Finishing the reds

 Last week to use red scraps for RSC blocks. Here’s my haul for this week:

                                                         4 Twinkler Blocks

I made a Wonky Shoo fly trial block which wasn’t entirely successful because the top left corner is too small. I was using a few red bonus triangles I had. I will make more in other colours but won’t have such a busy background and will make sure the triangles are bigger.

The Ticky Tacky houses and little 4 patches were made as Leaders and Enders throughout the week.

                            Discovered these little houses after I had taken the previous photo! 

                                

     And 6 of my favourite String blocks. Don’t they look good in red?

I must have been tuning into Angela because during the past two days I’ve been putting together a little baby quilt to donate to the local hospital - and all the fabrics are shades of aqua.

Linking with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

This one’s a keeper!

 When I rearranged my sewing room after last year’s revamp I was careful to label every box of scraps, ribbons, threads etc. As you might imagine, many things came to light, some of which I didn’t remember buying or being gifted.

I’m always on a mission to use scraps and for some while I’ve been making small quilts for donation: two sizes for our local hospital’s Maternity Unit and a slightly larger size for Project Linus.

Last week I decided to make a Happy Blocks quilt for a Project Linus quilt and whilst I was rummaging in the appropriately labelled box I found a piece of fabric measuring about 12.5” square. I consisted of 6 rectangular pictures of nursery style characters, in muted colours. An ideal candidate for a small Maternity Unit quilt so I set to work cutting the pictures apart and framing them with strips from the Happy blocks box. Then I fiddled about deciding how to arrange them..... 3 rows of 2 pictures or 2 rows of 3 pictures? I decided on the latter then went back to my stash to look for suitable sashing fabric. I found a lovely mottled turquoise piece (another “find” during my mammoth sorting out last year). Again I have no idea how it came to be in my stash but it was just the piece I needed. 

Then I had to decide on borders and thought of a bag of small HSTs I had tucked away. The members of one of the groups I belonged to realised I loved scraps and one lady regularly gifted me bonus triangles. About three years ago I started pairing them and trimming into HSTs measuring 1.75”. I sorted through these and paired them into little pyramids and used them for a narrow border to frame the sashed picture  blocks. I was aiming for a little quilt measuring 24” square so I added another border of the mottled turquoise fabric. Back to the stash I went and found a piece of fabric I recently bought was just the job for backing and binding. It’s a pretty turquoise with tiny white bows scattered all over.

I machine quilted it, the best I’ve ever managed I think. I had recently watched a Pat Sloan video when she mentioned a book about machine quilting using a walking foot. This is what I use when machine quilting  but I’m not very adept so I treated myself to the book.

I intend to try some of the more complicated designs in future quilts but I’m happy with the straighter lines and more even stitches that I achieved in this little quilt.

So a few photos of the finished project:

I showed it to my husband and he said he thought it was one of the nicest quilts I had ever made and I agreed with him. I said I was going to donate it to the hospital but that I did love it. John said you should keep it, so that’s what I’m going to do!  I have sorted out two packs of fabrics and scraps to make two more little quilts to replace this one, so that’s my next two projects kitted up.

I’m so pleased that I decided to give myself permission to keep this. I think I’m going to call it “In the Nursery”.

Leave no scraps!

 Earlier this week I watched a Pat Sloan video where she was showing the blocks she had made all year from scraps. She intends to use up scraps as they are created rather than put them away to use up sometime in the future. I made a mental note of that idea when I made my red RSC Sawtooth blocks this week.

The centre of the block is a 4.5” Crumb square made from last week’s red leftovers.

Then I used the cut off bonus triangles (created when I made the star points in each block) to make another batch of little Wonky Star blocks:

At the beginning of the week I made more little Wonky Stars, cut out last week and ready to be sewn together.

I always have fun searching through my tin of 2” squares to look for the centres of these stars.

Although I don’t have a lot of red scraps I have already made a lot of blocks this month and there are more to come.

Having fun sewing as it’s been extremely cold here and I’m not good in the cold weather because of heart issues so instead of walking I’ve been sewing. 

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

Red Wonky star blocks for RSC

 I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of red scraps but whilst I was sorting out my fabric stash after Christmas I managed to find more than I remembered I had. Over the past year I’ve bought quite a bit of fabric, taking the opportunity to buy some larger pieces (2 or 3m) for backings in sales. As a result my storage drawers needed tidying up. All nicely sorted and labelled. Don’t think I’ve ever owned as much yardage!

I decided yesterday to cut pieces out for some Wonky Star blocks and I think I got rather carried away! I sewed a few up, pressed, trimmed and finished sewing the stars up today. There were ten.

I think this is about half the ones I cut out yesterday and I have now sewn the star points on all the rest of the blocks, ready to press and trim perhaps tomorrow. I love this block and I think they will make a nice addition to some I made last year. However, I did use some of the Wonky Stars last year so I don’t have a huge stash of them.

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog.

Some new RSC string blocks and planning for 2022

 I bought some new fabrics on sale from one of the two companies I order from online. 

They arrived a few days ago so I now need to sort out my sewing room and find places for the new material. So I started by looking through my stash of strings and collected together the pink, neutral, green, blue and yellow strings and enjoyed doing some mindless sewing over a couple of afternoons, using telephone book paper as the foundations to make a pile of 5.5” (which will be 5” finished) RSC  String blocks.

Here they are:

I have been thinking about RSC projects and have decided to continue making the following blocks:

1. Roman stripes 

2. Twinkler blocks 

3. 4.5” Crumb blocks to use as the centres for 8” Sawtooth blocks

4. Small Wonky Stars

I will make these blocks when the colour of the month matches where I need to fill the gaps in the collections I have already made.

I know Cathy of Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog has a plethora of ideas for her RSC projects and I am going to look through those and see if I can find another couple of new blocks to try out.

A couple of years ago I made some Ship blocks in three different sizes, enough to make 2 quilt tops. I finished one and gifted it to George, my friend’s 6 year old grandson. The other is still a flimsy so I think it’s time to turn that into a donation quilt which I’ll probably give to the Linus Project.

As for January’s choice of red I know I won’t be able to make too many blocks as I have virtually no red scraps.

I will make a few little Wonky Stars, some Sawtooth Star Crumb centres, perhaps a couple of String blocks and Twinklers. I do like stars don’t I?

I will continue to make Ticky Tacky houses, Easy Breezy blocks, and little Fish blocks too.

So, plenty to keep me busy - I had better hurry and sort out my Sewing Room and organise my stash.

Happy New Year, everyone.