More goals for May

Besides finishing the UFO items, I have set a few other goals for the month of May.  Most of these are just keeping up with or moving along WIPs (Works in Progress), but I want to start a new project too.  Maybe the Farm Girl Vintage blocks will have to be my "new" project since all I have is blocks. Guess I will just have to see how the month goes. 

Pink/rose was selected as the May color for RSC18 (Rainbow Scrap Challenge).  So there is a lot of pink in my goals for the month.

3 RSC Sampler blocks in pink

2 Saturday Sampler blocks  

12 Ritzy Cracker blocks (pink)

finish top of Christmas jelly roll quilt

bind Pink Pineapples

prep the sewing room wall hanging for quilting

make a plan for large Farm Girl Vintage blocks

This morning I dug through the stash and scraps for pink.  I actually thought I had more pink than I found.  But there were some good ones to choose from.  Twelve pink Ritzy Cracker blocks are under way.  I love this 30s reproduction fabric with the black Scottie dogs.


The center sections of all 12 blocks are sewn, and ready to add the triangles.  And I'm kind of hoping that I get some more sewing time after work this afternoon.  They are all laying on my sewing table waiting for me.

Orphan charm squares

 

The cracker blocks need 2 charm squares of a color.  And I just happen to have a small bin with orphan 5" blocks, so last night I dug in there to find some with 2 alike. I came up with 11 sets of charms.  The color portion of the block just needs 1 charm cut in half vertically, and 1 charm cut in half diagonally. Very simple!  The background needs 2 diagonal halves (can be 4.5"), and 1 rectangle 2.5" x 5". 

 

I hope to pull some background scraps later today and cut those pieces so I can start to sew these additional cracker blocks.  There are already 9 completed blocks, so these would bring my total to 20.  These make a good leader/ender project too. 

Garlic Knots

I've become quite fond of Bonnie Hunter's ideas for using up scraps. She writes a column called Addicted to Scraps for Quiltmaker magazine.  This block from a past column in 2014 has been quite popular online lately and I just had to try it out.

I made 2 different sizes - one using 2.5" squares and the other using 1.5" squares. (And there are a couple of rectangles in there too.)  The big one ended up finishing at 8" and the little one is 4" finished. This block was a 6" block in the original column. But I just decided to use the sizes of squares I frequently cut. The purple and yellow ones came out of the tin box holding my postage stamp cuts (from my scraps). The red and blue ones came from some strips in my scrap bin. And I always have lots of white scraps left over from other projects because I like white backgrounds.

Check out Bonnie's Addicted to Scraps links.  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/addicted-to-scraps.html   The links with the block titles will take you to the Quiltmaker magazine site although the patterns are not online.   

These only took 15 minutes including the cutting time.  More of these are undoubtedly in my future. 

Heartstrings blocks

This week I mailed off 48 Heartstrings blocks to another quilter who will sew them into a top for the Heartstrings project.  http://heartstringsquiltproject.com/ .  48 blocks will make a nice size quilt for someone. If you love making string blocks from your scraps, then check into this organization. 

I've made 2 tops previously for Heartstrings and sent them off to be quilted and bound by someone in the group.  One of those had green centers and another had black centers. Heartstrings will take your blocks, or tops made from the blocks, or finished quilts.  Just follow the guidelines on the website for size and number of blocks needed.

Playing around

I couldn't resist playing around just a little with a few of the scraps left over from the buffalo pillowcase fabric and some of the other scraps I got from a friend.  And I ended up with this 17" square that is big enough to use as a pillow front or maybe will continue to grow and become something totally different.  

RSC15 has begun

I really enjoy getting involved in some online communities to see what other quilters are working on, and also to "play" along with some of the online projects. 

So I'm joining in on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year and am looking forward (RSC15) to playing along with http://superscrappy.blogspot.com. The whole idea is that we are challenged each month use up our scraps to make something - anything - using the color of the month. January 2015 is blue.

The host of RSC15 has also designed a sampler quilt for the year that will incorporate a whole lot of 6.5" blocks framed by a sawtooth star.  And I'm going to work on the sampler as well as other projects of my own.  She plans to post 2 or 3 block tutorials each month for this sampler.

Sampler block #1 is called Whirling Geese and used the partial seam technique to make those flying geese whirl around the center. And the host has a great tutorial full of pictures of every step.  I used some blue batik scraps and a white background, but I haven't really decided yet whether or not I'll stick with batiks or use up other blue scraps. The background - I think that will be scrappy too, using whites, creams, shirtings, etc. We'll see how it shakes out.

Scraps - flannel & denim

I have a tub of old denim jeans that I've dug into over the years to make some blue jean quilts.  And I've been making a lot of flannel self-binding baby blankets the past couple of years and that resulted in flannel scraps.  So what am I doing with them?  I'm making a rag quilt.

First I've cut a lot of 6.5" squares of denim and of flannel.  From smaller scraps I've cut 6.5" x 3.5" bricks of both.  Next step is to sew a flannel piece to a denim piece using diagonal lines from corner to corner, both directions, making a big X on each block.  

Then I'm sewing them together with the denim sides together.  And the resulting seams are clipped toward the seam line about every half inch. Once the rows are sewn together to make a quilt, and it's washed and dried, then it will end up with fluffy frayed seams all over the flannel side.

This project is kind of like my string blocks - I make a few at a time when I'm in between projects and just want to do a little sewing.  And slowly these will become a kid sized quilt.

Scraps, scraps, scraps

Saturday afternoon at our guild meeting, one of the members gave me this big garbage bag.  These are scraps she had been given when collecting door prizes for our bus trip.  She knew that I've been making string quilts so has shared them with me.

This bag is HEAVY and stuffed completed full.  Some scraps are very large and some are very small. But I know there are going to be lots of string blocks made with these.

My next task - sorting these. 

Check off another small UFO

This UFO can finally be checked off my list too.  These string blocks are made with a muslin foundation block and a black center.  All of the fabrics are from my scrap bin except the black centers.  I'll be mailing this top off to the Heartstrings project and let another volunteer do the quilting or tie it, before passing it along to a deserving charity.

String blocks

Finally got some sewing time in today and one of the things I finished was the set of 24 string blocks. These will be sewn together and the top will be donated to the Heartstrings project. Getting them sewn into a top and mailed will be one of my March UFO goals, unless I manage to get it done before then.

These all have a black center and mostly bright fabric strings from my scrap bin.

Another scrap project

Potholders - another solution for the larger scraps in my bin. I had 2 "chunks" of these coffee themed fabrics left over from a couple of tablerunners. And I have leftover pieces of batting. So, a double layer of batting sandwiched between the 2 fabrics and I had quick potholders. And I actually needed these in my kitchen.