Looking ahead

Hi all, and welcome to the last post of 2014! Who else can't believe this year is almost over? When I was a kid, the year 2000 seemed soooo far away, and here we are nearly 15 years past it, and still no flying cars.  I would settle for a regular one that's indestructible, if anyone is working on this.

First, I have a picture to show of the only Christmas present I made this year:

I don't usually make Christmas presents, but my younger daughter really needed a footstool, and I couldn't for the life of me find one that I liked in the right size. So I made one, and I even let Mr. Academic Quilter pick the fabric. I was dubious, but she really liked it, so wins all around!

Has everyone finished their quilts for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for this year? Me either, but I am working hard at it. In the meantime, I am planning for a new scrap quilt for this year's RSC, and I thought some people out there in Internet-land might want to join me. Here's the plan:

I want to make a row quilt out of classic quilt blocks, using the colors for RSC15 each month. Here are some of the blocks I'm planning to use:

The center of my quilt will be 60 inches wide, and the length may vary because some of the blocks can be made in various sizes. I chose to make mine 60 inches wide because the factors of 60 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60, meaning that blocks in any of these sizes will make rows that finish at 60 inches wide. That makes the math easy, since these are classic blocks in many of these sizes. I did include some 8 and 9 inch blocks which will also make a properly-sized row with the addition of spacers. It sounds complicated when I type it out, but I've done the math and it works fine. The quilt center should be between 72 and 80 inches long.

If you'd like to come along and make a row quilt using your scraps (or other fabric if you'd like!),  I'll post a tutorial on the first Tuesday of every month for the block for that month. (Don't quite know what to do about September yet, but I'll figure it out when we get there!) You can see that I have a bunch of blocks planned already, but I may change my mind about some of the colors. This could even be made as a sampler with one of each block. Either way, it will be fun!

I hope you'll join me in this adventure! I may even learn to do link-ups if enough people show interest.

Everyone have a great time celebrating the new year. Hope you get a few more stitches in before 2014 leaves!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social.  Be sure to stop by!

Odd man out

Hi folks! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday celebration! We had a very nice Christmas with lots of food and family. The only weird thing was that there was no snow at all! In fact, the sun came out for the first time in weeks. We had a white Thanksgiving but a brown Christmas. It was a very strange feeling. 

In addition to baking seventeen dozen cookies, I finished one thing this week:

This is the last block for the Odd Fellow's quilt, which was my second project for RSC14. I actually started sashing the blocks this week too, so this quilt should go together quickly. The sashing for these is a very narrow solid white, with no cornerstones. It sounds dull, but it looks great.

Here is this week's block with some of his brothers and sisters:

Look! Sunshine!

Notice anything? This last block is made in opposite values from all the others. Why? Because he's the Odd Fellow! Okay, maybe a bad joke, but it will make complete sense when the whole quilt is together.

That's almost all the sewing I accomplished this week. It was a very busy week! Somehow vacation was busier than work. Hope you were able to fit in a few stitches this week too. Enjoy your weekend!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts, and also Angela at soscrappy. Happy sewing!

Triangle surprise

Hello folks! How are you doing this lovely, cold day? It has been so, so gray here and I am longing for sunshine. I have a finish to show you today that is a bit of a bright spot in the grayness of this winter. The triangle quilt for RSC14 is finally a finished top! And it turned out to be a little bit of a surprise, so I've named it Triangle Surprise:

Notice anything? No borders! I never did find a border that I liked with it, and after auditioning several, I decided to be all modern and go without. Plus, I do love the floating effect of the triangles on this fabric. I did add a 2 inch border of the sashing and setting fabric all around just to make it a little bigger and avoid having all bias edges. The fabric seems to have a striped effect in the pictures, but I didn't notice that in person, so I'm calling that a camera effect.
 

 This quilt turned out to be a beauty, but it gave me some fits along the way. I've done on point settings many times, but this time I seemed to have a problem thinking about it properly. For some reason, nothing wanted to go together correctly.  And those cornerstones kept getting turned strangely, but they were totally worth the work. I love them!
 

Doing a happy dance about this happy, scrappy quilt!

So, we are nearing Christmas, and I'm going to set aside most of my projects for the next week. I may do some on the Odd Fellow's quilt, and I want to make some more Drunkard's Path blocks, just to have something to work on. Otherwise, it will be baking central around here as there are tons of Christmas cookies and breads still to be baked, plus presents to wrap and two small things left to shop for.  And then the family shows up!

I may or may not post something next week, so if I don't get another chance, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! (Cue the Jose Feliciano song!) And if you celebrate a different holiday (or no holiday!), I wish you a wonderful, happy week as well.

Peace and joy to you and yours!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts, and also Angela at soscrappy.

Sew relaxing

Hi all! How is your Christmas sewing going? I am gradually relaxing. There is still a lot of Christmassy stuff to do (cookies!), but the grades are in and I have a little bit of time to play. Plus, I get to learn some new things that I usually don't have time for. For example, this weekend I learned that I can't watch The Walking Dead. I know a lot of people love it, but it's definitely not for me. Good to know.

Since I finished the candy row on the winter quilt, I started a new row--snowman faces!

Aren't these fun? I haven't decided for sure, but I think I'm going to applique some eyes instead of using buttons. I think it would look better all around, plus no lost eyes, which would make for sad snowmen. I have a few more to make, but this is a fun row.  (Patterns available HERE or HERE.)

I also did a few of step 3 for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt: 

These were super-easy and I think the colors look really good together.

I'm liking this mystery more and more because I don't think I've seen these units together before. This seems really original and different.

That's all that's happening in my sewing room right now! Well, I'm also working on finishing the triangle quilt, which has been in progress forever. At least that's what it seems like. But it's moving along, which is something. I would have a picture, but we have been socked in by fog for the last several days. Yes, fog!

Hope everyone is holding it together with the holiday projects. I know for sure I will not be sewing for a couple of days because the electric company is shutting off our power all day (really, 8 am to 3 pm!) to replace the neighborhood transformer. In December, in Wisconsin. Nice planning, guys! We'll be hitting the movies and anywhere else that will be warm (and have wifi). Which means no cooking for me, so maybe it's not all bad!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. And Bonnie Hunter's link-up, too, just for the fun of it. Stop by and wave!