all!' and other bits of get-me-in-trouble ideas.
Next thing I knew, I had all kinds of wobbly squishes...

Now I'm adding bordery-bits around them and fitting them together like puzzle pieces.

I think I'm making a table runner.  So far, anyway...

But... but... I'm not done with orange, yet...

I've been busy with Halloween costume sewing (not for me) (grandkids, ya know), but managed to squeeze in a couple of piglets and some other orange bits.

First, these two little stars -

And I do mean stars, literally!

And then, my new favorite piggy ever!  (Thanks, Sally!)

Cuz what could be better than piglets and chickens together?!?  (That's ham and eggs right there, folks.  But don't tell them...)

As 2016 starts winding up, I'm giving some thought to RSC2017.  One block that had caught my eye was the Centennial block, so I found a version of the pattern that finished to a 6" block.
(It was actually a paper-pieced pattern, but life is too short for paper piecing, so I translated the pattern to use strips and squares.  You know, piecing piecing...)

I plan to make a few more just because I like the block, and then make a decision for next year.

And while my guard was down and all those orange scraps were flopping around on the cutting table, this happened:

And it looks like it's liable to keep happening...

Linking with Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see the last orange bits being turned into pretties!

I think the worst of the fever has passed...

It all started innocently enough.  My daughter and I were out running errands, one of which was to pick up a bag of cat litter.  While we were in the pet store, I decided to take a look and see if they had lizard litter, aka crushed walnut shells.
Aha!

Indeed they did.  They were out of the 5lb bag, but the 10-pounder was only slightly more expensive than buying a half pound at a quilt shop, so I grabbed one.  Then the very helpful young man who worked there told me that there was a sale - buy one, get a second one at half price.  While the thrifty part of brain was going "Ooooo!", the sensible part was asking "Just how many pounds of pincushions are you planning to make, exactly?", so I just got the one bag.
Which is probably just as well.
The other day, I left you at this point -

but I didn't stop there.
There were more.

Many more.  Originally I was just going to make two.  Honest.  Three at the outside.
I don't know where it all went off the rails.
And even with that stack up there, I still kept having more ideas.
Like fussy cutting this cute little kitty.

 And making a log.

The log was the first one I completed - stuffed and stitched and ready for action.
Because I needed a place to park my needle while I filled the next one, of course

I've been making four-patches for leaders/enders for over a year, so I always have lots of those laying around.

And I got to use some cute fabric for the backs, too.

A three inch Ohio star was fun.

Especially with this on the bottom.

For this one, I not only got to test out my Dresden ruler,

but I also got to learn how to do the buttonhole stitch on my sewing machine!

That cushion is bigger than the last bunch - finishing at about 5" - so I framed a 3.5" square for the back.

This next one is my favorite, I think.  I used a modified monkey for it.

And then I though, "Why settle for just square shapes?  Why not branch out a little?"
So I made this.  From the top, it just looks like a pinwheel -

but step back a little and you'll see it's a biscornu.

And then...  And then I remembered that I'd just spent 5 months playing with improv and make-it-up-as-you-along and being liberated, so I just grabbed the closest scrappy bits and made a more freeform sort of construction.

I'd gotten down to the very last pincushion when I had one of those slap-myself why-didn't-I-think-of-this-an-hour-ago moments.  From the very first step, I'd been struggling to keep my homemade paper funnel lined up with the opening in the pincushion, while simultaneously trying to dump in walnut shells.  Three hands would have been useful.  Possibly four.
It finally dawned on me to just pin the funnel to the fabric.

Duh.
The last one definitely went a lot more smoothly...

So here's the whole gang!

Well, except for the log.  That one's already been put into service and didn't make it into the group shot.

And I still have about half a bag of lizard litter left.  In other words, I only have half a bag of lizard litter left!

Do you suppose that sale is still going on?