Purple Sand Castles finally make a showing

At last, some purple Sand Castles!

(I wish purple was easier to photograph.  Sigh...)

I'd been trying to make a big stack of blocks in colors that I'd fallen behind with over the summer, then realized that September is almost over and I'd better get with the purple.  There are three more purple blocks cut out and waiting in the bullpen, along with a bunch of blues.  (I managed to skip over both the light and the dark shades of blue)  I still need to dig out my oranges and cut some bits for blocks - how could I have let orange slide by?

Earlier this year I'd kitted up a bunch of blocks for Glitter, so I pulled out some of them just to break up the Sand Castles a bit.

They're a bit too fiddly for leaders/enders, but it's amazing what you can accumulate when the pieces are just lying there next to the machine.

They'll go into their bin with the rest of their Glittery siblings.  Good thing I'm not in a hurry for this quilt - it's more of a marathon project than a sprint.  Those y-seams really slow a person down somehow...



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A summer's worth of geese all aflutter

Here's my design wall, after a concerted effort to do some catching up.

That's a whole summer of geese - May through August - for my temperature quilt, all done up and sassy.  There are even three geese for the first three days of September at upper right.

I've got a tray full of pieces cut out for the missing RSC summer colors,

and I managed to get a few blocks sewn up as far as the lozenge section.  They'll just need their scrappy triangles sewn onto the corners to be ready to join the other blocks in their plastic tub.

But wait - what happens if I pull back a little on that last photo?

What are all those black on white prints doing on my cutting table?

Shhhh...  Don't tell anyone...  I've started another project.

Meet Sand Castles II - in black, white, gray, and red - for my grandson.  (His favorite color scheme)

Because of course I want to make TWO Sand Castle quilts...


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  I've been missing those linkups!

Dusting off the blog

That was an unplanned hiatus.  I spent the summer lost in a combination of grief and inertia.
I lost my dad in early June.  May had been a nightmare month as his health plummeted, with trips to the ER and tests and more tests.   He'd been fighting a long battle against a degenerative muscle disease and it finally won. 
I can't say enough good things about hospice - I literally don't know how we could have gotten through it without them.  So much help and comfort at a time when we really needed it.  Letting go was so hard, and they held our hands through it all.
Getting back into any kind of creative groove took a long time, and it's taken even longer to get to the point where I feel like talking again.
So, here I am, talking again.  Hello.

One thing I did do is get the quilting done on my granddaughter's Storm at Sea quilt, which I've been calling Sea of Tranquility.

(She's holding the other end of the quilt, but I cropped her out of the picture since I didn't ask her for permission to show her face.)
As you can see, I went ahead with my crazy plan to quilt it in a big spiral.  The beginning was a certified pain in the butt, but it was just the kind of simple mindless process that my frazzled self needed.  And I love the effect it gives of ripples moving out from the center, echoing the light to dark transition that I'd worked in the values of the blues and greens.

Big project, big quilt, done.  One positive to put up against the negative.
We just keep going.

Aqua's last hurrah

I only got to spend a couple of hours at the sewing machine this week, what with one thing and another.  Luckily I'd already cut out the pieces I needed for the last aqua Sand Castle for April.

I'm ready for a new color!  Hopefully I'll get a little bit more sewing time soon.

In temperature quilt news, I'm caught up with my April goosies.  Here's a week's worth of flying geese waiting to be joined to the April column at left.

Happily, we had two more days in the seventies so I got to add some more yellow to the turquoises and greens.  Of course, today we hovered in the 30's and 40's, so I'll have to use more blues again.  Oh well.  The tide is turning!

And for those of you who might have been concerned about me, I'm truly not starting a Jack's Chain quilt.
Truly.

It's a mere coincidence that some nine patches attached themselves to that big hexagon while other nine patches started milling around shouting "Me!  Me next!"
So, not a Jack's Chain at all.  Simply some very confused nine patches.
Yep.


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Still digging for aqua

I found enough aqua to make another Sand Castle

and I even made another Centennial star.

(I keep telling myself I'm done making these star blocks because I probably have plenty, but I keep ignoring myself and making more.)  (It may never end...)  (I may end up with an Extremely Large Quilt.)  (Or two.)

I added the Sand Castle to the design wall where it joined the three other aquas I've made this month.  I've got pieces cut for one more in this color which I plan to get to next week.  At that point I'll sit back and wait for May's color.  (Purple?  Purple would be nice.)  (Or orange.  I like orange)

You can also see my April Goosey Temps column in this picture.  We've still only had one day above 70 degrees, so there's just that one lonely yellow goose.  I'm crossing my fingers that there'll be more warm in the near future!

I'm still plugging along with my demented bits,

though I'm going to have to stop and make some more triangles soon.  That bottomless bag of HSTs is starting to near bottom after all.

Though there's a new distraction.  I've got strips piled next to my machine, just waiting to be assembled into nine-patches.

You know, just in case I ever decide I want to make a Jack's Chain.

Never hurts to be prepared, right?


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Nothing but puttering this week

Putter putter putter.  Luckily I have lots of stuff to putter with.
(I should be trying to get Sea of Tranquility pin-basted, but I seem to be procrastinating there.  I'm looking forward to the quilting part, but the basting is always such a pain in the butt...)

I got one Sand Castle block done in aqua for the RSC.  I've found another scrap of turquoise big enough to make the next block, but I'm going to have to do some serious digging for any others.  Definitely low on aqua/turquiose.

I'm still herding my flying geese in my temperature quilt.  On Monday, yellow made its first appearance as the temp went up to 72 degrees, but it's back to normal now with temps in the 40's to 60's.

I'm looking forward to when yellow is the norm, with orange for the 80's making an occasional appearance.  Hopefully we won't see too much red - that means the temp would be over 90.  Not a fan of weather that hot, I must say.

And with avoidance extra time on my hands, I pulled out the Demented bin and made a few more blocks.

I'm up to 174 - yay!  I only need 256, so I feel like the end is in sight.  It's kind of off in the distance, but it's definitely in sight.

I'll keep assembling the little bits and making bigger bits, until all the blocks are ready to go.

Piece of cake, right?

And I found myself making these the other day.  No reason.  Really.

Just because I've been drooling over Cathy's Jack's Chains quilts is no reason to jump to conclusions.
Really.  A person can just have a sudden urge to make nine-patches.  Out-of-the-blue like.
Perfectly normal.
Yep.



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Out with the green and in with the... um... blue-green

Not a big jump on the color wheel this month - Angela announced aqua for April's RSC color.

Between Sea of Tranquility and On Ringo Lake, my supplies of aqua/blue-green aren't as copious as they could be, but I dug in and found a pretty one.

A little more digging found some aqua dots.  You can never go wrong with dots.

Speaking of wrapping up a month, March's temperature geese are all put together and have been added to the design wall, next to January and February's columns.

And, speaking of never going wrong with dots, I decided to give some thought to dots for the background sashing for this quilt.
Multicolor dots

or black and white dots.

Possibilities, eh?
I think I'll test out some plaids next.
Because you can never go wrong with plaids, either.


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