October!

How is it possible that September has gone by already?  As it is one of my favorite months, I hated to see it go!  But I am excited to see what's up for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month.

While I was waiting for October 1st to roll around, I decided to lay out my Scrap Jar Star blocks just to look at them all together once again.  I'm getting anxious (in a good way, I promise!) to see what will happen with this quilt!

I wonder what colors are missing!

For one last September rainbow project, I decided my husband's special mug needed its own mug rug to sit on.  This mug commemorates that he was a member of Helicopter Support Squadron One while in the Navy back in the late 60s and early 70s. They were a helicopter squadron who rescued people (jet fighter pilots) out of the ocean during the Viet Nam War.  He found this mug online a few months ago and uses it for his coffee every morning.

It had been sharing space with my favorite fall mug on the flying geese mini I made earlier in September.

But that just wasn't working for me!  Not enough room, and it was covering up those wonderful flying geese!

So I decided to use some of my Quilty 365 orange peel blocks to make his mug its own little mini quilt.

Dark red, gold, blue, and some stars.  Perfect!

That's so much better!

Happy Scrap Happy Saturday to everyone!

Happy Mail!

There's nothing like a special package in the mail filled with fabric to give any of us a little lift!  I participated in Cynthia's Quilty Orphan Adoption event last weekend, and not only did I give away a project that didn't inspire me anymore, I also received a little inspiration in the mail!

These are somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 - 3 inch squares of a beautiful fall fabric!  My photo does not do them justice!  Thank you for sending them to me, Audrey! (Quilty Folk)

I had to make something with them right away, and I settled on a pillow cover  -  I chose to make a rectangle pillow- 12 x 16 inches.

It fits perfectly on this sweet antique chair that my grandpa made.  My mom did the needlepoint seat many years ago.  I am just keeping it for her until she decides if she ever wants to live in the cold north again!  :)

I always use this tutorial from Crazy Mom Quilts for making pillow covers, including the envelope back, and they go together so easily!  To quilt it, I did a simple cross-hatch with my walking foot.

My pillow only used about 28 of these fabric squares, so I'm sure there's enough to make more of something!  I'll wait for some more inspiration to hit!

Thanks, Cynthia, for hosting the Quilty Orphan Adoption!  So fun!  Check out the Quilting is More Fun than Housework Sunday link-up for more scrappy fun!

Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink

This week I've been working on some Double 4 patch blocks in our September colors of Red and Gold/Yellow for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Here's my favorite - so happy!

These blocks are made out of 2 1/2 inch and 4 1/2 inch squares.  Along the way I've added a few 4 patches made out of the 4 1/2 inch squares, and a few 8 1/2 inch squares as well.  At this point, here is my layout - 

This might be a quilt that only its mother can love!  ;)  There isn't much organization to it, except for the diagonal pattern you can see here and there running from left to right.  I did try to organize the colors so that they grouped together going from the center brown blocks and moving outward with blues on either side, then the rest - red, yellow, green, purple, turquoise, and orange.  

This definitely has all the colors of the rainbow, although nothing like one you'd see after a storm.   Call it busy, disorganized or just plain crazy, it sure did use up some scraps!

Check out more rainbow scrappiness at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday right here!

Quilty Orphan Adoption Winner!

Wow, friends!  I was so astounded at the response to my Quilty Orphan Adoption offering from Cynthia's linky over the weekend.  Thank you so much for your interest!  I used a Random Number Generator and came up with QuiltingMimi, comment number 10.   I will be emailing you for your address to send you these blocks.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Quilts of Valor Block Drive

Each month recently, I've been trying to make a few blocks for Kat's block drive for Covered in Love. Since she's taking September off to get caught up, I decided to look around for another block drive to contribute to.  I didn't have to look too far!

Alycia of Alycia Quilts is collecting red, white and blue blocks for Quilts of Valor, and I decided this would be the perfect project to work on this weekend.  She has posted the tutorial for her blocks here.

The nice thing about this tutorial is that it makes two blocks at once.  Alycia calls them one with a little color and one with lots of color!  These blocks resemble a quarter log cabin with an HST in the center, and are simple to make!  (Unless you're trying to watch "The West Wing" on Netflix while you sew, and forget exactly how the logs should be sewn on to the center block, and have to get out your seam ripper...twice. But that's another story...)

I've completed two blocks, and have pieces cut out for two more.

Fun, simple, and satisfying to make!  Scrappy sewing at its best!

Linking up to Log Cabin Loonies at JulieK Quilts

and Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

This Week in Red and Gold

As a kid, growing up in New York State, of course apples were a favorite fruit of mine.  I had forgotten just how amazing the apples grown in New York are until I visited there last fall.  Oh my goodness, they were so delicious!

We have an apple tree in our yard, and while these apples are not quite as gorgeous as the ones we enjoyed in New York last fall, they make great applesauce!  So I spent yesterday afternoon cutting up lots of apples from our tree and cooking them down into applesauce.  Yum!

Dark red and gold make me think of apples.  So sewing with those colors this week has been a "sweet" task!

I made a Scrap Jar Star in each color -

Putting them with the other stars I've made in the red and yellow colorways is fun to see - I just need two more of these stars to make my goal of 20.

I also spent a little time looking at my 16 patch blocks to see what I needed to fill out the red and yellow rows.  I ended up making a few more 6 patches in gold so that I would have enough to make a row of 7.

7 red blocks from light to dark...

and 7 yellow blocks from light to bright to dark.

Several of my blocks for both quilts have been made for other months, but after laying out the blocks for each I could see that some read more yellow than gray (for example), or more red than pink.  I'm working on having either 7 rows of 8 of the 16 patches or possibly 7 rows of 9.  That means some blocks I made in previous months will fit in different rows than I originally thought.  Figuring out layouts is definitely on my mind these days!

To see what the other Rainbow Scrap Quilters have been making with red and gold this week, check out the Scrap Happy Saturday linky over at SoScrappy!  That's where I'll be!

Quilty Orphan Adoption

My friend, Cynthia, over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework, has sponsored the Quilty Orphan Adoption Event twice a year for the last couple years.

While I have followed along each time, I've never participated, until now!  I have a started project that needs a new home.

Earlier this year, I made these 36 blocks out of 10 inch squares from Connecting Threads.  They are a bright and happy combination of solids, tone on tones, and a few fun little prints from their fabric line called Saltwater, with cute mermaids and whales, among other things, on them.  The blocks are about 9 1/2 x 9 1/2, so I think they would finish up somewhere around 50 x 50 without a border.

They are shown here on my design wall. (Not sewn together!)

I have since sewn together two rows - 

but the rest are still in a big pile, waiting for the perfect person to finish them up and find the perfect recipient for the quilt.

Maybe you are the perfect person to finish this bright and happy quilt?!  If you would like to adopt these blocks and make them into a finished quilt, please leave me a comment on this post.  I will ship to US locations only.  I would be sending you the blocks only, as I have not yet purchased backing, batting, or binding. I would love for this quilt to be donated to your favorite charity, but if you know someone personally who would love this quilt, that would be great, too!

I'll randomly choose a recipient next Monday, Sept. 19th.

If you're curious about other projects that are up for adoption, go check out Cynthia's linky, at Quilting is More Fun than Housework today through Sunday!

A September Mini

Although I've been following along with people who are sewing the Splendid Sampler blocks, I haven't been participating myself.  When I read Cynthia's post about her newest pincushion, made from a Splendid Sampler block, I loved it so much I decided I needed to make something out of that pattern, too!

The block, which is paper-pieced, is called Homeward Bound and you can find out more about it by clicking HERE.  The finished mini is about 6 1/2 x 6 1/2.

I decided to make my mini in the colors of a fall rainbow.  

It's backed in the beautiful gold that I used for my Circle of Friendship wall-hanging, and bound in the red from that same fabric collection.

I think it's perfect for my favorite fall mug - 

And one more shot, just for fun, nestled among my marigolds and geraniums.

Sometimes you just have to go for it when inspiration strikes!  I'm glad I did.

Linking up with Cynthia's Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework today!

September!

September is really my favorite month!  I love that the weather is becoming a bit cooler, the leaves are beginning to change colors, and that school is starting.  Well, that last one, not so much anymore, but we retired teachers don't really ever lose that "back to school" feeling!

So, I especially love having the opportunity to sew with the September colors of dark red and gold for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

At the beginning of every month, I really enjoy going through my scraps and stash and pulling fabrics that might be useful for that month's blocks.

Here are a couple of monkey blocks for September - always fun to make!

Sometimes it's fun to do a little fussy cutting for those 1 inch centers!  

Edited to add: Oops!  It wasn't until I actually published this post and looked at it later on my iPad that I realized the ABC monkey was not behaving!  So I got out the seam ripper, took it apart, and made it all better!  Can you tell what had to be fixed?

I also got a start this week on some 16 patch blocks - 

My plan to make 6 blocks every month will result in 60 completed blocks for this quilt, but I think I really need 63 to make a quilt that is 7 x 9 blocks.  That means it's time to start looking at what colors I might need more of to make a nice balance for the finished quilt.

I've made some blocks that actually read as red or yellow in other months - so I got them out to see how they were looking together.

That will be something to keep thinking about this month.

This was my fabric find of the week - moose and pinecones!  I've had this fat quarter for a long time, but never a place to use it.  It seems perfect for this month's blocks!

Hope you are having a lovely September!  I'm looking forward to seeing what the other RSC quilters have been up to this week at tomorrow's Scrap Happy Saturday link-up with Angela at SoScrappy!

A Finished Flimsy

Do you ever putz along on a quilt, so slowly that you think it will never really come together?  That has been me working on Nighttime Blossoms, a pattern designed by Cynthia Brunz that I found in the Fall 2015 edition of "Easy Quilts."

I made a block here and there until I finally decided in July that it would be so much more efficient to get everything cut out, start chain piecing, and get going on this quilt!

So I went from this - in July -

to this - two weeks ago - 

to the finished flimsy just a couple of days ago!  Hooray!

The blooms are from eight fat quarters of Good Neighbors, by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts, for Connecting Threads.  I chose the pink, lime green, and turquoises for this quilt. The gray background is called Gray, also from Connecting Threads.  I think the white is the same fabric as my favorite purple that I used back in March and it is actually a white on white that looks like bubbles.  Hard to see in photos, but it is a fun fabric!

I'm really happy with the way all of the blocks came together!

One thing I love about Cynthia's pattern is that you never work with triangles, just stitch and flip squares in the corners of each basic piece.  And yet, look at all those pretty triangles!

Yesterday, I went shopping for batting and backing, and found this fun swirly gray which I think will be perfect.

Hopefully this week, I can get the layers put together and basted.  I'm excited to get to the quilting - I've been dreaming about how I'll quilt it!  Do you ever do that? :)

Hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing and fun Labor Day weekend!  Although I hate to see summer come to an end, I do love September.  It must be because I am a retired teacher!  I'll be linking up to Cynthia's party over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework tomorrow.  Go and check out all the fun projects that the Oh Scrap! quilters have been working on!

A bit more purple and gray

My creative endeavors this week included a lot of this - not very inspiring or colorful to paint new cream- colored paint on top of old cream-colored paint, but has to be done now and then!

And a little of this - 

I had never gotten around to making any Double 4 patches in the August colors, so I decided to dig around for a few bits and pieces to make a couple.

In clicking around on some blogs this week, I found this interesting post from Michelle at From Bolt to Beauty where she describes pulling fabric for a quilt designed by Rachel at Stitched in Color, and called a Penny Patch Quilt.  She uses squares cut in 2", 3", and 6 1/2."  Although mine are cut at 2 1/2" and 4 1/2," I realized that I could create something similar with the addition of some 8 1/2" squares.

So I've been playing around with that idea this afternoon, and it is starting to look like this - 

This quilt is going to continue to evolve as I have moments to cut up the scraps and sew them back together again, but with my collection of double 4 patches in all colors of the rainbow, this could become a very Scrap Happy quilt!