Brown plus red plus progress

 Hi everyone! How is the beginning of summer around your place? This weekend I stained the small deck off my bedroom. Only two cicadas landed on me, which means I only got huge wipes of stain where I screamed and swatted them away with the brush on one arm. I didn't even spill the stain, as freaked out as I was. This is a major win for me. I still have to do the floor, but the new planters have been screwed into the deck and there are flowers in there! It's very exciting.

You may have heard that my friend Preeti is hosting the Positivity Quilt Along, which is a nice and relaxed QAL that doesn't end until just before Labor Day. It is completely free and Preeti has already shared the patterns and more than a dozen different layouts and the fabric requirements for each. The goal is to create charity quilts, many of which will go to Mercyful Quilts, but all worthy causes are fine. (Jump over to Preeti's for more information and inspiration!) You knew I would jump in, so here are my starter blocks:

 

 

Why is that photo so weird? The blocks are brown, with a red print plus sign. I wanted to make a quilt that felt more neutral, for a man or for someone non-binary, or really anyone who would like something with some darker colors. I had some fabric that I wanted to use, but (as usual) I didn't have enough to make a whole quilt just from that fabric. I added the brown and drew myself up a new layout, moving some of the colors around, and I'm pretty happy with how it's starting to look. Here are the fabrics I'm using for the quilt:

 

 

I know what you're thinking-- those are too many fabrics for the quilt! Not to worry! I have a plan, and it's going to turn out pretty great. 

To make my blocks, I've been strip piecing, which has made it all go really quickly. If you're not using scraps, you can save yourself quite a lot of time by strip piecing:

 

 

The colors in the picture above are much closer to the real colors of the blocks. I think the green grass in the top picture threw everything off. I would have hung them on a tree for a better shot, but you know-- big ugly bugs.

So there's the beginning of my Positivity quilt! It doesn't look like much now, but it will soon. And in that same vein, here is my progress on the Edyta Sitar mystery quilt: 

 

I'm up to step 7 of 12, and it's starting to look like a real quilt top. I've really enjoyed working on this, and I hope to finish off the piecing really soon. Laying out the grid as it is in the pattern and filling it in as I go has been really motivating. I may do this with other patterns, because it really does keep me going to see all the progress. 

 

One last thing before I wrap this up: my friend Bernie is retiring and closing her Etsy fabric shop. Sadness for us, but great for Bernie, who will get a lot more Grammy-time. She is having a big sale on everything, so hop on over if you need some fabric, and who doesn't? 

 

 

Hope you all are having a wonderful and positive week and making lots of progress, and that you find some treasures over at Bernie's shop. Happy stitching!

Sharing at Midweek Makers.

A new project and an old one

 Hi everyone! Well, the cicadas are still with us, and now they are making very loud noises. Also, I swear they wait for me to come out the door and then decide to fly all around. Several of them have now landed on me and I managed not to kill either them or myself. I did freak out, though, and I am taking joy in watching the birds have a feast. Can it be schadenfreude if we're talking about insects? I promise to stop complaining about them now!

Anyway-- I started a new quilt project. Yahoo! Now that I've had some sleep, all of a sudden I have about a thousand quilt ideas, so of course I decided to make a quilt from a pattern. I don't even have great pictures yet, but here is one that shows some of the colors and fabrics:

Yeah, not a great picture, but it gives you an idea. Believe it or not, this is a mystery quilt that ran for the last couple of weeks at Laundry Basket Quilts, which is the company and blog for Edyta Sitar. She does lovely fabrics in soft, nostalgic colors, and on her blog she gives away a lot of patterns. This pattern ran as a mystery quilt over 14 days. You know how well I get along with mysteries, so I watched the project take shape, then got pretty excited about it as it got closer to the end. After I saw the final quilt, I decided to make my own.

Of course, I had to do my own thing, so I'm making mine using scraps, and hoping to use up some of the gray bits I have hanging around here. If you look at the photos, you can see a couple of different grays. I got so excited about this project that I even laid out the grid that Edyta has in her pattern on my design wall, using pins. That is the picture above, and I'm filling in the blocks as I go. (Oops, I see I have to move one.) That's not too bizarre, is it? Might as well make use of that design wall now that it's finally empty. I'm following the pattern in order and red blocks are next. I am irrationally excited about this.

So, there's that project! It's actually really easy and I'm liking it a lot. The only rule I made for myself is that I can't use any new fabric. Sadly, I don't think that will be a problem. . .really sure that I'll have a ton of scraps left, too.

The other project I've pulled out to work on is an older project that combined traditional 6-inch blocks with more modern 6-inch blocks. I love these colors and I'm so happy to be working on this project again. Don't those colors just make you feel happy and summery?

That's just a small update from here. I'm actually thrilled to be able to spend some time in the sewing room again, and there are nice windows in there that almost shut out the sounds of the cicadas singing. I'll leave you with a picture of one of the little buggers (yes, those are eyes):

Hope you are all getting in some stitching time this week, too! I have several other things to work on, too, so I'm glad we're looking at some thunderstorms tomorrow!

Sharing at Midweek Makers.