97, 99, 100

Sampler blocks are DONE.  Waahoo!!!  Time to play with laying them out.

Hold on, something is wrong with picture  and I don't mean the tabby cat having a wash on  the blocks, or the poor quality photo.  Do you see that gap in bottom right hand corner?  How can that be.  Where is my 100th block? Don't tell me it's back to the sewing machine.

Today is an orange kinda day

A little bit of stash enhancement meant I could make progress on the orange blocks for my sampler.  Isn't that daisy print the prettiest thing?  After counting, recounting, ticking blocks off the list and recounting again, I think I only have 3 blocks to go. 

Little blocks keep coming

You can tell I'm playing catch up with this project now because the block colours are all mixed up. I'm starting to count down... only 9 blocks to go.  I just need to find some orange fabric for the orange section.

Plugging away

I pulled fabric for more six inch blocks and have put several together over the long weekend. I'm up to the brown month now. And if you think that one on the top right lolls a bit big you are right. It needs trimming but I had misplaced my ruler.  Not bad for an afternoon.

Cruisy last day of holiday

So how have I spent the last day of my summer holiday today?   I've taken a very cruisy approach to it.   A little (emphasis on little) household organisation, interspersed with a little reading, and a little quilting.  3 more blocks for the sampler...

There is a bunch of blocks that are orange.  I'm not sure how I'm going to go finding fabric for those...  I have plenty of orange hand dyes because I love muddling with red and yellow, I can think of only 2 orange print fabrics I've used in quilts. 

And some reds and neutrals for the border of Double Delight.  

These units are at a REALLY boring stage to sew so I am using them as leaders and enders.  This has somehow stopped me from having to focus on them and it makes them a much more manageable task.

Wish me luck for tomorrow.

Let's do the time warp - old and not so old projects

I've been doing a bit of a stock take. Overdue for new year perhaps?  I wasn't in time to sign up for Adrianne's Q1 Finish-Along, but these are the 3 projects I'd like to work on finishing during that time.

I've checked off the list of 6 inch sampler blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The 2014 challenge that is. It seems I stopped after July's red blocks and didn'tmoved on to greens of the light and bright variety.  So I have a few blocks to catch up on.  Well 29 to be precise.  Except that now it's 26 because today I made these 3.  And the title of today's post came from the background fabric which I decided while playing with these today that  I LOVE.  It really is a time warp moment because it is and old print that I picked up at Fabric-a-brac last year.  I'd forgotten how much fun it is to make these little blocks.  They work up largely from scraps - and I mean little scraps like left over binding strips, charm squares, those little giveaway pieces of fabric you get in goodie bags at shows...  you don't need a fat quarter bundle of an entire fabric collection to put together some little squares. 

Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion.  The top is finished, and the backing is sewn together ready to go, so this "just" needs quilting.

And another mystery from Bonnie.  This one has been around for a few years.  I got stuck trying to find perfect border fabric and when everything seemed to look a bit flat I decided to piece one instead.  So  I am working on making a pieced red and white border for this, in the style of Andee at The Modern Diary

So I have some goals.  What fun!

Red, red wine

No red wine for me today as I have a migraine but here are my latest two blocks.    These were all made from scraps, HSTs that were sitting in the scrap box.  I think I just have one more red block to catch up on on.

Deep red (and a diversion to other colours)

I'm still loving playing in the red scrap box. Today I made the latest two red blocks for the RSC Sampler and caught up on some of the blocks I has missed from other months. Now I only have a couple left on my catch-up list.  I had been procrastinating about making the Le Moyne Star but it went together really easily.  I think that using a batik helped with the pressing and keeping it square.  I liked this theory and applied it to the Broken Dishes/Green Star which is much more square than it looks in this funny photo.

I love playing in the red scrap box

I made three red blocks for the RSC Sampler this weekend.  When I did the catch up photo earlier in the week I realised that there are a few blocks that I've missed so I have to catch up on those as well.  The green Boxed Kite is one of those.

Half way point

This week was the half way point for 2014.  And so the participants in the in Rainbow Scrap Challenge are posting a progress photo for their blocks.

Here's mine.  No fancy layout; I took them to work today to photograph during daylight hours but my day wasn't very conducive to creativity.

I found more yellow

More mellow yellow June blocks for the RSC Sampler. I made these today along with carting a couple of boxes of books to the studio.

I love the Alamo Star, and think it's my favourite block so far. Why?  Not because my seams are perfect because they aren't.  Because I got to use my new Tri Recs ruler to make it, and because when I first started quilting I joined an online group called Southern Cross Quilters, and this block is their logo.

I had loads of trouble with the framed 4-patch which should be really simple.  I had the wrong dimensions, then I adjusted them, but it still turned out too large.   Nothing a little trimming wouldn't fix though.

Mellow yellow

The colour for June's blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Sampler quilt is Yellow.   At first I didn't think I had any yellow fabric. But a bit of a rummage through the scrap box turned up something to work with and I've made a start on the blocks. 

I'm still working on finishing the green blocks May too.  I have over 50 blocks completed now.

Green green blocks

Catch up time again.  Four more green blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Sampler.  Check out what everyone else is doing at SewScrappy  

Going green

May's colour for the RSC is green. I found lots of little strips to and scraps to put these blocks together.

Purple time

I finally got round to making purple blocks for the RSC Sampler today at quilt group.  Thanks to one of my buddies I was able to liven these up with some pretty fabrics from her stash.

The colour for May is green... it will be fun to see what interesting new blocks Sew Scrappy comes up with.

Bye bye teal & aqua, hello purple

I've been playing catch up this week and finishing off the last of the March Teal & Aqua blocks, then making the first purple block for April.  I was rummaging in the scrap box for a feature print for the Corner Frames block and I came up with the little 9 patch which worked perfectly.


 I was really surprised by how many fabrics I could find in the Teal & Aqua colour range.  I ended started a separate box for them in the stash.

I'm really going to enjoy working in Purple throughout
April

What I've been up to

Making another teal block for the RSC Sampler and some 12 inch blocks for a real life swap for an online group. I see there are 4 more teal block patterns available since Sunday when I made this so I will be onto those next week.  I'm excited that April's colour is purple.

The 12 inch blocks seem huge after working on 6 inch ones for a while.

Playing with teal

Today I spent some time in The Quiltery playing catchup with this months teal and aqua blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler organised by Sew Scrappy

These are the five blocks so far. 

I was being so frugal that I misjudged the amount of fabric required for the Friendship star and had to piece the corner squares because I didn't have enough of my light.

I realised that I like these colours when they are batik or hand dyed fabrics, but when they are prints I think they are ugly.  What's wrong with that logic?

And here are all my blocks together

Autumn means apple season.  We have baby fruit trees, just planted two winters ago.  These are our first apples.  Can't wait for the pears.

A big quilty weekend

This is the last weekend for link blocks for the RSC Sampler. I've made three more blocks including a basket because I loved the one ?? Had but couldn't find the pattern.

Only half as many pink blocks as blue... Wonder why?  Of course I also wonder what colour will be next.

 These past few days the Quilt and Craft Fair has been in town.  Yay.  I went with a list!  And I managed to get everything on it, and more - a  copy of Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty just had to come home with me.  I was very pleased to get the batiks for my  New Zealand flag quilt, inspired by Marina's Australian flag quilt and have been sewing this today.  The colour is off in the picture - these are more blue than they look.

While pressing backing for this quilt for my friend I couldn't help but notice how well the colours went with the borders of the quilt on The Quiltery wall.  I was really pleased to find this backing on sale at the Fair yesterday!  The colours are perfect and it is now on the machine.

Pink catch up

This week's pink work was to make these blocks for the RSC Sampler Quilt. Aren't they cute?  I am loving working at this size, it's so much fun.