Pink, I Think

As this month began, I was sure the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color was light/medium blue. You see, I had misread Angela's post last month when she said that blue is such a big color that it would take up two months. In my mind I read two consecutive months. So imagine my surprise to find that, no, this month's color is pink. I had planned to make both pink crumbs and pink butterfly parts, so I got right to work. It was a little challenging. I have a lot of old pinks. If you are roughly my age, you know that means dusty pink/mauve. I am so over those pinks. I like clear pinks now. But--and I just figured this out--I don't have many clear pinks because in my most recent quilts, I have cut my yardage so close, I have almost no modern scraps. I will admit that I had thought of buying some "scraps." But I didn't. And now that the blocks are done, they're not so bad. And I'm also thinking that to replenish my scraps with more modern bits, I should purposely buy a smidge more fabric than I need when I buy something new.

Here are my crumbs for the month:

I kept the contrast fairly low again, leaving out pale pinks and really dark ones. Here is one of the blocks with representatives from the other crumb colors.

And, of course, the butterflies. I had more flexibility with these, so lighter colors and clear prints showed up. Those pink and white prints are some of my favorites. As I was laying these out, I realized I could have sewed the upper and lower wings together. I'll catch them up next time the machine is out. I keep hoping for brown to make its appearance as the RSC color so I can stitch up those bodies. (Hint, hint, Angela)

And here they are with reps from the other colors. 

Those little blue wings are a bit lonely, but eventually they'll get their lighter blue partners.

So my July RSC is done! I didn't wait until the last day. Yippee! There is a reason. I wanted to get on to my next project. This one is for our bed. I've meant to make a runner since we painted our room a few years ago. We have green walls about the color of the greens below and a plain ivory bedspread. It needs a little color as well as a bit of extra weight when the weather's cooler (definitely not right now). I went out fabric shopping the other day, and whipped around the store grabbing whatever caught my fancy in the coral, yellow, green and teal ranges. (Unfortunately, my epiphany about buying a little extra did not occur to me until later, so there is low scrap potential from this one.)

I tried to vary the scale, but as usual, I ended up with a lot of smaller, tone-on-tone prints, but I think there's enough variation for what I'm making--Gently Down the Stream by Christina Cameli. I've made two of these before (you can see them here). Two of my fabrics are souvenirs from a trip I took up north a few years ago, and the two darker teals are from one of my grandson's baby quilts. I also bought a piece of Kona Bone for the accent strips. That's a new Kona for me. I needed something just slightly yellower than my usual Snow.

I can't wait to get started. But really I can. I have little kiddies visiting this weekend, so the sewing rooms are now the guest/play rooms. 

Okay, I'll be linking up with Angela at So Scrappy for Scrap Happy Saturday and with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap. 

I hope you are having fun with projects old and new this month! Catch you later...

TBT: More Wedding Gifts

I was looking through some old quilt photos for Throwback Thursday and came across this one, and then as I was searching for some notes about it, I found a printout of an email exchange dated July 1 and July 5 of the year I made it. So, of course, 18 years later, I have to share it.

Breezy, not crooked quilt!

This is a quilt I made for my niece K and her husband C for their wedding at the end of July 2001. As you can see from the dates of the emails, I was really cutting it close. I had just finished up a school year. The emails were between my sister-in-law and me about whether a quilt was a good idea, and colors, style, etc. According to the emails, the couple had registered for a particular bedspread, and my SIL thought a blue and white wall quilt to go with it would be a good idea. The only problem was that I could not find a photo of the bedspread, so I had to just go with my gut and make something I thought they might like. I had made a quilt for myself in 1996 (you can see it here) that I enjoyed, so I decided to make something with a similar design. I still have the graph paper plan, but it's kind of a mess, so I'll spare you the sight of it. But thanks to that, I know that the quilt is about 29 by 34 inches. I had to mess with the sizes of the sashes to make the on-point squares fit as a border.

I recall that it was fun collecting the blues, although I'm embarrassed to say that there are still snippets (and even a bit of yardage) left after all these years. In fact, some of them recently found themselves in my June blue crumb and butterfly blocks for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I can't find a photo of the back, but it is an interesting medium blue with a large navy floral design. It showed up again in this heating pad and on the back of this quilt here. Back when I made this quilt I was still hand quilting, which explains why it is a small wall quilt. If it was larger, they might still be waiting for it.) I outline quilted the geese and other patches, and then because I had centered the floral motif in the borders, I quilted around all of the flowers and leaves, which was a whole lot easier than marking and quilting something else. I do not think I finished this in time to send for the wedding (we were not able to go), but I'm pretty sure I sent it by the time they got back from their honeymoon. Here's the funny thing: they did not get the bedspread they had registered for. It was no longer available. So, they ended up designing their room around the quilt I had sent. I always wonder what that bedspread would have looked like. 

Since, I'm on the subject of wedding gift quilts, here are a couple more. I made this first one for my cousin and her husband for their wedding in September 1984. And yes, I still have snippets of some of these fabrics, too. 

This one is about 30 inches square.The Kaleidoscope blocks are 6 inches square set 3 by 3 with a wedge inner border. I still have some scribbled notes in a file. As usual, they are almost completely incomprehensible. 

You can see that I tried to carefully plan for how much fabric I needed of each color. I still do that. So, why do I always have so many scraps??

Templates! I still wasn't rotary cutting when I made this. Looks like I needed to work on my spelling skills, too.

A quilting plan.

And a more detailed quilting plan, along with more notes on cutting fabrics. As you can see, I "named" fabrics to help me keep them separate. I still do that. 

Here's the back, with one of my favorite low volume prints ever. I don't think I have any of that one left.
I'm not sure why I laid it sideways on the ground. 

And one more quilt. This one was for my niece J and her husband S in June 2003. I had made a different colorway of that quilt earlier that year for the wedding of a nephew and his wife. You can see that one here.

This one was also to match a bedspread. As with the other quilt of the same design, I have no notes. It is probably about 30 inches square. Again, hand quilted with outlining and my own vine design zigzagging in the stripped triangles and straight around the borders. I must have really enjoyed making it if I made two in one year. I'm sure it went together very fast, which was probably a factor. 

These quilts all have something in common. I wanted to make quilts for family as gifts, but I had to work within the time constraints at that time of my life. So they are all wall quilts, planned to fit the decor of the homes of the recipients. I still like to make quilts to complement decor when I can. My quilts don't have a lot of symbolism, although I do like to make them to fit the tastes of recipients. But in recent years, I like to make quilts for the cuddle quality--mostly throw quilts, and occasionally, bed quilts. I can do that because of machine quilting and a lot more flexibility in my time, and for that, I am grateful.. 

These quilts were all pieced on my Singer Featherweight, layered with polyester batting for ease of quilting, and quilted with several different fairly hefty cotton hand quilting threads. 

I'm linking up with Sandra at mmm! quilts for Throwback Thursday. Please go there and see the fun quilts from our quilty past. And add some yourself if you have them. 

Now it's time to celebrate a certain birthday. I hear there will be fireworks. My celebration will be muted this year. I love my country, but not the current state of affairs, which is a big cause for concern.