Squared Away Block 1

Hi everyone, and welcome to the first block of the Squared Away quilt!  This is going to be a fun project for this year.  This quilt was designed by me and Angela of soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year, but anyone can feel free to join in.  If you haven't read the introductions to this project yet, that post is HERE.  There is also a tab at the top of this page with more information, and Angela also has a lot of helpful information on the sampler HERE and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge HERE. 

Red Cross

This month's block is called Red Cross, a Clara Stone block that dates to 1906, but we're not making it in red.  Our colors for this month are white and light neutrals and light blue.  For this block, you will need some light blue scraps, some scraps of background fabric, and a small bit of accent fabric.  Your accent can be any color that you like with the light blue, and you only need the equivalent of 5 2-1/2 inch squares of it.  Go monochrome or contrasting--it's up to you!  I used solid-ish fabrics for the main fabrics and prints for the accents. If you are using a dark color as your background, I suggest using the white or light neutrals for a spectacular block.  (Pictures of both colorways are below.)

**Note that there are alternate methods for some parts of the block, so please read all the way through before you start sewing.**

Let's get started!

Cutting for 10-inch blocks:

 
From the light blue, cut:

2 5-3/4 inch squares

From the background, cut: 

2 5-3/4 inch squares
1 strip 2-1/2 by 10-1/2

From the accent color, cut:

1 2-1/2 inch square
1 strip 2-1/2 by 10-1/2

Construction:

First, use the 2 5-3/4 inch squares of the blue and the background to make 16 half-square triangles using the 8-at-a-time method (Magic 8).  You can oversize these squares a bit and trim the resulting hsts to the correct size if that works better for you. Your hsts should measure 2-1/2 inches square to finish at 2 inches in the block.

Arrange your hsts as shown and stitch:

Make 4 of these units. These should measure 4-1/2 inches square.

***Alternate methods: Don't have 5-3/4 inch scraps?  Make 2 at-a-time hsts from 2-7/8 inch squares (or oversize the squares and trim them down).  Make 16 and stitch together as shown above.

Want to use your already-cut 2-1/2 inch squares?  Layer a blue square and a background square, and draw a line from corner to corner on the back.  Stitch right on that line, then trim 1/4 inch away.  Press open for a perfect hst.  (I call these "cheater hsts.")  Make 16 and stitch together as shown above

For our next step, take the 2-1/2 by 10-1/2 inch strips of the accent and the background fabric and stitch them together along the long edge.  Press to the darker fabric.  Cut the strip set you just made into 4 units that are 2-1/2 inches each (there will be a little bit extra for squaring up the end if you need it).

***Alternate method:  If you want to use some 2-1/2 inch squares, you will need 5 of the accent color and 4 of the background. Stitch 4 of the accent squares to the background squares, saving one accent square for the center. ***

Assembly:

Lay out the units you just made as shown, including the 2-1/2 inch accent square, paying attention to the directions of the hsts in the corners:

Stitch the units into rows and the rows into a finished block.

Press well, stand back, and admire!

Congratulations, that's the first block!  If you are making the whole quilt this year, make a total of three blocks this month.  Here are all of the blocks I made this month:

This year, I am making three of the 10-inch blocks each month for a 30-block quilt, plus 2 15-inch blocks, some with dark backgrounds.  These blocks will give me enough for two big-block quilts, one with 12 blocks and one with 9 blocks.  (To make a 15-inch block, see the tab for the Squared Away quilt at the top of this page and also the tab on Angela's page.)

That's a good start to our quilt!  Jump on over to Angela's to see her blocks, some terrific tips, some variations, and other fun extras.  Angela also made us a great button:

How cool is that? You can grab this button at her blog too.

Our next block will be posted on Saturday, February 3.  Meet right back here!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC18!

Squared Away-- 2018 BOM!

Hi all!  It's the last Saturday of 2017, can you believe it? I hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready to start a happy new year.  2018 is going to be awesome, I just know it.  We already have a lot of happiness coming down the road, so I'm looking forward to the new year.

Since we're about to start a new year, it's time to think about 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  For this year, Angela from soscrappy and I have collaborated on a block of the month quilt! You know I like doing these, and this year's project is going to have really easy blocks and a spectacular setting that will make an awesome quilt. 

For this project, we have chosen traditional blocks that each finish at 10 inches square.  The twist for this year is that all of the blocks are made up of only three units in various combinations--squares, rectangles, and half-square triangles.  This means the quilt is absolutely suitable for quilters of all levels of skill and experience.  There are also lots of options for the quilt, including a couple of setting options that will be given at the end. My quilt will finish at about 70 by 87, but you don't have to make one that large if you don't want to.

The first Saturday of every month, I'll be posting a tutorial for that month's block, starting next Saturday.  There are 10 blocks, January through October, then in November we'll have the setting and finishing instructions.  My plan is to make three blocks each month so that I have 30 blocks for my quilt, but you can make as many or as few blocks as you like.  The setting and finishing instructions are based on 30 blocks.

Since this is a scrap quilt, there aren't any yardage requirements to give, but I do have a couple of yards of a white on white to use for the backgrounds.  For the main colors each month I plan to use some of my many, many scraps as well as some scraps that I've already cut into 2-1/2 inch squares. Those bins are never empty, are they?

These will be much happier in a quilt!

So there's the plan for 2018's quilt!  There is a tab at the top of this page with more detailed information.  If it sounds interesting, come on along and try a few blocks!  It will be fun to sew along together and use up a bunch of those scrap pieces.  And at the end we'll have some lovely quilts!

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday and that you all have a wonderful new year celebration.  Bring on 2018!

Sharing at soscrappy, Linky Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social.

Another year in the archives

Hi everyone, and welcome to the end of 2017!  It's been an adventure hasn't it?  What a crazy year! When we were kids, who could've imagined what would be in 2017?  For our family, this was a good year that got even better towards the end, when we added two more grandbabies to the family.  In the sewing room, I made some pretty things and some useful things and had some fun. How about a look back before we welcome the new year?  Here we go!

According to the spreadsheet I keep on these things (yes, really), I had 22 quilty finishes this year.  To me, this means either finished tops or quilted and bound finished quilts.  Some of these never made it to the blog, but of those that did, these two string quilts were the most popular ones in 2017:

I have to admit that I like them, too! These are string quilts made from patterns in Amanda Nyberg's book No Scrap Left Behind.  Both of these lovely quilts used up florals that I'm no longer really interested in and turned out way better than I anticipated.  These were gifted to two of my adult nieces, and both of them promptly sent me pictures of the quilts in use, which is a great way to insure that you get more gifted quilts!

I can't ever pick a favorite quilt, but this one certainly made me happy:

This is the Happiness quilt, a wedding gift for my daughter and son in law that finally got finished this year.  I love this one so much, and thank goodness they do, too!

This was probably the most useful little quilt of 2017:

On Deck

This quilt lived on our deck from the day it was finished until it got too cold to be out on the deck.  Based on this year's use, it will likely be used out there until it falls apart and I have to make another!

This year, I also finished off the It's Complicated quilt:

and finshed the top for this year's BOM, Constellations:

I made some small quilts:

Rustic Heather

Prairie Queen door hanging

 
And some fun quilts:

A little I Spy quilt for my grandson!

And a couple of table toppers:

Loyal Union table topper

And I ended the year with some free-pieced projects:

Free as a bird

There are too many other fun quilts to show them all, but overall, this has been a great sewing year for me.  Thanks to all of you for coming along and sharing the adventure.  It's been a lot of fun, hasn't it?  I'm really grateful for all of you in this fun and supportive community, and I hope to see you all again in 2018.  I already have some fun things planned for 2018, including a new BOM, so it already looks to be a good start to a good year. Until then, may your needles be sharp and your bobbins be full, and your new year be joyous!

Bring on 2018! 

Joyful!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazymomquilts, Finished or Not Friday, and the Best of 2017 linky party at Meadow Mist Designs.

Misfit Toys quilt top

Hi all! How have you been? Well, I have met some of my deadlines, waved at others as they went past, finished the things that I absolutely had to do, and I finished the Christmas cards!  Oh, and I apparently decided to keep Amazon in business single-handedly, but that means fun packages keep showing up at my house.  It's like my own private present opening every day.

In the midst of all that, I also managed to find some time to squeeze in some stitching for one more finish this year. Here is my final finish for 2017:

When I started this quilt I was really unsure about it, but now I really like it! This is the quilt made up entirely of orphan blocks and failed experiments.  I connected all the blocks with strings from the string jar.  Again, I was unsure, but it worked out great!  I call this one Misfit Toys because I'm feeling like all of these blocks found a way to fit in together.

Those of you who have seen this top before will notice two things-- first, I rearranged the blocks a bit more and added a few more things from the parts and pieces bin to fill in some of the bigger spaces.  That bin should be the next one I clean out because it's stuffed full too.

The second thing you might notice is that I ripped out a bunch of strings and basically started over.  I had started using the colorful strings as sashing in between the blocks, but then I ripped those out and used all the light strings to connect the blocks.  Yes, it was tedious, but look at the result!  From a distance it looks like they are all white or beige, but there are plenty of pale colors in there as well, including a few prints.

A very messy process!

I thought I might have to cut some more light strings to have enough, but I didn't, which is pretty scary, actually.  I did use up a whole lot of them, which is super because I never seem to have a use for the light-colored ones.

The border is made up of the colorful strings from the jar.  I pieced these in three rounds, going all the way around the quilt three times, twice from the medium pile and once from the pile of wide strings. The outer border measures about 3-1/2 inches, and the quilt as a whole measures about 65 by 70. 

This was a fun quilt to make.  There was no stress here beyond choosing which strings I wanted to pull out of the pile. I measured almost nothing.  Mostly I just joined up some strings and then trimmed them all to the width of the narrowest string, then stitched them on.  The only real measuring was to make sure that the rows were all the same width so they would all fit together properly.  If I were to do this again I would trim the strings to standard widths, which would make putting them together much easier.

When I started, I sorted out the strings into three general piles of wide, medium, and narrow strings, then put the narrow strings aside.  What did I do with these? Take a look:

I made about 20 of these 4-1/2 inch string blocks.  Yes, it's a sickness.  Some of the strings here started out as narrow as 3/4 inch. But I'm no longer saving any strings smaller than an inch to an inch and a quarter.  Really, I swear!

After I finished this quilt top and all the string blocks, I did something radical with all the rest of the strings-- I threw them out.  What?  Yep.  If I didn't use them in this project, I'll probably never use them, so they're gone.  I'll be starting 2018 with a nice empty jar.  I wonder how long it will take to fill?

With that, I am closing up the sewing room for the rest of 2017.  We have a lot of travel and relaxation (and a professional conference) to get to, and I have to spend a bunch of time hugging some babies.  I have a couple of posts already scheduled, so there will be some new things, but otherwise 2017's sewing is finished for me.

Whatever holidays you celebrate at the end of the year, I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing, happy time, and that all your holiday wishes come true.  Peace and joy to you and yours!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, crazymomquilts, and Oh Scrap!