RSC, Other Scraps and More

Lots of bits in this post. It's a fun summer of sewing. First off, more blocks for Rainbow Scrap Challenge/52 weeks of Scrappy Triangles. Blue again. This time, darker blues, maybe? Since all of my blocks are half dark blue, I wasn't sure I wanted to do these. But I found some prints with some dark blues in them to mix in that wouldn't blur into the navy HSTs. 

Five blocks since there were five Fridays this month. Funny, last batch of blues was also a five-block month, so they've kind of taken over the quilt. That's okay. I'll need to make extra blocks for a whole quilt, and other colors will get repeated, too. Here's the year so far:

Let's play a game: Spot the misplaced block 

I think it needs some orange and turquoise, don't you? I suspect by the time I post this we will know the next color.

I've also been collecting new fabrics this year in the color of the month. I really didn't want any blue as my mission lately has apparently been to get rid of blue. So I bought a loooong length of black dot fabric instead for my next quilt project and then realized that it also fits with the color of the month because an alternate color for this month was dark neutrals. 

So what am I doing with all this dotty fabric? It's the background for another scrappy project: the Confetti Quilt by Rachel Hauser. She had a quilt-along for this pattern recently. I couldn't take part, but now I can make it. It's a fascinating pattern for me. Crumb blocks. If you've read my other scrappy posts, you will know that I don't really care for making crumb blocks. But these are different--a combination of chain piecing scraps to width-of-fabric strips and paper foundation piecing. There are four different blocks to mix together so that the whole quilt will look improv pieced. I love it!! I have pieced three of the first block so far, all from the scrap bins. (Well, except for that background). I'll have more to share about this quilt later.

What else have I been making? I do have my Mercyful Positivity Quilt-Along Quilt finished. But it has to wait for its turn to shine (on location!) later in August. I can show you these placemats that I made from the bonus HSTs from snowballed corners of that project. I'm proud to say I used them up (and added four extras to complete the last placemat). These were sort of fun to make, but more fiddly than I expected. In fact, I think it takes as long to make a set of placemats as it does to make a quilt. Worthwhile to use up scraps, though, and to make for donations to Meals on Wheels. 

This one is 14 1/4 by about 18 inches. I quilted it with turquoise thread in the dark areas and off-white in the lights. Too time consuming, and lots of threads to bury. I needed to piece the back to have enough fabric, but I like it.

 

This one is 13 1/4 by 17 1/2 inches. Diagonal quilting with off-white thread. Pretty rustic quilting. I had pressed seams open and was pretty wobbly in following them. But overall it's fine. Note to self: no in-the-ditch quilting on these projects. Here's the back (easy peasy, and two different lime prints for the binding to use up scraps):

The last is my favorite.

This one is 13 by 18 1/4 inches, with simple off-white quilting in wavy lines. So quick!! And another easy back:

I hope to make more placemats to use up scraps. I learned from this little project how to make them more quickly, so I think I'll enjoy them more. Bigger pieces, simple quilting will be the way to go.

One more project for July. This one is not scraps, but I want to share it. My granddaughter was here a couple of weeks ago and bought some fabric for a purse. At 9 1/2 years old and well on her way to 5 feet tall, she had outgrown (in more ways than one) the mermaid purse I made for her several years ago. I made the new one sort of based on this pattern by Aleah at no time to sew, but I made lots of changes to it (size, process, materials) but it was a good place to start. I won't share how I made it here except to say that as a mostly reluctant bag-maker, I was slow, slow, slow, measuring 50000 times, reading 1000 tips on the internet, and cutting/sewing once. 

I really like the combination of fabrics she chose.

Four pockets inside, and

a big pocket on the back for all of her treasures. I did check with Allison at New Every Morning, as she has been making bags lately, and decided to cut my batting smaller so that there was no sewing through it. It made a huge difference in ease of sewing, and I was able to make the entire purse on my Singer Featherweight without it balking at the bulk. For anyone interested, the purse is 8 by 11 by 2 inches, just the right size for a growing girl and all her stuff.

Okay, I can't resist just a few more photos. We haven't been vacationing yet, but we did go to my dad this week, and instead of taking the highway, took the backroads for a day-cation. We passed some barn quilts; this is the only one I could get a photo of.

And then, this hayfield. It was gorgeous. Photos just don't do justice to a hayfield, but I tried.

Couldn't capture the expanse and light. But, backroads rock!

I hope your July projects and activities brought you as much joy as mine. Sometimes little things are so satisfying! 

I'm linking up this Saturday with Angela at So Scrappy for Scrap Happy Saturday and this Sunday with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap.

Okay, now back to those Confetti scraps.

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.)  

The Positivity QAL Link-up 2

Uh, oh, I've gone way ahead on the Positivity Quilt Along that Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts set up to benefit Mercyful Quilts, a hospital hospice program that Bernie at Needle and Foot champions. You can read about both the QAL and the program by clicking on those links to their websites, and you can look back at my last post for my quilt up until now. 

My problem is that once I started this quilt, I just could not adhere to the schedule. I wanted to sew and sew and sew. And after my last post, I forgot all about taking photos as I worked. So I have no whole flimsy photos. Let's pretend that my quilt has not been done for several weeks. I'll show you a couple bits and pieces, and in my next post I'll try to have some photos out in the wild (if it ever stops raining) and the stats. 

Let's look at a section of the back first.  

I challenged myself to find something at the sidewalk sale of a local fabric store. I really wanted to stay with the geometric fabric print theme. There were hundreds of bolts, but, I kid you not, only one bolt that had anything that seemed like it would work. I was hoping for something lighter because I didn't really want the quilting to show so much, but the tiny print in this navy fabric worked fine to (mostly) disguise any quilting issues. We'll just call those wobbles my signature style of walking foot quilting. I had some leftover pieces from the front and decided to work them into a strip to add a little more vibrancy. 

Here's a closer view of the backing fabric. (Those little turquoise dots really do work well with the front):

Here's the flimsy on my basement floor (because rain outside) waiting to be trimmed. (Ignore the fact that it's quilted.)

For the binding I cut more blues (still trying to use them up and getting closer). The binding looks like solid navy here, but it is those same tone-on-tone prints that I used for the plus signs. 

Remember all those bonus HSTs? I knew that if I didn't use them right away, they'd go into the scrap bin never to be seen again. I played around with them a bit and came up with some placemat ideas. Our local Meals on Wheels program collects these through a local fabric store to gift to the recipients each spring.  This one is waiting for a back.

And this one needs a border to bring it up to the requested size.

I tried to keep fabric placement random, but now I see some side-by-side stars that look a lot alike. (Funny how photos let you see what you don't notice in fabric.) Oh, well. Random is random. I have enough yellow and cream HSTs left yet to make one or two more placemats. 

I'm linking up today with Bernie at Needle and Foot, where we are sharing our progress in the Positivity QAL.

I'll be back with the finish link-up on August 22. In the meantime, I need to scope out some places for a photo shoot, finish the placemats, and get started on my next quilting adventure.

I hope your quilt-making is positively delightful this month!