RSC17 week 34

LAST NEUTRALS 

I confess I did only two projects involving neutrals this month,  but one is a finished flimsy.   It's been an exciting week for me, making and completing this Mile a Minute quilt top.  I loved every minute of it, putting all my scraps together and making a huge dent in my scrap box.

Since I follow RSC17 every month I've been in the habit of pulling pieces for each color in turn, then storing them away again.  But the little bits and odd color combinations were always hanging around forgotten.  So those pesky ones are exactly what I used.  And, as they say, if you cut fabric small enough it will fit right in.   

Here are close ups of a few of my favorite blocks.

This block includes snails, a car and some really wacky shapes.

My bananas have the spotlight here.

Some fruit and an upside down lacy heart - you can't catch every mistake. 

Today I finished the sashing.  It is a thrill to use some of these unwanted neutral strips.  My friend cut them with her Go cutter, but did the entire batch of fabric by mistake.  And I almost never use 2-inch strips.  They worked perfectly here and the border will be the same.

For the backing I will be using a fleece with penguins and purple.  What could be better than that?  This will be for Project Linus at our Monona Quilters twice yearly charity quilt day.  They are a phenomenal group of motivated people.  Our collection in May brought in over 200, all for a variety of local charities.  My next one will be a row quilt for a little girl.  I already have the fleece and fabrics waiting.   

I hope you have all had a good scrappy week or other fun times.  Take a look at the scrappy projects I link with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at

   soscrappy  and

Oh, Scrap! at 

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

RSC17 week 33

FIRST NEUTRALS

Another week of lovely weather spurred me on to make loads of progress on my Mile a Minute quilt, but I did not quite get to the neutral sashing.  So here it is post writing time and no neutrals yet after almost three weeks of August gone.  Does it seem like I'm avoiding them?  You could say that.

Meanwhile, on Monday I had a visit from a friend in our Monona Quilters guild.  She is doing a lot of experimenting with techniques and brought some of her small quilts to show me some examples. She is now trying dying her fabric.  However, I've been there, done that back in the hippie era near San Francisco.  My friend and I had a lovely visit and I learned a lot with the hands-on session.  She also recommended Fabrico markers for writing on fabric.  I ordered a set and am happy with them.

Now, desperate to contribute something for Angela this week, I quickly pieced two neutral houses.

See, I can do neutrals and they turned out better than I expected.  That's all, folks.

Now back to my scrappy progress.  I've almost finished the 25 blocks at 8.5 inches each, a good size, with  sashing added, for a Project Linus quilt.  I am going to back it with one of the fleece blankets that I bought on sale a couple of years ago.  I found two of them hiding in my closet and will use the one with cute penguins on it.

Here is a sample of the finished blocks, all that I could fit on my design floor.  They are really fun, a combination of randomness with some color coordination.  

I'm looking forward to  seeing what all of you have been doing this week with your scraps.

I'm linking up with

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at

   soscrappy  and

Oh, Scrap! at 

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Midweek Makers, 8/16

FUN WITH FABRIC

This week I got sidetracked by a squirrel.  Just when I had my WIPs plan all laid out.  I came across the Mile a Minute quilt tutorial by Edith at inchbyinchquilting.blogspot.ca.   My plans flew out the window and I gathered all my little scraps.  To make a baby quilt I need 25 blocks at 8.5 inches, one of my standard sizes.  

After piecing together small bits for the 25 blocks, I became impatient to see RESULTS.

I chose four of them randomly and went to work, using  a sort of log cabin technique, and finished them at  8.5 inches.  Needless to say, they are very colorful.  They do need sashing and I just happen to have a big pile of 2-inch neutral strips.  When I was needing strips I asked my friend, who has a Go cutter, to cut some.  She went ahead and cut up all the fabric I gave her, enough for many neutral Strippy projects.  Here is how the blocks and sashing will look.

Since then I haven't been able to stop working on these blocks.  I'm chain piecing the rest of the strips.  They are in various stages of completion, most nearing the finish.  But today I have six finished blocks to share.

The weather has been delightful this week, energizing me to keep up the pace.  I should finish the blocks by the end of the week and get going on the sashiing.

For the backing I have a cute piece of fleece to make it nice and cuddly.  

 Our Monona Quilters next charity quilt collection is in October, so I will have this unexpected Project Linus quilt to contribute. 

I'm linking with Midweek Makers at 

http://quiltfabrication.com/

RSC17 week 32

A BIT OF NEUTRAL

This week I got sidetracked by a squirrel.  Just when I had my WIPs plan all laid out.  I came across the Mile a Minute quilt tutorial by Edith at inchbyinchquilting.blogspot.ca.   My plans for neutrals flew out the window and I gathered all my little scraps.  To make a baby quilt I need 25 blocks at 8.5 inches, one of my standard sizes.  

After piecing together small bits for the 25 blocks, I became impatient to see RESULTS.

I chose four of them randomly and went to work, using  a sort of log cabin technique, and finished them at  8.5 inches.  Needless to say, they are very colorful.  They do need sashing and I just happen to have a big pile of 2-inch neutral strips.  When I was needing strips I asked my friend, who has a Go cutter, to cut some.  She went ahead and cut up all the fabric I gave her, enough for many neutral Strippy projects.  Here is how the blocks and sashing will look.

That's all the neutrals I have done so far, and those are just laid on my design floor.  However, I'm looking forward to Monday, when a talented friend from our Monona Quilters will bring me some samples of her small study pieces.  I plan to make some small ones myself in neutral minimal style and she can show me the technical details.  

The weather has been delightful this week, energizing me to get my latest WIP finished.  I added borders to my Fence Rail Stars top and enlarged the bunny backing with leftover blocks. 

Now I just have to dig into my batting to find pieces to use for the 42-inch square quilt.  And work on 21 more MaM blocks. Our guild's next charity quilt collection is in October, so I will have at least two Project Linus quilts to contribute.

I hope the rest of you friends have more ideas for neutrals this week.  The blocks I've been doing monthly don't seem to work for neutrals.  I guess I will have to rely on you and the squirrels for more ideas.  

For more inspiration check out these great scrappy blogs this weekend.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at

   soscrappy  and

Oh, Scrap! at 

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

RSC week 31

IN BETWEEN

This week has been one of catching up on a couple of projects and reshuffling my stash again.  Last week i decided to make a Friendship Star block.  It turned out to be a frustrating time for  me. How hard can it be to make one small star?  I found out!  I had the most beautiful jelly roll strip in royal blue so that was my choice of technique.  There are a number of ways to cut the HSTs.  I used my Easy Angle ruler to cut all the triangles.  A wornout rotary blade was no help.  I had to rip at least three times to get the star sewn together when it ended up backwards.  

I had two goals for the star, doing something with blue and making more stars for my patriotic star quilt.  With time on my hands, I used the Magic Eight technique, my favorite HST technique.  It worked well, but I had cut two large squares of a different blue.  So I ended up with four more stars, two with red centers.  They are all six inches.

I've been poking along with my Fence Rail Stars quilt.  

Now I'm adding extra blocks to the bunny backing.  Fortunately I am able to make good use of the blocks that I cut too short.  Here is the first part of it just finished.

For the new neutrals color I'm at a disadvantage, never having worked with them much.  I really had to dig everywhere to come up with what I hope will work.  These scrappy blocks for my improv quilt are really the only neutrals I've done.

I'm looking forward to see how you friends work with the neutrals.  Hopefully by next week I'll be able to produce something neutral.  I know some of you are gifted that way.  We will see what this color junkie can produce.  

For more scrappiness take a look here.  I link up with

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at

   soscrappy  and

Oh, Scrap! at 

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework