A tiny bright spot

Hi everyone, and welcome to May! Did someone check to be sure April really left? Because that was one month that really seemed to last forever. I think we can all be glad that it's gone. You know what else should be gone? Neighbors outside in their bathrobes. Yoga pants, people! It's like jammies, but for grownups. And you can wear them outside without scandalizing the neighbors.

Okay, well. Amazingly, I have a finish today! What? Yes, I finished something and just put the last stitches in the binding last night. That binding was another thing that seemed to last forever, but now it's done and I can show you this happy quilt:

This is my tiny sampler quilt, made from the small block patterns offered by Angela for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year. (The patterns are still available and you can find them all HERE.) Each of these blocks finishes at just 4-1/2 inches, and the quilt itself is just about 46 by 50.

Last year, I started out not intending to make this quilt, but the blocks were so darned cute they drew me in, and well, here we are. I ended up having a lot of fun making this, and even enjoyed stitching the binding.

This has actually been quilted for several weeks, but I had a hard time settling on a binding. All along, I had thought that I should make a binding that matched the background striping in the quilt, but now we're all in an extremely stressful period, so who has time for that? I ended up settling on a pale green print that doesn't pull the eye away from the cute blocks. The backing is a narrow striped fabric.

This was quilyed for me by Alycia, and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. This little quilt also turns out to be the perfect size for a large wall in my dining room, which is where I'm going to hang it this weekend. It will be the perfect amount of color in there, and I know I'll smile every time I see it.

As for a favorite block, I still can't choose one! I love that the owl and the kitten are right next to each other, though.

Everyone have as wonderful a weekend as possible in this strange time we're living in. I'm going to rest a bit, I hope, because classes end next week and finals begin. Yahoo! The end is in sight, and I could not be happier.  Stay safe and healthy out there!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and soscrappy for RSC20.

56 blocks, no waiting

Hello everyone, and happy Friday to you. Can you believe that there are only two-- yes, just two!-- Fridays left in 2019? Where did this year go? On top of that, someone told me that the full moon this past week was "the last full moon of the decade." Yikes! 2020 is barreling down on us, and I'm not done with my 2019 stuff yet.

I did finish up one thing, though-- I finished putting together my tiny Tuesday quilt top! Once I got some of the numbers figured out and started on the rows, I just couldn't stop. Here she is:

It is a very gray morning here, but it does make for decent pictures, though I do prefer the sunshine. As soon as I got this quilt top hung up, it started to rain. Of course. But look at those fun tiny blocks! They give enough sunshine on their own, don't they?

I used a striped layout inspired by a Tula Pink layout in her 100 Modern Blocks book and I think it turned out well. I just couldn't do the solids, and I ended up going with a white on white and a beige print.  I was going to use some colors for the stripes, but in the end I thought those would distract too much from the fun blocks.

Since the blocks each finish at 4-1/2 inches (or so, there was some easing and some tugging in there) this isn't a huge quilt. The top is about 45 by 55, which is pretty good for blocks that finish at 4-1/2 inches.  For anyone who doesn't know, the block patterns were all a part of the RSC sampler over at Angela's blog, soscrappy.  All the block patterns are still there, so you could still jump in and make your own if you want.

My New Year's quilty resolution is going to be to get all the tops I have quilted up.  I just sent off two tops to the longarmer, and the mail carrier just delivered one that I had sent out a while ago.  So I'm planning to send this one off right away and get it quilted up.  No more adding to the pile!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Now that the grades are done, I am full of the Christmas spirit and am planning to go shopping. Yes, in physical stores! It will be a new and different experience, and hopefully not too frustrating. There's always online as a backup, but it might be nice to talk to some real humans!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19.

Grading with a bit of stitching

Oh, hi there! I'm just coming out of my post-finals stupor to say hello. Okay, not exactly post finals, because I still have grading to do, but close enough. Some semesters I have an easy time with the grades, and some semesters I don't. This was a down semester, so it has been sucking up aaaalllll of my time. I think I'm even dreaming about some of it. Why should students have all the nightmares?

Thank goodness there are other things in life! It looks like I've finally gotten my sewing room to a good place where most of the space works for me. I'm still looking for a bookcase and a new cutting table, but I've got the design wall working over time and I've finally started hanging some things on the walls. I even put up curtains! It's starting to feel like home at last.

There are several things I've been working on in a few spare moments, First, I've started putting together the tiny Tuesday quilt:

It might behard to see, but if you recall, I'm using the Tula Pink striped layout, and I chose to use a white on white and a beige print for the sashing.  I made a mistake in how I placed the sashing on the top row, so I just flipped it around so that the darker pieces are on top.  I think it looks okay, but I still might go back and rip them all and put the blocks in the original order. (But I probably won't.)

I've also been putting together some of Alycia's Winter Quilt Along sections:

Looks like my husband may finally get the Packers quilt he's asked for!  I'm hoping the blues make it a little less Packer-y, though. I still have to make a bunch of hsts for the rest of the top, but that should go fast.  These pieces feel huge to me!

The last thing I've been working on is starting to lay out the rainbow rails quilt that I've been making for the RSC this year:

I still have a few rails to make, but I think it's going to look pretty good.  The centers are the same print that I used as sashing in the hollow 9-patch quilt. Hey, if you have a winner, go with it! 

Finally, I may not have been getting a lot of stitching time, but I have taken a few breaks to cruise through some fabric sales, and the packages are arriving.  It's my own private Christmas! I purchased this fun group from Wanda's pop-up shop:

These are really fun fabrics and I just like looking at them. Not sure what they'll become, but they sure are happy.

I also got these from Shabby Fabrics:

They have the best remnants, and I love it when they're on sale.  The oranges are going to let me finish off my nephew's quilt, though I know for sure it won't be done before Christmas. Good thing I didn't promise it!

Before I forget, does anyone out there know anything about metric measuring cups? Would a liter-size cup be too big to be useful? Does everything dry measure by weight and not volume? My daughter is trying some European recipes and having a bit of a time. I know nothing about this, so Canadian, Australian, and European friends, please send advice! Thanks!

More stash enhancement to come! Hope you all are getting in some stitching time during this very busy time of year.  Take a break and have a Christmas cookie, and cross your fingers that I finish those grades on time!

Tiny blocks on Tuesday

Hi all! Has the arctic cold hit your area yet? We're supposed to get hit with it starting today, so it's time to hunker down and get out all of the quilts so we can be ready. Some of them are still in boxes, but I promise that I'll be pulling them out this afternoon. Wouldn't want to be cold in the morning, after all!

Today I want to show the last of my tiny Tuesday blocks:

Yahoo! I know these usually get shown on Saturdays, but I thought it was appropriate to finish up the Tiny Tuesday blocks on a Tuesday.  Also, I really tried to get outdoor photos, but many of them didn't turn out this time because the days are getting so much shorter and there's no light. It's indoor picture season, folks.  I'll try to be creative with that.  Updated to add: I managed to go out this morning and get a couple outside.  These are better, believe me.

None of these were blocks that Angela presented, because I needed to add some blocks to make 56 for the layout I want.  These are all traditional blocks, but in a smaller size. Surprisingly, none of them was especially difficult, though I did have one that came out 1/2 inch too big:

I was sure I had done the math correctly, but it's too big, so I'll have to take it apart and trim the pieces down. Amazingly, through this whole project I only had problems with a couple of blocks, and not necessarily the ones you would think, either.

Because I made a black block earlier, I made a couple more black blocks this past week.  You know, so the block I already had wouldn't be lonely:

I really didn't think that I would make any black blocks, but these are colorful enough that they really don't seem like holes in the quilt, which is what I was afraid of.  That one at the top is made from some really treasured Mary Engelbreit scraps, so you know that I'm quite fond of that one.  For the others I just used some scraps that I liked and had in the correct sizes, but I think they turned out lovely.

I do have to make one more block, though, because included in my 56 are these two:

Yes, I somehow made the same block twice. Which one would you keep and which would you remake?  Any suggestions for a final block?

I've decided to go ahead and use the striped layout from Tula Pink (see the example HERE) and I'm trying to choose the two stripe colors.  Here are my current choices:

I'm leaning towards the white with the tiny dots, and I've seriously thought about using the blue for the darker stripe.  This blue might be too dark, though, so I may look for a different one. I know I don't really want the beige or the gray. Hmmm. . .here's a thought--what about a pale yellow?  Would that be too much?

I guess I'll have to experiment some! Good thing the weather is going to be crummy so I won't feel guilty for being inside. Everybody stay warm and dry this week!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19

Almost enough blocks

Hi everyone! How is your weekend going? After massive storms the night before, I woke up yesterday to temperatures in the 40s, and there is a freeze warning for tonight, so now I'm really facing the reality that it's fall and winter can't be far behind.  But it can't be yet, because I have too much to do before winter! So top of my list for today is a new winter coat.  But first. . .

I made a few more of the tiny blocks this week!  This brings me to 49, which means I have only seven more to go.  Here's the latest installment:

In January, when we started, I did not know that I would like these so much, but I really do! Do you think it's because they're so small, or because they're so quick to make, or what? All I know is that these are fun to make and go pretty fast, though I had to do some fancy math for one of them this week.

Check out those colorful leaves in that picture! I was sure I wasn't going to make any dark or black blocks, but right there in the string jar was a long piece of the strawberries fabric, and it was enough to make the Bullseye block that Angela posted earlier:

I think that turned out ok. It's the right size, and I like the strawberries. The red block there is also one from Angela.

Since we started the orange blocks, I've wanted to make a Dutchman's Puzzle block, but since the tiny blocks are something of an odd size, I never sat down to do the math for the flying geese until just now, but I finally figured it out:

Okay, I turned the pieces and ended up with a star in the center, but overall this looks pretty good, doesn't it? For anyone who wants to know, the geese are 1-5/8 by 2-3/4 unfinished. To make 4 at a time, I used a 3-3/4 inch square and 4 2-1/8 inch squares, then had to trim them down a bit. But it worked!

My other orange block is a smaller version of the State of Georgia block from the Squared Away sampler:

You can make any of the Squared Away blocks by cutting the squares at 1-3/8 inch each.  Little, but they work!
 
And then I also made a raspberry colored Anvil-style block:

And then I was done for now!  The raspberry block is strobing a little, but it's not that bright in person. It's just against those dark trees, so it looks really bright.

Hope you're all nice and warm and dry and are getting in some stitching time this weekend. If we all think warm thoughts, do you think can we stave off that winter thing? I'm pretty sure I feel like skipping it this year. We can try, right?

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19.

A few more little things

Hi everyone! It's the last weekend in September, can you believe it? It's still hot, hot, hot here and still dry, so the grass is turning brown and the leaves are falling.  We don't have a lot of color yet, but I have seen a couple of trees starting to turn a lovely yellow.  It's going to be really pretty around this property in a few weeks.

I just have a few tiny blocks to show today.  I thought I would finish something small, but I didn't finish binding it yet. Oh, well! Here are my tiny blocks for the week:

These are the last of the purples, and I love them all. I think they turned out great, but you can see that the lantern block is just a tiny bit too long. The seams appear to be off by about 1/32nd of an inch each, which doesn't show in bigger blocks but certainly shows here. Not sure what I'll do about it, since I don't want to rip it all out and they're off by about the width of the thread. I'll probably trim it and then make it fit. It's still very cute, though! The other two tiny purples are my own and weren't offered by Angela. I think they're cute, too!

Since we're nearing the end, I thought I should pull out all the tiny blocks and take inventory, so I pulled out a small design board (foam core board covered in a batting scrap) and took them all outside.  Here are the reds and yellows:

And then the pinks and oranges:

And last but not least, the greens to purples:

That's 44 blocks, with the Bow tie repeated twice. Not sure how that happened. I think I need more pinks and more yellows, and maybe one or two more reds. I started out thinking that 56 blocks would make a lovely little quilt, and I think I'll still aim for that.

As for a layout, I was thinking about making them shadow blocks, or else there is the striped quilt layout from Tula Pink's Modern Blocks that I like a lot. I'm not sure! How do you plan to set your blocks?

There's where we are-- lots of color in little bitty blocks, with the end in sight. Not sure what I'll do for the "dark" month next month, but I'm pretty sure it won't be brown. Maybe multicolors? Decisions, decisions!

Have a great weekend! Linking up with Angela for RSC19.

A tiny new start

Hi everyone, and happy weekend! I hope everyone had a good week. I unpacked some more boxes, made some curtains, hemmed some others, and found my power cord. Yahoo! Then I sewed! It was heavenly.  I love the new sewing room. Here's one thing I didn't expect-- it's very quiet. I still don't know where some of my scraps are, but it was very peaceful while I was down there looking.

I have *so many* projects in various stages that it was hard to know where to start. I decided to start with some small things and catch up on some tiny scrap blocks:

As you can see, I ended up with five tiny blocks so far. As you can also see, one thing I haven't located yet is the charging cord for my camera, so I'm stuck with cell phone pictures. Yeah, not my favorites, either, but at least you get the idea.

These were so great to make. I did locate some blues, and these blocks only take a little bit of fabric, so I was able to eke these out. I had saved the "violet" block from a few weeks ago for when we finally got to purple, but now mine looks a little weird and I can't quite figure out what's wrong with it.  Maybe it will look okay once it's sewn to the others.

Do not get attached to this tree. . .

I decided to try the latest block, the Storm at Sea (how appropriate!) and I'm not super-pleased with it. So many tiny pieces! I did the paper piecing with seam allowances, and it was pretty bulky at some intersections. I had trouble lining up the points, too. So I'm not thrilled with it, but I'm keeping it because I don't want to redo it. It will look okay once it's with all the other blocks in the quilt, right?

That was all I had time for this week, but it felt great. It's almost starting to feel normal around here, but there are still some boxes left, and the painting hasn't even begun. Nonetheless, this weekend I'm going to go get the stuff for a design wall! Doesn't that sound exciting? No promises on actually getting it put up, but at least it's a start.

Hope you all have a good weekend! The picture above is of some roses that the deer haven't eaten yet. Maybe these aren't very tasty? Good thing they're pretty!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19. So glad the hurricane missed Florida and that Angela and family are safe!

Home sweet home

Hello from Baltimore, everyone! We managed to move and it was not quite painless, but it's done now and we're setting up our new home.  We spent last weekend cleaning (oh, baby, was it dirty) and then the truck brought our furniture on Monday.  So far Baltimore is great! It's very nice here (but quite warm) and it's been a pretty good experience. Bonus-- it only took me 17 minutes to get to work! This is a very big difference in the commute!

So, I guess you'll want to see my new sewing room, right?  First, a quilty picture, just so there's something quilty in this post:

This is a Tiny Tuesday block that I made with my pink scraps.  It's a variation on one of the blocks for last year's Squared Away project, and I'm calling it a Jumping Jack star.  You can make any of those Squared Away blocks into a Tiny Tuesday block if you cut the squares at 1-3/8. Yep, that's tiny! Now that I've made this one I think I'll make them all as tiny blocks.  In different colors, of course!

Okay, now to the sewing room. Here it is:

Yes, it's gray, but do you see how big it is?  This room is, unbelievably, about 12 by 29 feet.  And see that closet down at the end?  It's another 10 by 12 room, complete with shelves, hanging bars, and lights.  They tried to sell this as a fourth bedroom, but it definitely is not.  It's in the basement, but it has full size windows and a walkout door, but no wall to close it off from the rest of the basement.  This is okay, because the other finished rooms will be an exercise room and a storage room, so it doesn't have to be closed off for me. 

The room needs some warmer paint before I can even begin to work in there, along with some new lighting.  There is carpet on the floor, which is not ideal, but it's almost new and it's not in the budget right now to replace it, so it stays.  I really don't mind; I just want to get creating in there.  My fingers are itching to make some things.  And I'm thinking 12 foot design wall, what do you think?

As for the rest of the house, let me show you the whole reason we bought it:

A whole wall of windows looking out over the yard, which includes lots of trees and a small stream:

I saw three deer out there this morning, which almost makes up for the fact that most of the house is a dark gray, except the window room, which is kind of a mustard color, and the master bedroom, which is brown. Yeah, there's a lot of painting to do. And we won't even talk about the window treatments, which all need replacing.  I took down the really dirty ones with the dead bugs, but I had to leave some of them for privacy.  Those will be replaced even before the paint goes up, because I can live for a while with brown paint but not with dead bugs in the pleated shades.

So here we are and thrilled to be here! I think it's going to be a good place for us, and I hope to get the sewing room painted this weekend so I can unpack some fabrics.  Some bright pretty things should really brighten the place up, don't you think?

Everyone have a great weekend! I'll be unpacking and painting!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday (the last one for Myra), and soscrappy for RSC19.

Five little blocks

Hi everyone!  Are you all enjoying the heat dome so far?  Yeah, me neither.  I'm seriously fantasizing about snowstorms right now.  We had a minor bit of panic yesterday when we thought the AC had gone out, but it turned out that the batteries in the thermostat had died.  Whew-- easy fix! It did get up to 87 in the house before we figured it out, though. I've never been so relieved to have dead batteries. 

It's been a busy, hot week, but I managed to make a few of the Tiny Tuesday blocks:

Doesn't that Bear's Paw block look enormous?  It's the same 5 inches as the others.  I've said it before, but these blocks are so darned cute and most of them are fun to make.  I can't wait to see how the whole quilt turns out.

I didn't make very many blue blocks during the blue month, so I went ahead and made a really simple blue one, just to have a bit more blue in the quilt.  If you're interested in making one of these, I just used 2 inch squares from the 2-inch bin.  Super easy and quite cute!

I also made the fish in orange, because they must be goldfish, you know?  And the orange tabby cat got a gray basket.  My fabric is kind of limited now and that's the piece I could find, in the string jar, of all places.  The cat was really easy to make and I like how he turned out.

Finally, there is a pink polka dot pig!  Good thing this little lady is cute, because she was a bear to put together.  I had a hard time following and kept doing things backwards, plus I cut a lot of things the wrong size.  Must have been the heat. Miraculously, she turned out the right size and reasonably pig-shaped. And she's covered in pink polka dots-- what could be better?

I think that catches me up until next Tuesday.  Hope everyone stays nice and cool and safe during this awful heat.  Have lots of Popsicles and lemonade.  We are going to the movies because we have several house showings, then I might dive into some ice cream and wait for the heat to break.  Don't forget to check your thermostat batteries!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19.

Blocks among the flowers

Hi everyone, and welcome to yet another hot, sticky day.  Gosh, it has been sooo hot and sooo humid all week.  The fourth was so bad that there were a few times I started to think that it was getting hard to breathe, so we skipped the fireworks and watched some of them on TV.  Not the same, but apparently the humidity made it so that the smoke just kind of hung around instead of drifting away, which made everything really unpleasant.  Best to be in the air conditioning, I think!

We did have some house showings on the holiday, but I was able to get in a little bit of time with the machine.  I decided to catch up on the tiny blocks for the RSC19 sampler:

The flowers are loving the heat and humidity, can you tell?  I was too lazy to get down off the deck and take pictures elsewhere, so they're all with the plants today.  Oh, well!

If you recall, these blocks will finish at 4-1/2 inches, so the pieces are really small.  I've been trying to use as many pieces as possible from the square bins, and it's worked out pretty well.  Since these pieces are so small, I can usually trim down the squares to fit, and that gives me a lot more variety, too.  The squares for this checkerboard (which is my own block, not one that Angela gave a pattern for) were cut from the 1-1/2 inch squares, down to 1-3/8 so the block would be the right size.

All of the pieces for the blue blocks also came from the bins, including the accent pieces in the block on the left.  The block on the right is all from the 2-1/2 inch squares.  I made "cheater" hsts for the corners and then cut up a couple other squares for the side pieces.  It worked!  Good thing, too, because I don't have very much blue to begin with and it was just lucky to find matching squares in the bins.

The butterfly had to be cut from a bigger scrap piece, but that worked out okay, too.  This guy gave me some trouble, and there may or may not have been some butterfly parts laying all over.  In the end I gave up and ended up with an imperfect butterfly.  But at least he's still pretty good looking!  What he doesn't know is that he may get remade yet again, if I can figure out where I went wrong to begin with.

I'm so happy that pink is the July color, not just because it's one of my favorites, but also because I haven't packed that scrap bin yet.  It wouldn't fit in the box with the others, so I guess I got lucky there.  The first pink block was so easy that I finished it in just about 10 minutes.  At that rate, I could make a whole quilt from these!  But probably not at 4-1/2 inches each, though.

So, there is the result of a couple of happy hours over the holiday! It was a nice time in the AC, watching the clouds roll in and drop a little more rain, then get plenty hot again right afterward.  I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon, can't you?

Hope you're having a good weekend and staying nice and cool! Ice cream and Popsicles highly recommended!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC19.