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.

Year end round up of Quilt finishes

 I’m pleased with how many quilts I’ve finished this year. Just spent a happy time looking back over my photos and blog posts about them.

Some used blocks from stash, many like my Crumb blocks, made as Leaders and Enders over a few years.

 I made three I Spy Crumb quilts, combining the Crumbs with fabric scraps from stash. These were donated to our local Samaritans Charity Shop:

I used a pile of previously made Sawtooth Star blocks to make a baby quilt for my cousin’s new granddaughter. I had to make more blocks in order to create the quilt but was very pleased with the result.

Two quilts were made from various sized squares I had stashed away:

I finished an I Spy Baby Quilt UFO when I needed a baby quilt in an emergency. This was a flimsy in 2019 and listed on my blog to be finished in 2020. Didn’t quite make that deadline but it WAS finished on 7th January 2021.

I have been making RSC blocks for several years and this year I wanted to use some of those piles of blocks to make quilts. I made 4 quilts from RSC Ticky Tacky houses. Here they are:

Apologies, this photo is upside down!

Sorry this photo is sideways!

I used some RSC Twinkler blocks to make a quilt which will be donated to our local hospital’s Maternity Unit

My collection of RSC 49 patch blocks were turned into a quilt which I will donate to Project Linus.

And two RSC flimsies were finished this year, Warm Strings and Cool Strings:

I now want to spend time in my Sewing Room looking through my sets of RSC blocks to see if there are any sets which can be made into quilts and which sets I need to continue to add to during RSC 2022.

And of course to decide if there are New RSC block ideas I would like to start making next year.

I know I have a completed RSC Ship blocks flimsy which needs to be rescued from the UFO pile and finished in 2022.

Linking with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog.

Another RSC quilt is gifted

 Back on 18th April this year I quilted one of the two RSC String flimsies  I had made from the RSC String blocks I had been making for a long time. I used an idea I had seen in Cathy’s blog ( Crazy by Design), dividing my blocks into cool and warm colours. I put blue, green, brown and purple blocks together and called the quilt Cool Strings.

I decided to gift it to my best friend Barbara for Christmas so today I’ve embroidered and sewn on its label ready to wrap up and post tomorrow.

I love the pieced backing I made for this quilt, using some new fabric with an added vertical strip to make it wide enough for the quilt. The strip was a remnant I had from Helen, one of my Patchwork friends who had downsized into an apartment in February 2020 so was reducing her stash significantly.  Sadly Helen died a few months after I finished Cool Strings so this quilt has some nice memories for me.

I know Barbara will love the colours in this quilt so I think it’s the perfect Christmas gift for her.

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC 2021 blog.

Another RSC 2021 finish!

 I finished another RSC 2021 quilt, using string blocks I made over a couple of RSC years. I created a flimsy a little while ago but now it’s a finished quilt which will eventually be donated to the Linus Project ( when I have a few quilts gathered together).

It measures 42” square and is machine quilted.

Some close ups of blocks:

Colours are much brighter, we had switched the electric lights on by the time I took the photos.

I bought 3 metres of a lovely backing fabric a little while ago online in a closing down sale and used some for this quilt. I love it.

I knitted another baby cardigan and matching hat:

And knitted three teddy bears from wool scraps:

This evening I parcelled up all my knitted baby things ready to post to trainee midwife Evie tomorrow. They will be gifted to new babies born in the two Maternity Units in London where Evie works.

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog.

A Comedy of Errors

 This week I have managed to baste, machine quilt and bind my 49 squares RSC quilt.

Basting went well, the machine quilting went pretty well too. Thank you to the two ladies who suggested quilting ideas for me on last week’s blogpost. I am going to try your idea Jenny on the next smaller baby quilt I make for the hospital. I found a You Tube video that I think is doable for me. But I decided to go with Raewyn’s idea of going from corner to corner. But I just did that on the centre section of sashed 49 squares blocks, then sewed along the borders like I usually do. Pleased with the result.

Then the curtain was raised on the  Comedy of Errors as I began to sew on my binding, a job I’ve done hundreds of times. But for some reason I never stopped making mistakes: I didn’t notice (twice!) that the machine was looping because the thread had fallen off the screw that the cotton reel feeds around, two or three times I discovered I had completely gone wrong with the distance I was using for the seam line, etc etc. Finally got the binding on and I called it a day. My husband said I should just have stopped sewing near the beginning of this frustrating sewing session and I agree with him! Even more so the following day when I came to hand sew the binding because I had put it on the wrong side of the quilt. My group said don’t unpick it, just fold it to the front and stitch it down. I have, and it looks fine. I can only think I sewed it wrongly because both the outer border and the backing are the same fabric. That or old age!

Anyway, here it is:

It measures 42” square and will be donated to the Linus Project when I have another couple of quilts to add. The lady who used to be the local distributor has retired and no one has taken over so I know I’ll have to look further afield for a distributor. A job for 2022 I think.

A few close ups of some of the blocks:

I finished another baby cardigan and two matching hats which I love!

Linking up with Angela’s Soscrappy RSC blog.

49 Patch flimsy

 I managed to find time this week to turn last week’s 49 Patch blocks centre into a flimsy, adding two borders to frame it: a narrower deep pink/fuchsia solid and a pink striped wider border. Pleased with both.

The flimsy measures 43” square and I hope to find time to baste it and think about how it can be quilted.

I’m limited with my machine quilting abilities and can only do straight lines , usually following the columns and rows of the blocks. Can’t see how to make that work with this quilt. Can’t do stippling or free motion which is what it probably calls for! I’m wondering if I do my usual quilting in the sashing and borders and tie the centre of each 49 patch block that it will be sufficient to hold the quilt.

Any thoughts on this would be very welcome!

Another grey dreary November day here so the photo colours are not a true representation of the flimsy. In reality the colours are really bright and cheerful!

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC 2021 blog.

Made in 2019, gifted in 2021

 On 18th November 2019 I completed a Crumb quilt, made from scraps, including Crumb blocks from my stash. I blogged about it at the time. It was put away as I didn’t need to gift it at that time. 

A few days ago we received an email from a young New Zealand friend to say she had had a second daughter on 15th October, named Lucy Jane. I gifted a quilt to her first daughter Izzy when she was born a couple of years ago so of course Lucy had to have a quilt too. The Crumb quilt in my stash was a perfect choice as there are some scraps in it that were leftovers from her big sister Izzy’s quilt.

This was Izzy’s quilt.

This is Lucy’s quilt.

It measures 40” square.

Some close ups:

And a glimpse of the backing, such a pretty strawberry fabric.

I have renamed the quilt Dolly Mixtures - my favourite sweets when I was a little girl.

I’m posting it off to New Zealand this afternoon.