Chained together

 Hi everyone! It's another weekend, and I'm told that it's officially the last weekend of summer, since fall starts this coming week. Wednesday, I think. I can believe it's still summer, because it has been really warm here. And raining. Today's pictures are weird because the light was all strange, mainly because it was about to rain again. And it's raining again this morning, too.

In stitching news, I have finished off the Color Chain quilt top for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge! Here she is:

 

 

See, it's super wet outside. I know there are a couple of months left in the RSC, including this month, which should be orange. Here's the thing, though-- I took out the blocks to make some orange ones to add to it, and I put the existing blocks up on the design wall. And the quilt told me it was done! It was a good size and plenty colorful, so I could just assemble it and be done. Sold!

 

 

I did add in a little bit of orange with some cornerstones, and there is one in a bright green, too, which I think might be our last color for the year. I thought the cornerstones made the chain effect even better, and who can resist throwing in a few more scraps?

 

See the leftover raindrops?

The hardest part of putting this quilt top together was choosing a border. I wasn't going to have a border, but it looked pretty washed out without one. (If you look closely, you can see that there is some orange in the border, too, and plenty of green.) Somehow, multicolor brights never look good with my RSC quilts. They always seem to clash, but I auditioned a bunch of others and settled on this one. I think it works fine.

 

Unbelievably, that means that I have finished off one of my RSC quilts for this year! Hurray! This will become a donation quilt and will likely get quilted next year. That means it's not unfinished, just waiting its turn. Right? And speaking of unfinished projects. . .have you all seen THIS? 

 

 

Leanne at Devoted Quilter is running a WIPs Be Gone challenge for the last 100 days of 2021. Unbelievably, next Thursday is the first day, because that will kick off the 100 final days of this year. Who knew? She has a lot of prizes included and it looks like fun, so consider jumping in if you'd like. Heaven knows I have plenty of unfinished things around here. . .

 

The dampness makes it look really sad and saggy, but I promise it's a happy quilt!

 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Remember that it's officially still summer, so you could totally justify a quick trip to the beach!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21.

Chain links

Hi everyone, and happy weekend! I hope you all had a lovely week. I was mostly inside, because it is hot and rainy, but I did get a lot of things done. After almost two years, the house is finally starting to feel like home. Once I get the hallway done, I think I'll be finished with home improvements for a while. Until I get sick of something else and absolutely have to change it or paint it, that is.

Since I wanted desperately to stay in the air conditioning, I made some progress on the Color Chain quilt that I'm working on for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month's color is a darker blue, which we all know is not my favorite color. How about some medium-ish blues instead? Here we go:

These blocks are super easy to make, but my real surprise was how many blue bits I actually have.  Since I cleaned up and sorted out the scraps that were in various baskets, I discovered quite a bit of blue. I'm going to need a plan for that, but for now these blocks will have to do.

 

For last month, I had made two lonely purples:

 

 

I don't know why there are only two instead of three, but I must have gotten distracted. That's easy to fix, though. I have a whole bunch of purple to use up.

Finally, I also finished up the red chain blocks that I also got too distracted to finish:

 

 

Very cheery, aren't they? Red is a perfect color for midsummer, and none of the flowers have dried up yet. I love having the pots up on the railing. I can see them from inside and they always make me happy.

In a crazy moment between rain showers, I took all of the blocks out to the rustic stone patio we have and laid them out:

 

It was very sweaty, but worth it. They look so great! It will be a cheerful quilt for sure. I only need ten more blocks to finish this up.. Not sure how I'll lay them out yet, but it will definitely emphasize the chain. (If you'd like to make these blocks, there are instructions right HERE.)

So, there is my progress for a colorful chain quilt! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the weekend. Today (Saturday) is my dad's 81st birthday, so there are some shenanigans sure to ensue, involving everyone, including great grandchildren. Looking forward to quite the time!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21.

Color chains

 Hi everyone! The wind is about to blow me off my chair today. How about you? Holy cow, the wind is really strong out there. On the upside, the temperature got over 80 degrees one day this week, but then it fell back to a more normal temperature. I can feel the summer coming on already, can't you?

Today I am showing off my new RSC project. I know what you're thinking-- do you really *need* a new project, Mari? Well, yes, yes I do! I have sooo many scraps. Sometimes they make me tense because they seem like a mountain to climb, so I needed another project to use up a few more of them. I landed on this one because it's easy, it's fast, it uses a good size scrap, and I think it will look great all put together. Here is the block I chose:

Some of you may recognize this as a variation on a block from the Squared Away sewalong that Angela and I did in 2018. (Was it really that long ago? Wow.)  I love almost all the blocks in that sampler, and I've been meaning to make some quilts using them, so here's my opportunity. 

 

These blocks are very easy to make, so it didn't take long for me to catch up on the colors. I even managed to make one red one yesterday after work:

 

 

I've decided to call this the Color Chain project, and I plan to make three blocks each month for a total of 30 blocks, which will give me a lot of flexibility with the layout at the end. These are 10-inch blocks, so any way that I set them the final quilt will end up a decent size. 

 So there we are, a new project! Yesterday when I went outside to take pictures, I startled these three, who just stood there and looked at me accusingly. 

I went back inside pretty fast, though, because the blocks blew all over everywhere and I couldn't get any decent pictures. I'll bet they think they chased me off! I don't know why we have so many deer around this year. We have seen so many, but they usually hang out a few miles away, where it's much more wooded. I wonder what has chased them this way?

Anyway, I hope you all are having a lovely weekend and making lots of stitching progress. Enjoy!