A few more yellow bits, just under the wire

I'm wrapping up the last of the yellows for February's RSC.   (And I just saw that March is going to be green!  Huzzah!)  (My third favorite color!)  (After orange and purple, of course!)

Cake Stands are a happy block, no matter which color.

And I've got a dandy bunch of chips ready to go.

The chips made a good leader/ender for some more Glitter blocks

and since I found the other bag of blocks that I'd kitted up last year, I guess I'll carry on piecing some more of them.  They're tricky enough that I can only make about three of them before my eye starts to twitch and the swearing starts to get almost too loud, but three by three will continue to add up!

I also try to spend a little time each session just cutting pieces for future projects, like my tumblers for instance.

That bin doesn't look very full until I take a photo from the side -

cutting twenty or so pieces every time I'm handling fabric will eventually start to add up.  When I'm ready to start the quilt, it's going to go pretty fast, even if it ends up as a leader/ender.  (This is the same approach I took for my Triangle Stars - cutting pieces off and on over the course of a year or two, then starting the sewing.  That top really whooshed itself right together!)

I also continue to cut strips for 9-patches for my Jack's Chain, squares and rectangles for Easy Peasy, 4-patches just because I like 4-patches, and triangles for my future Ocean Waves and Tree of Paradise.

And then of course, there are the pieces I cut for quilts I'm not actually starting at all, like Flutterby.

I sure hope my great-great-great-grandchildren like finishing quilts, because I think I have enough starts to keep several generations entertained for years...

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

I know February is a short month but this is ridiculous

 Where does the time go?  Three weeks into February and this is my first gathering of the yellows for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

In between finishing those two tops I showed in my last post, I got a couple of Antique Tile blocks done,

and a couple of yellow chips as well.  I've got several more of those cut out and sitting next to my sewing machine since they make dandy leader/enders.

And I really got carried away with my postage stamp blocks for PSP20-21, making not one,

not two,

but THREE blocks.

(Admittedly that last one was kind of an oops.  I'd lost track of how many I'd made and thought the third one was merely the second.) (This is not a bad oops.)

And while I was doing all that postaging, I finished up another pink that I'd cut out last month but hadn't gotten stitched.

It's been a good month for postage stamps!

I only got one cake stand done so far,

but I've got two more cut out and ready to go.

After working so relentlessly on Grassy Creek and Sand Castles 2, I was a little lost after finishing them.  What to do, what to do?  Get back to a UFO, or start something new?

You'd be proud - I dug out a little bag of Glitter bits that I'd kitted up a long time ago, then set aside and mostly forgotten.  (Somehow in my mind, I'd taken the 'there, that's done' of setting up the kits, and transmuted it into 'there, that's done' as in 'no further action required')  I spied a few sets that had yellow incorporated in them and pulled them out to stitch right up.

And there I was, feeling all virtuous for resisting the siren call of starting a new project.  So strong! 

And since I was being so good, it surely couldn't hurt to just look up that other Jen Kingwell quilt that I want to make.  You know, for after I finish Glitter and all.  It's always good to be prepared - everyone says so.

So I pulled out the book and just looked at the pattern.  And then I read the directions and noticed that she used an odd measurement for the grid base for the blocks.  Next thing I knew I was translating the pattern into sizes of strips and squares that I already cut and use, and then this happened.

Not that I'm starting a new project.  Nope, not me.

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

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!

Run, table, run!

 Here we are at the last Saturday in January, which is the last RSC roundup for pink.  I sewed one more Antique Tiles block this month -

and added it to the stack of pinks I've completed.  Ready for February's color!

In the meanwhile, I'd been giving some thought to Joyful's Table Scraps challenge.  Remember these little stars I made last month as a prep to thinking pink?

How would they look turned on point, with purple corners?  

Pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

How about adding a little pink sashing?

And maybe a purple border?

Maybe a splotchy pink with wisps of purple as an outer border?

But that was where I stopped for a bit.  I had a nagging doubt about the squareness of table runners.  Shouldn't they be rectangles?

After a couple of days staring at what I had so far, inspiration struck.   I decided to mimic the hourglass look of the corners of the stars, and got right to work making itty bitty hourglasses.

At first I was going to make a solid semi-border of those hourglasses, but after the first dozen I came to my senses.  

It was time to Invoke Math.

(You know I'm serious when I Invoke Math)

I held my breath as I measured the result - there's often a gap between Theory and Reality - 

but woohoo!  It worked!

I quickly framed in the ends,

and popped on the final border.

So, table runner top completed.  If I manage to get it quilted in the next couple of days (don't laugh, it could happen) (well, maybe) it would be lovely for Valentine's Day decor.  (Not that I'm big on decor...)

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see the last of the pink!

Also linking with Joyful for the Table Scraps Challenge - come join the fun!

Well, golly. January's been a ride so far, eh?

 I'm pretty sure the last time I posted there were still dinosaurs scrumbling around in the underbrush.  I'll try to catch up with what-all I've been up to.

My RSC sewing continued with several pink cake stands,

some pink chips,

and a pink PSP21 block to add to my postage stamp collection.

When I last posted, I showed this pink Antique Tiles block that I had made, inspired by our Cathy.

I made another one,

and then just looked and looked and looked at them.  They're so pink.  So ferociously and unremittingly pink.

After hmming for a bit, I decided to see what they'd look like with a different color for that center ring.

No final decision yet, but I think this might be the way I go with these blocks in the future.  You know me - the more colors the merrier.

Not all my sewing has been pink.  I'm slowly but surely squaring up blocks and sewing together rows for Sand Castles 2.

I've got the bottom two rows of squares to go, then I'll sew pairs of rows together until I have them all assembled.  (It'll be nice to finally be done with all that red)  I'm still slogging along on the (possibly endless) B&W string-pieced borders.  Someday I'll have them finished and I'll do such a happy dance!

I've also been working on a Table Scraps project for Joyful's challenge, but that's going to have to wait for its own post - this one is long enough!

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