Starry, starry haze

 Hi everyone, and happy smoky Friday! If you are on the East coast, you probably know what I mean. It has been very hazy here from the drifting smoke from wildfires in Quebec, Canada. Today might be a little better, but the last few days have been surreal. Very hazy, the sun looked orange, and the air has been like breathing mud. Oh, and I was out watering the plants and it seems like everything is coated in a sticky film, like a soda exploded and sprayed everything. Just all kinds of fun.

This week I was getting ready to go to a conference, so that was work, but I also made time to crank out a few stars for the rainbow scrap challenge. The color for this month is pastel blues and greens. I don't have a lot of pastels, but I do have a few lighter and brighter greens, so I mananged to make three green stars:

How do you not fall in love with that star on the left? These are 9-inch blocks, so some of those pieces are quite small. It was very fun to make. The others will be fine in the quilt, but they aren't nearly as festive, or as fun to make.

Since this month is about light blues and light greens, I also made one light blue star:

Okay, it's more medium than light blue. Truth be told, there are not that many light blues hanging around here. I think I may be able to find a couple more, and I might make a couple more blue stars, though there's already a lot of blue for this quilt. 

One thing I do have in a very pale (and hard to photograph) blue are these little hourglasses:

I have 32 of these, all untrimmed, and I don't know what to do with them. I thought I might make something small with an alternate block, but I don't know what that block should be or what color it should be. I could also combine these into some blocks, but again, don't know what block that would be. Any good suggestions out there?

And speaking of good suggestions. . .

I showed this block as a failed block last month. Here was the original block:

A couple of readers suggested turning the hourglasses to make an orange star instead of the hard-to-see white star, and it worked! Thanks guys! It doesn't look as first intended, but it will work well as a fixed block. And really, all I did was turn the hourglasses the other direction. What a difference!

And with that, we're off to my conference! I hope to find some more breathable air there, because one of the side effects of this haze has been that I've almost lost my voice from hoarseness. I sound awful, so some better air is a must. Wish me luck with my presentation, and everyone have a great weekend!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

Squeezing a few oranges

 Hi all, and welcome to the last day of May! How did this even happen? Where did the month go? I can't explain it either, except that it looks like June is on the horizon and then summer will be in full swing. Before May is completely over with, I thought I should probably post the last of my orange stars and other orange blocks. These oranges haven't been particularly juicy, but they are certainly bright! 

I did not have a lot of orange, but I did manage to squeeze out a few blocks. Let's start with the two 6-inch blocks for this month:

I made these from the very dregs of the orange scraps, and I'm happy with how they turned out. Look at those tiny flying geese on the right! Don't they just make you happy?

Then I have two more 9-inch blocks for the star quilt:

These turned out nicely, too, I think. I was trying to choose stars that used the fabric fairly judiciously, and I think I succeeded.  I had to lay these in the tree because my favorite branch to hang quilty things from got trimmed away so that the grass could actually get some sunlight. Who needs that? I need my quilt display branch!

The block above has several prints, and I'm not sure how it works, but I'm keeping it. Do you all know about the Sewcialites QAL patterns from Fat Quarter Shop? They had a block a week for free, in three different sizes, and this was one of those blocks. You can still get all of the patterns from this year and last year for free from FQS right HERE. Scroll through and choose the ones you want, or download the whole set. There are tons of goodies in there!

 

 

The second orange star is much simpler and definitely a star, but it wanted a solo picture, too. And why not take it with the tomato plants instead of flowers? Can you see that there are already some tiny tomatoes? Very exciting!!

Okay, now I have a problem. I made a third block that I swear looked like a star on paper, but in fabric I am not so sure. Does this look like a star to you?

Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking that I could save it by replacing the center with a solid piece of the fabric instead of the pieced center, but generally I think this is a loss. Maybe I could repurpose some of the parts for a different block, but this is not looking very starry to me.

Oh, well! That's the end of orange for me, and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. I'm not sure about blue, but I'm happy to change colors.

Hope you are all doing well and heading into June in a good mood. Over the holiday the hubs and I went hiking in the Catoctin Mountains, and we came upon this lovely vista:

That should carry me through the heat that's coming this week! Take care and enjoy the rest of the week, friends!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23

A taste of orange

 Hi everyone! How was your week? I have graded approximately a bajillion exams and papers at this point, and I have a few more to go, but I took a few breaks, too. Ice cream is the lifeblood of the grading professor. Just saying.

On a couple of my breaks, I managed to squeeze out a few orange blocks. Without ice cream marks on them! So that's a win, right?

This is my lone 9-inch star block for the week. I'm not sure I like it, but I do like those flowers! They appeared out of nowhere in a spot where they have not been before. It's possible that they got eaten in previous years, but I don't know why they would not have been eaten this year, too. Our neighbors across the little stream that runs through the yards have been clearing everything, so maybe they just got a little more sun this year.

The only other sewing I did was make the orange Peace and Plenty blocks:

I just love these and I really can't wait to put this quilt together. I'd make all the other colors now, but that would be cheating, right? If you want to make some of these blocks, you can find the directions right HERE.

So, yeah, that was it for the sewing. Oh well. The time is coming. Instead of more block pictures, here's a picture of a creature I met while I was photographing the Peace and Plenty blocks:

This is a Fowler's Toad, and I don't know who was more startled, him or me. He's not very big, so I'm glad I didn't step on him!

Short post today, but I want to close with a plug for the Positivity Quilt Along, being run by our friends Preeti and Bernie:

You can find more information HERE. I have seen this year's quilt, and you will definitely want to make one!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! I'm planting flowers this weekend and hoping not to run into more toads!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC 23.

Orange and purple flock

 Hello all! So here we are at August, which means that the end of summer is coming faster than we think. In honor of that, while you are reading this, the hubster and I are off on our last summer adventure, to a place where the chances of rain are much lower than they are at home, so I'm hoping for blue skies and cool breezes.

 

Before we left I finished up the orange and purple birds for the rainbow scrap challenge, so here they all are together:

Yes, it is not a great picture! One of the poor birds is so embarrassed that she's hiding in the back. I tried to get a picture all together out in the tree, but that takes time to arrange, and it was about to rain, so I hurried a bit. The sky opened up right after this, so here is an indoor picture where you can see all the birds:

 

Birds in the house! A little boring, but at least you can see everyone. I love these birds, and I've had fun making them. I think I've got just about enough to put them together by now. I'll have to put them all up on the wall to see for sure, but it's very close.

The orange birds certainly look like a happy bunch, don't they? I made a mistake and made three of them facing the same way instead of only two, but I think they'll forgive me for it. I love the bright red beak on the one on the right! The beaks really give them some personality, don't you think?

Since we live in Baltimore, I had to make an orange bird that looked at least a little bit like a Baltimore oriole, too. Come to think of it, I should make a raven, too, shouldn't I? Strangely, I have not yet seen an oriole in person in Maryland, though I have seen some interesting birds, including the herons that like the stream that runs near our house. I think they're green herons, but I haven't looked them up yet. 

The purple birds are left over from last month, but they are a fairly festive bunch as well. Look at that wild plumage! These are not purple martins, that's for sure. A couple of these turned out smaller than intended because I cut them wrong, but I won't tell them that they're short if you don't.

And there are the birds! Hope you all are having a lovely last couple of weeks of summer and packing in all the fun you can. Hope you're in the sunshine with a nice cool drink, or at least in some air conditioning!

 

Oops! Updated to add that the birds are made using Lynne's Liberated Birds tutorial, which you can find right HERE. An excellent purchase for these very addictive birds!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC22.

Clearing out more color

 Hi all! How's it going? Are you just baking in the heat? We had some spectacular storms recently, and it has been quite hot. I think the two have something to do with each other. At least we didn't lose any trees, though there are several down around the neighborhood. The wind got a little scary, but we mostly came through okay.

What's a quilter to do, stuck in the house? I'll bet you can guess. After the success of cleaning out all the dark greens from the scrap bin (HERE), I decided to have a look at some other bins. The blue bin has been a problem for me. I know a lot of people love blue, but for some reason I rarely use it, so there are a ton of scraps in the bin. I was pretty successful using the darker blues (HERE), so now I'm trying to use up the light to medium blues. Check it out:

A hunter's star as a test for a light blue quilt. I'm not sure it works, but it's kind of pretty. A whole quilt might look somewhat like old china or something. I think I need to pay more attention to where the lights and mediums fall in the block so that the edges don't fade away. The beige there is leftover from a backing, and I'd love to use it up as well.

The blue experiment may be successful, so what else can I use up? Can I throw some other color in there? Well, no, but how about a different scrap quilt?

Crossed canoes, using pinks and oranges, plus a couple of yellows thrown in for sparkle. You might not think that the pink and orange would work out, but it completely does! I got the idea for a crossed canoes quilt from Deb, who is doing this block for the rainbow scrap challenge. It looks awesome, and you can see her post HERE. I used Accuquilt dies to cut both the blue and the pink and orange sets of these blocks, and they turned out great and piece together beautifully. Hey, I have the dies, so why not use them?

My plan is to make blocks until I run out of scraps in the right sizes, then cut up everything left into squares for the square boxes. The more scraps used the merrier, but I really have no idea how many I will make of either block. Whatever I get is good, because then they are out of those bins and into something useful. Plus, then I can get some new fabric guilt-free, too!

So, there's some more colors and pieces to play with! Hope you have some, too. This last picture is the gorgeous sunset after our latest storms. Pictures never do sunsets justice, but it was a nice reward after all that upheaval! 

Sharing at Midweek Makers and Oh Scrap!

Fall color amid winter gray

 Hi everyone, and happy weekend! Hope you have had a really good week. I finished getting ready for the new semester this week, and I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for it. And hey, did you notice that I redecorated? Some of the settings have changed since last time I did this, and I'm not sure what they all do, but I managed to get a nice pretty picture up at the top, and that's what matters, right?

I finished up another quilt top this week in between class prep, and before I show it to you, you'll have to cast your mind back to last fall, which is when this quilt top really should have been finished. But it wasn't, so just try to remember the pretty leaves and how awesome they were. And didn't it smell great?

 

 

Doesn't that seem like a quilt top fit for fall? It certainly looks good and colorful against all the gray in the landscape these days. I know there really weren't any pink leaves, but it needed a little zing, so I threw in some pink scraps, too. I started putting this together last fall, and it's been hanging around here for way too long, just taking up a big space on the design wall. This is the Sunshine pattern by Myra at Busy Hands Quilts, and you can get the pattern right HERE.

 

This quilt was pretty easy, except that I made it hard. It made my brain confused, and it's my own fault. You can see that it is mainly squares and half square triangles, and the pattern shows the quilt made in scraps of just two colors. This would have been so much easier! I decided to use up a number of orange scraps that I had left over from my nephew's quilt, and I threw in a bunch of other scraps that looked like fall leaves, with the second color coming from some golds that a friend gave me. 

 

This was not my best idea ever. Sure, it turned out looking great, but the road there was arduous. I kept turning the hsts in the wrong direction, and putting the wrong color in the wrong place, and then I also had to be sure not to put the same color too close to another piece with same color, you know? For some reason, I just couldn't make sense of how it should go. If you can see the pinwheels in the top, I kept stumbling over those and putting them in the wrong place. This was entirely my own fault for trying to be creative with a pattern I didn't create myself.

I sat down this week and made myself figure it out, and it did turn out well, I think. Look at all the variety in those scraps! (Of course there's a stray thread, too, because I couldn't make something that's not covered in thread. I always think I get them all, but there are always more.) If you decide to make this quilt, I highly recommend putting it together in columns. That would be so much easier than rows! Plus I think it might be easier to get into a rhythm and spot mistakes, too.

This quilt top finished up at about 56 by 72, a nice lap size. I'm pretty sure it's going to become a donation quilt, but it will have to wait its turn to get quilted up because there are several things in line ahead of it. I just ordered a bunch of backings, so I'm pretty excited to get some more things quilted up and moved out.

So there we are-- off the design wall and ready to finish! It was a long road, but it feels good to have gotten this far. Hope you have gotten pretty far along on a project or two as well. And if you know what "custom robot tags" are in Blogger, and what I should do with them, be sure to let me know! This weekend I'm planning to stitch some leftover battings together because the weather looks nasty, and I hope you all have something more fun planned than that! Have a great weekend!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique.

O is for orange

Hi everyone! How are you doing these days? Are you getting ready for 2020 to be finished? I certainly am ready to kick this year to the curb and move on to something else. Before that, though, I have to finish grading these confounded exams and finish up a bunch of quilty projects. Which of those do you think I am looking forward to more? At this point, I honestly couldn't choose!

I hope you are all in the mood for color and brightness today, because I have a finish to show off that is very, very bright and very, very orange:

 

Yep, the big orange quilt is finished and ready for my nephew! Everybody do your happy dance now, because this was a bear to get done and I am so, so happy to see it finished and in the mailing box.

 

 

This is the Elvira pattern from Gudrun Erla, and she had a quarantine quilt along for it some time ago. Somehow I hadn't made a quilt for my nephew, even though I know he likes them because my sister-in-law's mom was a quilter before Alzheimer's took her. He's grown quite a bit since then, and he needed a couch quilt that would cover his 6 foot 4 frame. I (foolishly!) asked him what color he would like, and he requested orange. I think this fits the bill!

 

I was determined to quilt this myself, which I eventually succeeded at, but I have to tell you-- it was a bear and a half. This quilt finished at about 65 by 87, which is much larger than I usually think I can handle (but a great size for Joe!) I knew I'd quilt this with a walking foot and just straight lines, so I thought it would be okay. Well, it took me four days to baste this monster, and even then I was obsessive about flipping the quilt and checking the backing after every stitching line. I even resorted to a few small spots of spray basting to keep things from shifting.

 

The lines here are about an inch and a half apart, and they took forever. There are a few wobbles, but mostly the lines turned out straight because I was obsessing over them and stitching pretty slowly. I'm not sure it's apparent in the pictures, but on the top half of the quilt, the lines go diagonally, and in the bottom half they are straight. In person this looks great, and it was easy enough, but it did take a long time, and then I had to bury the threads from the bottom half. After all that worrying, it worked out fine. I used an antique gold thread for the top and a gray for the back, and somehow that worked, too!

 

 

The backing is a geometric gray print, and I used whatever pieces I could find to make a scrappy orange binding, which I then spent several evenings stitching to the back. I love the binding, and it used up a whole lot of the leftover orange pieces that I still had. Looking at the scrap basket, it seems like I'm back to a "normal" amount of orange scraps, which feels pretty nice. Orange may be Joe's favorite color, but it isn't mine!

 

I hope you've enjoyed this bright and happy quilt, and that you got a nice dose of happy color. It does brighten the day, doesn't it? I'm hoping to have a few more finishes before the end of the year, so stay tuned! And please stay healthy and safe, too! 

 

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Brag About Your Beauties

The big orange quilt

Hi everyone! How are things at your house these days? Have you been venturing out? Here in Maryland, we've done a decent job of keeping the virus in check, and our numbers are pretty good, so I've felt safe enough to go to a couple of places this week. Don't worry, I always have a mask and hand sanitizer, and I have a semi secret stash of Clorox wipes in my car, too. But I went to a farmer's market, and I had lunch-- in person!-- with a good friend. It meant so much to me to see her that I may have dropped a few tears as I was driving away. I have really missed seeing actual humans that are not on a screen.

After lunch, I came home and confronted a problem I've been having: the quilt I'm supposed to be making for my nephew. A long time ago, I started a quilt for him, using a free pattern from Kevin the Quilter. The ones that I've seen online turned out great, so I had high hopes. Alas, it was not to be! Sorry, Kevin, but I just couldn't face one more 4-patch. Time to turn to a different pattern altogether:

Yes, I grabbed all the pieces of orange and gray (his choice!) that I hadn't cut into 4-patches yet, and used them to make Elvira, which was a quarantine quilt along pattern by Gudrun Erla. If you look closely, you can see that I also used up some of the 4-patches that weren't stitched together yet. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to get rid of all that ornage.

Because I was determined to use those 4-patches, I had to adjust the widths of the strips, which turned out okay because my nephew is a very large man and needs a very large quilt. He's going to get his wish, because this quilt top is about 64 by 84. This will make a nice lap quilt for him, don't you think?

I call this quilt "Big Orange" because, really, what else could you call it? If you have very sharp eyes, you will notice what I did when I ran out of big enough orange pieces to finish making the B blocks from the pattern, but just looking at it, I can't really tell that there is any issue. I don't think my nephew will notice, do you?

I've ordered some batting, and will baste this quilt as soon as that gets here. I've got a wide back gray polka dot for the backing, and I'm really hoping it doesn't give me any trouble. This is a bigger top than I'm usually comfortable with doing on my own, but I've got a plan, and I think if I baste it well enough it will work out okay. I'm not sure I have orange thread to quilt it with, though, so I should definitely check on that!

I only have these three pictures of the quilt top because it's so big that I can't get a picture of the whole thing. I've really got to get some landscape areas where I can hang big quilts. As it is, I'll have to have my nephew hold it up when it's finished. I do have one more orange-ish picture, though:

Aren't those flowers pretty? I do really love flowers, but i'm still learning about what will grow here. This is a daylily that kind of showed up here by surprise, and I like it! I think it can stay, but it might have to move to a slightly different spot this fall. For now, though, it's pretty cheerful where it is.

Hope you all have a happy Independence Day in these strange, party-free times, and keep on being careful and staying healthy. Potato salad is quite tasty on your own porch, too!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and Quilt Patchwork Applique.

Leftovers transformed

Hello all! I hope you all are doing well and staying healthy. It's weird and stressful out there! We are now under a "stay at home" order, so we are staying home and making the best of it. I even cooked! Not brownies, actual food! So you know just how weird it really is right now.

It's weird and stressful out there, but in here we have fun and interesting fabrics, cool projects, and happiness. And orange. Today we have some oranges that were left over from the last month.  I've been working like crazy, and sometimes taking breaks, and I've crossed a couple of things off my many lists.  Here is the March block for the Color Challenge at Patterns by Jen:

Normally I dislike blocks with big pieces, but this time it felt pretty good. Non-stressful, you know? These were made with some of the many leftover oranges I have. I have a plan to use up some of the other oranges, too, but I haven't started in on that yet. Maybe next week.

One other thing I started in on was on an adopted project. Apparently that's what I do now, adopt projects. I actually really love it, so I'm not complaining.  Cathy at Crazy by Design made some lovely blocks from selvages:

See? Perfectly beautiful blocks, suitable for many different quilty layouts. However, she was at a standstill with them, so she generously sent them to me. I didn't know what to do with them exactly, but as soon as I opened the package I saw this:

Threads! Of course these should be spool blocks. (That bottom block is curling up, not cut wonky.) I had actually not made spool blocks before, but these pretty much have to be spools, don't you think? I ripped Cathy's blocks apart and trimmed the selvage bits down a bit so that they're taller than they are wide, then experimented with different sizes for the tops and bottoms. If anyone wants to suggest a really good formula, I'd like to hear it.

I think the spools worked out great, and I have a bunch more to make, but I also had to add in some more modern spools, too:

Of course! How could I leave out my favorite thread? I might attempt a couple other types too, but I love these.

For the rainbow scrap challenge at soscrappy, I've pretty much missed this whole month, which was aqua, one of my favorites. I'll catch up, but for now I made this from a leftover block:

This is a leftover 100-patch block made into a nice little zip bag. It was super easy and very relaxing to quilt up, and it makes me happy.

So that was all the leftovers I transformed this week. I think I did okay, considering. I love the 21st century, but I think I hate teaching online. It takes so much time! And I want to actually talk to students again! Meetings can stay online. Those I don't miss.

Finally, I'm making myself go outside every day, so I saw these happy sundrops:

These also make me happy! I hope they give you a smile as well. Stay safe out there, friends. Stay home and enjoy the flowers outside, and stay healthy. If all else fails, make some nice brownies. They'll make you smile and be happy to be home!

Sharing at Patterns by Jen and Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.

Leaping over orange

Hello all, and happy leap day! I know why we get an extra day in February every four years, but wouldn't you all rather have an extra day in June? We had a minor snow squall here today, so I'm going with yes on June 31 instead of February 29.

There is a *lot* going on in my life right now. I mean, a LOT.  We went to my grandson's 4th birthday party and got to see all the grandkids, and as soon as we got home we both got hit with the worst colds ever, the kind that feels like you've been hit in the head with a hammer.  It could have come from anywhere, but I'm betting on our sweet 2-1/2 year old granddaughter, who hugged me around the neck and  said, "I love you guys," just before she sneezed right in my face. I think I have to forgive her, don't you?

Today all I have to show off is the last orange bit for this month:

It's the orange slab, quilted up into a new orange scrap basket!  And in the orange month, too, I want to point out. Yay me! I originally had the next picture at the top, but then I realized that a trick of perspective makes it look like the basket is as big as a car (it's not!):

Like the last basket, every bit of this piece is a scrap, including the batting and the binding.  I feel very virtuous about this, though it did not seem to make much of a dent in the scraps. But at least I now have somewhere cute to put them!

This one turned out a bit bigger than the last one, and I'm okay with that. They're improv, right? And the green one may have lost a bit of height because I messed it up a few times. The orange one went much, much more smoothly.And I love that I got to use a bunch of little pieces in the orange one.

I'm afraid that's it for my orange adventures, sadly. I spent a little time while I was outside taking pictures trying to get a photo of the bright orange foxes that live near our property, but they were shy and it was cold. Oh, well.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I'm looking forward to a new color and some more cold meds. My head is still pretty fuzzy.  And hey-- if you need a gift for a smallish person, try these Bugnoculars.  They were a huge hit with the short set. (No affiliations, just a happy grandma!)

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC2020

UPDATED TO ADD:  I've just learned that Paula B, who posted at the RSC often, has passed away. This is very sad, as she was a lovely, gentle person. If you would like, click over HERE and leave her family a message and read her obituary. She was more awesome than she let on. I will miss her.