Enjoying revisiting a Riot of Colour

Almost 4 years ago I made a scrap quilt which I called a "Riot of Colour".
Two years previously I had taken part in a Bento Box blocks swap. I seem to remember I was the only UK participant, one from Canada (I think), everyone else from the USA.

I loved the idea of making 20 blocks, cutting them into quarters, sending 3 of those quarters on to the organiser and then waiting to see what my parcel contained!  It really was exciting.  However, around the time the blocks arrived I discovered I had breast cancer, so treatment rather put sewing onto the back burner.

Fast forward to July 2013...................... I discovered the pile of bright blocks in one of my Sewing Room Sort Outs and a Riot of Colour was born. It had to be gifted to our beautiful granddaughter as she is the bright spark for us! 

Dear GG spends a lot of time at our house and I decided I would like to "borrow" the quilt back to put on the bed she has here.

So, here it is, on her bed at Granny and Grandpa's house:

It was rather dull when I took these photos and the colours don't appear as bright as they actually are!!

I loved looking for "my" Bento quarters ....... amazingly I still have some scraps of them left.

On a roll with Happy Blocks

After a very busy week I decided to spend much of yesterday and some of today making
Happy Blocks. Idea gleaned from Cathy's Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog.

I have made similar blocks before, using 2.5" chicken themed fabrics and a double frame around the blocks,

 

This time I looked through my stash for "Boy" fabrics, either 5" Charms or fabric I could cut 5" blocks from.  As I want to make a few baby quilts I cut an extra set of blocks and also a few extra

2" strips for framing the squares.

 

Today I finished sewing 25 blocks together and made this top:

 

 

I have set it aside whilst I think of a border fabric.

 

Here's the other set of Boy squares and the 2" strips for framing them.  Not enough strips so I need to look through my stash to find some more.

 

 

 

Now I'm off to find some Girl fabrics for another 2 sets of 5" blocks.

Spools & Strings & other things

After I had put away my tiny 9Patch blocks yesterday I made some 5" single colour String blocks.
As I had been sewing the 9Patches I made a few Spool blocks, Leaders & Enders style.

6 of each to add to my growing stash.

Here they are:

 

 

 

Last night was Awards and Quiz Night for the Hospital Radio Station where I have been a member since March 1997.

 

I broadcast every week, was Duty Producer of the Wednesday evening team for around 11 years but now I only write and produce special programmes.  Since I was ill 5 years ago I am wary of visiting the wards as I don't want to lay myself open to infections. This is a sadness for me because I loved going round the wards, chatting to patients and their visitors, collecting requests and then being on air for 2 hours, creating and delivering a Request Show programme with my team.  We had lots of fun and the patients loved the shows.

 

However, last night I had a lovely surprise, as I was awarded with my

20 years HBA - Hospital Broadcasting Association - certificate.

 

It was a lovely evening, good fun with the Quiz (3 Radio friends and my husband).  We called ourselves III + II as we were 3 ladies and 2 men!  Very tight match only a few points between us and the winners.  Lots of laughter and  conversation. They're a good crowd.

So today has been Church, a bit of gardening (lots to do but my cold has stopped me doing much this week), housework and now I'm off to get our tea, a Prawn Stir fry.

 

 

Practice makes perfect

Over the years I have been quilting I have made loads of 9Patch blocks, usually using separate 2.5" squares as I always have a supply of these on hand, cut from small scraps.

eg in my numerous Wonky Wishes star quilt and blocks:

I have already used the strip method of dark, light, dark matched with light, dark, light but again I think I have usually used 2.5" strips to make those 9Patches.

I was looking at Cathy's Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog and admired the tiny 3" finished 9Patches she made from 1.5" strips.  She describes in detail how to make these in a tab (HELP WANTED!!! (39P Swap) at the top her blog.
As I have a lot of thinner scrap strips I decided to give it a go. I am not the most accurate of sewers so found this exercise quite challenging.  But I persevered and am amassing a collection of finished tiny 9Patches.

Finished earlier this week:

Completed 9Patches in piles (2, 3, 4 or more of each colourway)

Today I sewed already cut strips together, number of finished blocks I cut make depended on the length of strips I had:

These were sub cut into 1.3" pieces:

And then assembled into 9Patches:

No plan to use them yet, so I'll squirrel them away until a suitable project pops into my head.

I thought I could use them as corner stones in borders, or even to make a quilt border.

Or alternate them with solid coloured patches.  We'll see.

Now off to make some more 5" String blocks which will be a nice change from being so precise!!

However I do think the old adage "Practice makes perfect" is right..............  in my case I think I am getting better, certainly not perfect!

Playing with Scraps

Over the Easter weekend I managed to find some time to sew, making up the Spool blocks I had put together in sets a few days ago. That made another 19 Spools to add to my previous ones.

 

Then I decided to look through my bags of strings and sorted out ones which were narrower than the 1.5" widths I needed for Spool blocks or strings which weren't a uniform width.

These I sorted into colours and made more single colour 5" String blocks.

This time I made some neutral ones too:

 

I really enjoyed making all of these scrap blocks and now I'm off to cut out more strips to make some 9 Patches using 1.5" strips.

Finding sewing is good therapy for the cold I woke up with this morning!

We have had such cold weather this last week after a very warm weekend the one before Easter so I think the huge change in temperature is the reason why I've got a cold.  I had intended to do some gardening today but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.

 

 

 

 

Here's the link

http://saneandcrazy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/783-spools-finish.html
Cathy's Spool Quilt

 For Cathy's Spool quilt

Sewing Spool blocks

I love making use of scraps and have admired the Spool blocks Cathy has made and shown on her blog Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting.

Cathy made them over ( I think) a couple of years as part of the blocks she makes each month in her Rainbow Scrap Challenge collection of  blocks.  Recently she showed the completed Spool Quilt which was amazing. Do take a look at it! Sorry I don't know how to direct you to the actual link - I don't have sufficient technical skills.

783 Spools: A Finish is the title of the post on Sunday 26th March 2017.

I haven't had much time for sewing since our return from NZ but I have cut out lots of pieces to make Spool blocks and have managed to squeeze in a little time to sew a few together.

I love the variety of fabrics, hoping to sew a few more together in the next day or two. Some of the background fabrics I have chosen have worked out more successfully than others.