Some yellow, some purple

 Hello all! How have you been? I don't know how it is where you are, but wow the pollen has been amazingly bad this year. Everyone I know has itchy, watery eyes. And the cars turn green. And the sneezing, and. . . yeah, you get it. It is zero fun on top of everything else.

I have made a little tiny bit of progress on my RSC projects. Hurray! It's been hard but rewarding to work on the stitchy stuff, even if it's a little bit at a time. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a couple of nice quilts at the end, no matter how slow it is.  Since it's the yellow month for the RSC, first up are my yellow blocks:

                     

Oh, very cheerful! And will you look at those happy trees in the background? Even if they're shedding a bunch of pollen, it's like seeing old friends.

If you recall, I'm making Preeti's Granny Long Legs one color at a time. It's a really easy pattern, and would be even easier if I strip pieced it and made it like she wrote the pattern. Oh, well! Here are the purple blocks:

Purple and green always look so good together, don't you think? The whole quilt would look great in purple with a green background. An idea for later!

And of course, the blocks so far all together:

Yep, it's going to be a cute quilt! I skipped the red, but only because I didn't have the energy to sort through the red bin. I'll do those next and then whatever color comes after. I think it will really come alive with a few more colors. 

That's it for me for now. We are heading into final exams and my energy level is at an all-time low, except for maybe when I had newborns. I know I haven't answered the lovely comments you all have left, and I feel bad about that, but I just have no bandwidth right now. Please forgive me, and know that I appreciate every one. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and try to stay away from that pollen!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC24.

Still brown, but bright

 Hello all! How was your week? We had a decent week here. The weather has been more like spring than winter, though you can see from the pictures that we still have that winter landscape. I am really starting to long for spring, even though we have not had a very harsh winter. We're starting to get longer days, though, and the extra light is making me happy. I am looking forward to some serious sunshine not so long from now.

And in this still-brown winter landscape I have a very green quilt to show off! It's a bright spot, that's for sure. Take a look:

Is that not bright and happy? And scrappy as all get out, too.

I made this quilt last year during the purple month for the rainbow scrap challenge at Angela's blog. Just about every bit of it, including the backing, is a leftover or a scrap. I started out with the plan to use up all those leftover purple 4-patches. Long ago, I started to make Bonnie Hunter's En Provence pattern and instead ended up finishing it (much later) as THIS quilt. But it's the quilt project that keeps on giving, because this is the fourth quilt that has used up the pieces that I made for that quilt. Gosh I hope all those pieces are gone now!

If you notice, the green in the current quilt is the leftovers from the backing of the main quilt. I had to stitch some bits together to get it all to work, but it did work! I love this green and I think it works so well with those purple 4 patches. The backing is the final pieces of backings left over from other projects. I did cut the binding from a half yard I had, mainly because I was feeling too lazy to piece one together from scraps. Ah, well.

This was quilted in a nice swoopy design by Alycia, who did a great job, as always. It just ties all those weird bits together in a really nice way. Her blog is really interesting, too.

See that blue tarp on my neighbor's roof? A tree fell on it and there is a ton of damage, as you can tell from the size of the tarp.

So that's my bright spot in a brown, dreary February! I love how this turned out and am happy to have used up those purple 4-patches at long last. Now I can stop feeling guilty about them! That's as good a reason as I've ever heard for making a quilt.

Hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing weekend. I hope I do, too! I'll be packing up stuff and moving furniture so that we can finally have the floors repaired after the roof leak in December. I can't wait!

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

Filling the borders

[There is a small giveaway at the end of this post!]

 

Hello everyone, from a still-soggy Baltimore! It rained two inches today and is supposed to rain all weekend. I wouldn't mind since we planted grass seed and such, but it also got cold again. The heat is back on and the gutters are working overtime. 

All of which made getting pictures of this week's project pretty difficult. Here is the best outdoor picture I got, on the covered back porch:

 

Not too terribly bad for a rainy day! At least you can see the borders pretty well. If you recall, this is the purple month for the rainbow scrap challenge, and I had half a million purple 4-patches leftover from another project. (You can read that whole story HERE.) I made them up into blocks and then arranged those blocks into a fun border. Then I had to fill the border!

This was not as easy as it sounds. There were so many options! Plus, I had used a really strong green for the border, and everything else just faded away with those borders. Because I did not want to do a lot of piecing, and because I had never made them, I decided on Disappearing 9-patch. The first attempt using some fabrics from a re-discovered kit was not a success:

See what I mean? They did not look good. The green is just so strong. So I dug out every single scrap of that green that I could find, including a few small pieces from the trash, and cut every piece of purple I had that was big enough, put them together and made some blocks that looked a lot better. It was a major pain to do, but it was worth it! 

I used every piece of purple I could, and I think it turned out well. I don't think I'll make the DNP blocks again soon, but they went fast and filled in the quilt, which finished at just about 48 by 60. 

So there is that quilt top done! Hurray! It used up a lot of purple, and I only have little pieces left. I managed to scrape together enough pieces to make two 6-inch blocks:

Cuties! I didn't get to make a couple of crumb blocks, but I definitely will, because I finally figured out what I'm going to do with them. For now, though, I am pretty tired of purple and ready for some new projects. I am really happy to have used up those purple 4-patches, though! They hung out here for way too long.

And now for the giveaway! In the spirit of letting go of things that do not give me joy, and clearing out some older stuff besides, I'd like to give away what remains of the old kit that I dug out:

As you can see, there are some themed charm squares that came with the kit (minus most of the purples), along with a bunch of others that I found hiding in there as well, the two "failed' blocks, a yard and a half  of themed fabric (in 2 pieces), and the pattern that was stuck in there, too. The fabric is Natural Garden by Holly Taylor, and I'll warn you that the reason that I never made the pattern is because it requires a specialty ruler. 

If you are in the US and would like to have this package sent to you free of charge (though I won't say no to postage), all you have to do is go and fill out this Google Form right HERE. You'll see that this comes up as a quiz, but you know both answers! This is the first time I've tried this, but I can't afford one of the services and comments get bulky, so try it and we'll do the random number thing on Wednesday, May 3. If the form doesn't work, I'll delete this and do something else, but I've used Google quizzes and they do work.

Okay, enough with the purple! On to something else! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

 

Super soggy! It was worth a try!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

Purple blocks in the rain

Hello everyone, from a very rainy and foggy Baltimore. I could barely see outside this morning. At least it's warm. We had record highs this week, which I can't say I enjoyed, but the sunshine felt great. Everything outside seems on the verge of growing out of control, too. So now it's the weekend, and of course the rain is here to help all those plants.

I had a very busy week, and I didn't get a chance to take pictures of my purple blocks until this morning, but I did finally get a decent shot of my four purple star blocks:

 

 

They're a little washed out from the rain and fog, but they still look pretty good.  I also made the Peace and Plenty blocks earlier this week:

 

 

Do you see those green things on the trees? I think they call those "leaves," and they are busting out everywhere. It's very exciting. Pretty soon I won't be able to see my neighbors any more, which I think all of us will like.

 

 

The star blocks were fun to make, even if a couple of them were a little fussy. I don't have a lot of purple scraps, but I managed to find a couple of combinations to go together pretty well. In the picture above, I've never been able to figure out if the fabric in the block on the right was purple or blue. It changed depending on what I put it with, so it's very nice all by itself in this block. 

These are 9-inch blocks, so some of the pieces in the blocks above were pretty small. I still liked making them, but small pieces take time. I also had a heck of a time with the outer parts of the block on the right. I really should have re-drafted it and made it a different way instead of trying to make those triangles work, but once I was committed I had to figure it out or find a different fabric. That sounded wasteful, and too much work, so I soldiered through it. It turned out okay.

 

It's a terrible picture, but the last purple thing I have to show is where I am with those danged purple 4-patches. I decided to turn them into a quilt border to use as many as possible, and I think it's going to work. I only have eight left over. Hurray! Now I just have to decide how to fill the center!

Everybody have a wonderful weekend, even if it's a bit soggy!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

Four times the purple

 Hi all, and happy spring! It was 75 degrees and glorious here today. It's also Spring Break-- finally!-- and I finally had time to go to just about every store around in search of some Nasacort for my allergies, which are popping like crazy. I finally found some and can breathe almost normally now, thank goodness. Spring is beautiful but can really mess up the sinuses.

I have a large list of things to do this week, but I've already started playing with the purple scraps for the rainbow scrap challenge. I have been waiting for this color just to force me to do something with some long-term scraps, but first, a prettier picture:

So now the story! You may recall that I started a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt in 2017 when she was running it on her blog. (The quilt was En Provence, and you can get the pattern HERE.) The quilt is beautiful, but it has approximately 11 billion pieces, and I gave up and never finished it. I kept all the pieces, though, and in 2021, I finally finished off a smaller version of the quilt, right HERE. But I still had millions of pieces left over, including these:

These are the last of the pieces, and I have 72 of them. Yes, 72! If you're interested, I used up many of the other pieces in THIS quilt top, and in one of the borders for THIS one. It's the failed quilt project that keeps on giving!

I decided to go ahead and make these into double 4-patches, which I think works nicely. They're easy, and don't they look good with those bright green scraps? Now I need to decide on an alternate block or something to set these with. I have these fabrics that will coordinate:

Right now I'm leaning towards Ohio stars with the lightest and darkest fabrics, but I may decide I don't want to do that much work and just go with quarter square triangles. I'd love to hear other ideas!

That's what I'm playing with right now, plus I also have the happy task of figuring out to make with these:

Aren't those lovely? I wouldn't have put those colors together, but they look great. This is the prize I got from the SAHRR, run by Quilting Gail and friends. I'm so excited to win them! Thanks guys!

Hope you are having a good week and not sneezing too much. If I can use up these purple 4-patches, I'll be finally, finally done with all the pieces from that nightmare quilt. Dance party at my house when that happens!

Sharing at Midweek Makers and soscrappy for RSC23.

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.

Steamy stars

 Hi everyone! I would ask how you all are doing, but I'm pretty sure everyone is hot right now. Good golly, this is crazy! It's supposed to be 100 degrees (37.8 C) here on Sunday. Pretty sure I'll be staying inside, as long as the air conditioning holds out. Even the birds are not flying right now, and I haven't seen the deer all week.

It has not been a great week for me, with lots of medical appointments. You know how much time and frustration those can take! But I did manage to sew a bit and I finished off the purple twinkle stars for the rainbow scrap challenge. I started on some purple birds, but lost some momentum somewhere. Probably in a waiting room. Anyway, here are the stars:

I don't know why, but I just love these things. They look kind of lacy and delicate. I don't have a lot of purple scraps, but I did have a nice selection of different values of purple. Anyone else ever have an art teacher who terrorized them about mixing certain colors together? Pretty sure that purple and yellow together were a no-go. I've always been kind of a rule-breaker, you know.

Believe it or not, there really are purple stars in the sky, but apparently we can't really see them as purple, because they also emit blue light, which is easier for us to see. The more you know! If we could see them, though, I like to think they'd look like the one above. I just love that fabric and am glad one of the last bits of it is going into this quilt.

And there is the sum total of my progress for this week. Next week will be better, though still hot, I'm sure. I'm not pining for fall yet, though, and winter can stay away, too, so I'm sure I'll get through another hot week. And hey--it means more ice cream and less yard work for me!

Everyone have a lovely weekend. Feet up and cool drinks all around, with lots of ice, too!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC22.

A circle of purple houses

 Hi all, and welcome to another summer weekend. It is the weekend, isn't it? I seem to have lost track of time this week. It has been a massive migraine-style headache week, for unknown reasons. Okay, it's probably a mix of Satan's own allergens and all the weather changes. And maybe I ate a little too much sugar. Who knows? I am feeling a little better now, though.

 

In between headache attacks, I managed to get the purple round put on my medallion quilt. I've been looking forward to this one, though I didn't know what color it would be until Angela told us. I'm glad that it's purple because it looks great this time around. Here it is so far:

Didn't I tell you that it looked good? I was concerned that I had chosen a purple that was too light, but now I think it's good because it's next to the dark blue and close to the dark green. This also took more of the purple than I thought, so I had to go with the piece that I had, too.

I call this block or unit "houses" because, well-- look at them. Don't they look like houses? They are super easy to make and this round went really fast. One reason it was so quick is that I used the diagonal seam tape from Cluck Cluck Sew to make all those stitch and flip corners. It really speeds things up when you don't have to draw lines! 

The houses are 3 inches finished, and the quilt itself is now about 54 inches square. With three rounds to go, it looks like this will finish right at 70 inches square, unless I change my mind about a block or leave out a color. Light blue could be an issue. I guess I could always switch the colors or the blocks around, right? We'll see how it goes.

Finally, I know we've talked a lot about the wildlife around here, and I definitely saw the foxes this week, and also plenty of squirrels and our buddy the hawk. (I think I love him. He's so majestic!) Of course there are the deer, too, and look who was out there this week when my head was in a bad place:

A mama and two fawns! The fawns were quite cute, running around and jumping, and they definitely cheered me up. I think they're chowing down on some wild strawberries, so no wonder they're so energetic!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I think more resting is in my future. I couldn't get in to the doctor until next Wednesday, so handfuls of ibuprofen are on the menu. The good news? Takeout is on the menu too! All weekend!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, soscrappy for RSC22, the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique, and Oh Scrap!

 

Quilted violets

 Hi everyone! Has fall come to your house yet? Astoundingly, most of our trees are still green, though there do seem to be a lot of leaves on the ground. No really pretty colors, though. We're having some landscaping done, and the landscaper tells me there is still time this year to grow new grass. I'm quite skeptical, because it's almost November, for heaven's sake. How can it still be 80 degrees?

Ah, well. I suppose it will get here when it gets here, right? Kind of like quilts-- sometimes they have to age just right before they can be finished. I've been making really good progress on getting my older quilt tops quilted up and out of the closet, and some of them have been there for quite a while. Thankfully, this one aged a little bit faster, and I finished it off this week. Here she is:

 

 

Hurray, hurray! This is my version of a Bonnie Hunter quilt called En Provence (you can get the real pattern HERE.) I call mine Violettes because it's definitely not the quilt Bonnie designed, and because the greens and purples bring some pretty flowers to mind. I finished the top (after almost 3-1/2 years) back in May, and I quilted it a little bit ago. 

 

I actually used this quilt top to learn to use pantos on the longarm, and I think I did okay with it. I had to use their teaching panto, which I really didn't like, but I used a dusty green thread so it blended really well. And now I can use my own choice of pantos, so it turned out well!

 

I love the backing on this quilt and would really like to use it again, I got it from Connecting Threads, which always has a load of wide backings, though this one seems to be sold out at the moment. I love how the green complements the front piecing. I intended to use the bright pink for a binding, but I didn't have enough of it, so I used an old green that has touches of bright pink. It's not what I intended, but I think it works just fine.

 

This quilt finished at about 60 by 70 and it already has a special destination. Two days before Christmas last year, my aunt Phyllis died in hospice, amd I'm donating this quilt to Mercyful quilts in her memory. She was 86, a cancer survivor, and quite ill. Hospice meant she didn't have to suffer more than necessary, and our whole family is grateful. The people at the quilt shop were amazed that this is a "donation quilt," but everyone deserves beauty and comfort, especially at the end. 

So, that was a downer, but the quilt is not, and I hope it brings someone comfort. I hope you all have a lovely weekend with some comfort, too! Do you think it's too soon to break out the hot chocolate, or should I stick with some brownies until it's colder? Decisions, decisions!

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About your Beauties, Finished or not Friday, and the Patchwork and Quilts party on Sunday.

A challenge in blue and purple

 Hello everyone, and welcome to another summer weekend. Aren't they great? This week I've seen people (okay, mainly fabric companies) busting out fall-themed projects, and I've wanted very much to tell them to stop it. Summer is short enough-- don't rush toward fall! I still have tons of ice cream to eat!

It's time for another check-in for my projects for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I've done okay with the darker blue this month. Turns out I have a few that are actually kinda cute, which is a surprise to me. Here are my Saguaro blocks in darker blues:

 

 

Definitely not navy, but not too bad. I really like the floral. Also, are blueberries blue or purple? I couldn't decide, but I put them with the blues. Either way, they fit nicely into this quilt. You might notice that the "leaves" on the blueberry block are kind of brownish, but that's a batik that has a lot of green in it, and that's just the way those hsts turned out. Sometimes fabric is like that.

I also made the last of the purples, so here are those three blocks:

 

 

I like them! Where else could I have used that grape fabric? I have no idea where I got it, but it has been kicking around here for quite a while.

So now we're getting to the stage where I'm starting to think about putting some blocks together and what the final quilt is going to look like. I threw some of the blocks into the design wall, just to see:

 

 

I like them and think they'll make a great quilt, but does anyone else think there is a lot of white space there? In the pattern there are a lot of different backgrounds, so it's not as noticeable, but mine are all white and I think it might look a little bland. I thought about using stitch and flip corners on the the blocks to mitigate some of the white space:

 

 

What do you think? Is it too distracting? Does it look too much like a bullseye? I think I like it, but do I want all green, like the "leaves," or multicolors? Or maybe I want a sashing and cornerstones instead! That could make an alternate block on it's own if I do it correctly. Decisions, decisions. . .

Fun things to ponder! Hope you have a lovely summer weekend with lots of sunshine and ice cream. We are going to try to take down a massive (8 feet by 6 feet) mirror in the bathroom. I'm tired of watching myself shower. Wish us luck! 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC 21.

Purple morning

 Hello, all, and happy weekend! How was your week? I had a really productive week, and we got our furnace and ductwork cleaned on top of that. The furnace people said that the ductwork had never been cleaned, and the house is more than 60 years old, plus we've had a bunch of work done, so I expect it to be much less dusty now. If that means less cleaning for me, I am all for it.

Last year I started making fabric baskets to hold my scraps as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, but I got sidetracked when everything got so stressful (for some odd reason), so this year I'm trying to catch up with the colors I missed. I skipped purple, and those poor scraps have had to hang out in a plastic bin with the lid coming off ever since. It's purple's turn in the RSC again, so I made up that scrap basket this week:

 

The fact that this year's petunias are purple is a complete coincidence! I think the basket is cute, with all those strange angles and whatnot. This basket started with a leftover triangle, so much of it turned out to be diagonal after everything was folded and stitched and everything. I put it together quilt as you go, and I think it turned out just fine. And it's half full of scraps already! I've never measured the finished basket, but the scrap slab that becomes the basket measures about 18 by 24.

 

I also made some of the little 16-patches for a different RSC project:

 

Why do mini blocks also look so cute? These look a little washed out, but they really are lavender. I may not make any darker purples. I haven't decided yet. I haven't kept up with this one very well, which is too bad because they are so easy and turn out well. These are made from 1-1/2 inch squares, which I have a large bin full of, so I really should get on that.

And that's the purple report from here! There are still plenty of purple scraps, so stay tuned for more purple goodness. Hope you all are having a good weekend with something fun planned. We're having more rain, but I do have some fun planned, right after I do all those fun errands we all have. Always more exciting in the rain! 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21.

Violettes fini

 Hi everyone! By the time you read this, I should be happy dancing all around the house, because I should have finished all of the research papers I have to read and the worst semester ever will have come to an end. Yahoo! I don't know why spring was so much worse than the fall, but I think canceling Spring Break had a lot to do with it. Let's never do that again, okay?

Speaking of things never to do again. . .okay, that was meant to be funny, but maybe not too funny, because I have finally finished a quilt top from 2017. This particular top had approximately a billion pieces, (that's only a small exaggeration!) and for some reason I grew to dislike it intensely. The blocks have been hanging on the design wall since I put the design wall up, and I finally got so sick of them (with a little prodding from Preeti) that I finished the top. Here she is:

For some reason, the shade and light make this look blue, but I swear that it's purples and lavenders! Perceptive readers will notice that this looks familiar, like a pattern or something. That's because it began life as one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts, En Provence. (You can get the digital pattern for that quilt right HERE.) I started it with enthusiasm, but then lost interest around the 80 millionth piece. I guess I have no stamina. It's been waiting to be finished ever since.

 

 

In the interest of finishing this into something usable, and of using up as many of the pieces I had already made as possible, I finished half of the blocks, eliminated the alternate blocks, and pieced a sashing to bring it together into some kind of a design. I actually think it turned out okay! Of course, I have approximately 50 million pieces left over, but most of them are purple 4-patches, and I'm sure I'll think of something to do with those eventually.

 

 For those of you who have not made a "Bonnie" quilt, she is a genius at using all kinds of little pieces to make complicated designs. I also love complex blocks, but the plethora of scrap pieces required and the sheer anount of work involved with this quilt just overwhelmed me. Also, I don't have nearly a big enough stash to get a real variety, and I really dislike matching all of those seams! 

 

I've decided to call my version Violettes, French for violets, because the purples and greens certainly bring those pretty flowers to mind. Now that it's pieced, I am planning to quilt it up myself. I want to try using the walking foot to make Baptist fans, and I think this is the perfect quilt for it. It's so busy that the piecing will hide any mistakes. I need to find a nice plain neutral for the backing because the top itself is so busy. Pretty sure I have something like that around here somewhere. . .

 

 

Sighhh. I'm so relieved and happy that this is finished, that the semester is finished, and that we have some pretty spring flowers like those above (another azalea growing loose on the property) that I just might find a minute or two to relax. I'm not really sure I remember what that feels like!

 

Hope you all have a relaxing weekend! If anyone needs me, I'll be on the sofa, staring at the TV and letting my brain reboot. I think there's a few shows that should help with that. (Bridgerton, anyone?) Right after I finish this happy dance!

Updated to add that I'm sharing this at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Michelle's Beauties Pageant. Thanks to all the hosts!