Just for fun

Hi everyone!  How's your week going?  Mine is insane.  It's time to face the facts--it's not possible to continue with the regularly-scheduled quilty projects and work *and* move at the same time.  It just is beyond the limits of normal humans.  I don't claim to be all that normal, but I did pack up most of my fabric and other sewing things this past weekend.  I had 5 boxes, which seems like a lot to me, since this is such a tiny condo.  I may have a fabric problem.


You know I just had to leave some fabric out to play with.  You know, for stress relief purposes. There's plenty of that around here right now!  So here's what I was playing with earlier:

This is a test block for a quilt I drew up for this thing that's going on on Instagram called 30 days of quilt design.  The idea is that you draw out some thing to do with quilty design for 30 days between now and the end of October.  There are prizes, too, but the exercise is what I'm really interested in.  Rachel at Stitched in Color is running this, and her post about it is HERE.  Go read it for more!

A long way of saying that this is my sketch for this quilt:

Just hsts and squares kind of mixed together.  I called this quilt design "Kissy, kissy" because all of the pieces "kiss" in the center of the block.  The colorful parts here are 8 inches square, so the larger block up at the top of the post is 16 inches square.  A few of those would make a fast quilt!

Alternate layout for the individual blocks.

These were fast, easy, and fun!  And relaxing!  Everything I want sewing to be.  I don't have a pattern or anything, but the hsts are 4-1/2 inches and finish at 4 inches, and the square sections are made up of 2-1/2 inch colorful squares, 2-1/2 inch white squares, and 2-1/2 by 4-1/2 strips.  You can make 2 blocks from 3 charm squares, if you have any matching ones,  Or non-matching!  You could make everything smaller or bigger, too, depending on how fast you'd want that quilt to come together.

Another alternate layout!

 As I said, I was just playing around.  It was relaxing.  I have some more fabric out, but realistically I probably won't get much done this week.  There are more boxes to fill and a husband to keep fed--oh, and students!  Let's not forget them!

One last thing for this post--Bernie at Needle and Foot nominated this little blog for a One Lovely Blog award!  I'll say more about this later, but many, many thanks to Bernie, who has a lovely blog that you should definitely go visit!


Everybody have a great week!  I have a post planned next week for the Intricate Stitches quilt, plus a nice finish post for the week we actually move, so I'll still be around.  And you know that I'll be reading your posts obsessively and living vicariously through you, so be sure to pet some fabric for me!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Finished or Not Friday.

Life in flux

Hi everyone! How was your week? Life around here has been crazy.  Why did we decide that a good time to move was right at the beginning of a school year, at the end of summer, and during the hottest time of the year?  I guess we are desperate to get out of this condo.

So, this week the only thing I accomplished was to catch up on the Grandma's blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  Here are the blocks in this month's colors:

Definitely grayed tones, which were not helped by the afternoon light.

When I counted my blocks, I discovered that I was 9 blocks behind, so of course I decided to make them all at once.  Why not?  There's nothing else going on, is there?  Here are the 9 that I accomplished this week:

Whoo-hoo, I'm all caught up!  At least for the next 4 days.  Some of those colors are really great, too.  The yellow and coral on the left are my favorites of this batch.

I cut all of these out at once and made them assembly-line style, and it still took me all week.  I am putting things in boxes and doing various other things in between as well.  For some reason, the hubs still wants to eat every day.  Even though I am packing up many of the pots and pans.  Can you imagine?  The nerve!

Just to congratulate myself, I laid many of the blocks out on a bed (sorry for the lumps) just to see what the quilt will look like:

I've been thinking all along that I wouldn't have sashing but would just stitch the blocks and let a secondary pattern come through.  Now I'm wavering.  What do you think?  Also. does anyone have any opinion on any missing colors?  I know we have 2 months to go, and one of those has to be a red, but I need 6 more blocks to finish it up.  Any suggestions?

Everybody have a great weekend.  It's going to be hotter than blazes here, and we'll be packing. When did we get all this stuff?  We also have to shop for appliances, so it looks to be an expensive weekend for us.  I think I may need to have a break with some ice cream or something midway through!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and soscrappy for RSC16.

Black and white

Hi everyone!  We are back from our visit to our grandson and I already miss him so much!  I'm also missing the cooler weather and the clean air, but not as much as those baby fingers!

Since we travelled this week, I didn't get a lot of sewing time, but I did manage to make up these:

As they used to say--do not adjust your set! A black block and a white block for the postage stamp quilt!  I tried laying out the 16 blocks that I had and decided that I want the quilt to be rectangular and not square, so I need 4 more blocks.

I wasn't planning to make a black block or a white one, because I was afraid that either one would be too dull and would act as a "hole" in the quilt.  I was so wrong!  These two turned out to be a couple of my favorite ones!  There is so much to look at in each of them.  I'm really glad that I went for it.

I swear to you that this block is straight!  The photo lies!

So I still have 2 more blocks to make, which means more sorting, which is frankly the worst part of the whole endeavor.  Don't know what color they'll be, but I want to wrap this up by the end of next week, because we move in 3 weeks!  No tiny pieces left behind!

I have these two little pieces left over.  I couldn't decide if they were black or white, so I left them out of both.  Where would you have put them?

In other news, I have finally joined Instagram!  I wasn't planning to, but there are some fun things happening over there that I want to participate in, so I took the plunge.  Come on over and join me @academicquilter!

Everybody have a wonderful weekend.  I have brought out the boxes and am beginning the task of packing up the condo.  This is a happy thing, right?

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Oh Scrap!

Intricate Stitches--Bonus Block 2

Hi all, and welcome back to the Intricate Stitches quilt!  Today is block number 10!  Recall that the Rainbow Scrap Challenge only has 10 months this year, so we have had to double up for a couple of months so that we can have a full 12 blocks for the quilt.

Here is the second bonus block, which I made up in blue, green, and yellow:

I love this block!  This has a couple of names, the earliest of which is Kansas Star, from the Kansas City Star newpaper in 1932.  Carrie Hall, also from the 1930s, calls this Eight-point Allover.  It's number 1732a in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia.  Here is the best part of this block--it is made with 9 repeats of one unit, and the whole pattern comes from the placement of the colors.  This makes it super easy to cut and piece, which means you can knock this one out before school starts up again.  And we all know how fast that's coming!

A note about colors:  I made my block using scraps in various colors.  The success of this block depends entirely on the values of the colors chosen.  Use any colors you would like, but keep the values the same as the ones shown in this block.  Your lightest color should correspond to the yellow, with the darkest color corresponding to the dark blue.  This will make sure that the pattern in the block comes through.

Cutting:

There are only two sizes of pieces to cut in this quilt!

Cut 2-7/8 inch squares:                                          Cut 3-3/8 inch squares:

2 yellow                                                                    4 yellow
2 dark yellow or gold                                                  5 dark blue
4 dark green
4 bright green
6 medium blue

Cut all of the 2-7/8 inch squares in half from corner to corner to make two triangles and you are finished with the cutting!

Construction:

This block uses one unit, a simple square in a square.  Take 4 of the appropriate colored triangles and add them to the edges of the 3-3/8 inch squares.  These units should be 4-1/2 inches each, to finish at 4 inches in the block.

Make one using the 4 dark yellow or gold triangles and a blue 3-3/8 inch square.  This is the center square for the block.

Make 4 using the remaining dark blue squares, 3 medium blue triangles, and one yellow triangle:

Make 4 using the yellow 3-3/8 squares, 2 of the bright greens, and 2 of the dark green triangles:

That's it!  All the units are made!

Assembly:

All the final assembly requires is to lay out the units as shown:

Stitch together into rows and then join the rows to make the final block.  Give it a good press and admire!

A little wrinkled from being carried in my pocket!

One tip for this block--I never advocate pressing seams open, but it helps a lot with this block to press open the final seams that join all the square in a square units.  Backstitch at the ends to be sure the seams don't pop.

Have fun with this not-very-intricate but uncommon block, and be ready for block 11 (!!) coming up on September 6.  We are racing towards the finish of this quilt!

Sharing at Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and soscrappy for RSC16!