More Than Just Red

I've been busy sewing up some red scraps. But not just the reds got my attention. Let's check it out. 

Four Irish Star blocks were added to the 3 I did at the beginning of the month. 

Two bright reds, one orange-red and one purple-red. 

Sorry for the dark photos. The weather is very temperamental lately. The sun shines intermittently and so is the rain. Taking pictures outside is slightly better than in the basement. 

After the stars, I worked on my red Friends' Favourite blocks. 

I ended up with 12! The top right block is black with red dots. It doesn't show well here. 

Then, all the RSC blocks for the month of July were done. I decided to finish one project: Scrap Jar Star. I really love this quilt so it was easy to work on it. There were 3 blocks missing and while I constructed these blocks, some blocks were produced as leader-enders. 

Three 25-patch blocks for the Irish Star quilt ... 

... and eight more Paper Chain blocks. 

Scrap Jar Star needed one yellow block with a multi-coloured centre. 

One dark green with a multi-coloured centre 

and one dark blue that turned into a rainbow block 

A day was spent working on the sashing (and leader-enders) and Ta-dah!  Scrap Jar Star is a top! 

Again, sorry for the dark photos. I will switch the orange and the yellow blocks in the corners. The two orange ones are in the same row and the yellow ones are on the same side of the quilt. Why didn't I notice that before? Anywho, now I just can't "unsee" it. 

I will add a white border. Not sure if I have enough of the fabric used for the sashing and there was none left at the shop. I've ordered another white print online. The waiting has started. 

You might have noticed a dark spot in the bottom right of the Paper Chain picture. It wasn't my foot. Here is the full picture. 

Raven made sure the wind wasn't disturbing the blocks. He was so cute. 

Now what? All is done for July with plenty of days left. Maybe Jacob's Summer will finally have the attention it deserves. 

It was an awesome week. Praying to have another one just like that. I'm hopeful that your week was amazing too. Enjoy! 

;^)

Visiting these lovely ladies' blogs this week. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

I Need Your Advice, Please

Another week, another project. But it's not the kind I like.
Let's see what happened this week. Some red sewing happened, that's for sure. 

I started with Scrap Jar Star. 

I did the multi-coloured centre one  ... 

 

... and early in the morning, I took a picture with the original block. I assessed how many more blocks are needed for this project to be completed.  The magic number is 3. So I'll just do those and get this quilt together. Can I get a reveal before the end of the month?  

 Then came Star Bloom. It was missing two red blocks; so two red blocks were constructed. 

I always take pictures of these blocks in this setting, but I'm wondering: 
 

do they look better in this layout? Your comments are welcome, as always. 

And now, for the newest project. Ugh! 

My youngest one moved to another room and I helped, of course. He had my Kitchen Party Quilt for a while now and I noticed this poor yellow block. 

He has the bad habit of sleeping on the quilt instead of under it. This fabric didn't survive the treatment. 

Now, how would you fix it? Do I just fix the yellow pieces? Do I make an entirely new block, applique it to the quilt and redo the quilting? The white fabric withstood the treatment but for how much longer? 

Then I saw that the block's sidekick set in the border had the same look. Dang! 

It was an old piece of fabric and shouldn't have been added to an every-day-quilt. Even the batting disappeared in the wash. Let me know how you would handle this, please. 

That's all for now. 

I'll catch you later. 

;^)

Visiting these lovely ladies' blogs. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Sarah at Confession of a Fabric Addict

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

 

It's Nagging Me

I just can't let it go because I am not satisfied with the orange blocks. Something tells me there's something better. I'll try to channel the right fabric. See this post to read the beginning of this dilemma.


I found another Salmon coloured fabric and turned it into a Star Bloom block (bottom right).

I paired it with the other salmon and two light pink ones. Not bad. What if ... 

I paired them with the two bright orange ones done the week before? Again, it's not bad, but nothing is "Yes, that's what I'm looking for" you know I mean? 

If this last block is accepted, I'll be missing a pink one. I found this one that might work. 

Or the Hot Pink one (the one that started all this) could be included in this foursome. 

What do you think? Either way, I have a pink block too many which can go on the back as a label. Sigh! I hate second-guessing myself. 

Star Bloom has all the blue blocks that it needs, so I moved on to something else and did this: 

Ladies' Wreath in blue.

I'm in love with this one. Because I'm working on Jacob's Summer lately, I realised how much I love a green and blue quilt. I have a mind to turn this one into my next green and blue quilt. It would be nice, wouldn't it? 

Only two blocks made so far but I am sure you can see what I see. 

That's all for now. Take care. ;^)

P.S. See my last post for something completely different. Not about quilting. 

P.P.S. Sue asked me a question about the quilt in my header but Sue is a no-reply commentator. Let me know your email address please and I will be happy to answer your questions. ;^)

Tagging along with these ladies

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Stuck in Orange (or Hunting Pink Fabric)

I've done absolutely no sewing this week. So Saturday morning I tried to catch up but my efforts were futile since it was my son's birthday. Hence, no post yesterday. 

This morning, (Sunday) I had better luck and got something done. I had to check on Star Bloom to finish the RSC orange and make whatever was missing. Nothing was missing. There's actually one too many. How can I incorporate that orange/pink one? 

The pink also has four blocks done so Salmon has no room there either. 

The Hot Pink one is really HOT. What if I switch it with the Salmon one? 

Not in love with this picture! Sooooo .... what if? 

I make more orange blocks and ... 

... it's not great but it's a mismatch of something decent, I think. What do you think?  

Pink is missing a light block now that I removed the Hot Pink.  I'll be hunting a light pink down in my stash this afternoon. Fingers crossed. 

Before I found out the colour for June, I had bought these little dragonfly zipper fobs. 

The orange one says "Smile" and the blue one says "Inspire" on the charm. 

They are my favourite colours but they aren't for me. I bought them as gifts for the last Artisanat reunion next Tuesday as we take a break during the summer months. I've also bought lip balm and hand cream to round up the gifts. If I had more time I would have made a little zipper pouch to put the gift in but too bad. A regular paper gift bag will have to do. 

The weather is just lovely lately and I was able to start the quilting on Jacob's Summer. 

I wait until the deck has shades otherwise it is too hot. Raven magically knows where the best place to take a nap is. 

These past two weeks I was in the jailhouse. Seriously! I had to work on archives stored there. I had to screen the files and see which one can be destroyed. I'll show some pictures in an upcoming post. Stay tuned. 

Hope you are all doing well. Take care. 

;^) 

Joining my sewing friends a little later this weekend. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Purple Claimed My Sewing Room

The purple scraps are finally out and playing a sweet melody.

Isn't this print beautiful? I'm adding it to my Friends' Favourite quilt for sure. 

Before starting on the Scrap Jar Star block, I like to take out the first one I made to make sure I am not using the same fabric in the points. It would not matter much, but I like to make things difficult for myself, haha.

First purple Scrap Jar Star

Eight different fabrics were found for the second Star. Yay! 

Irish Star was next and I realized they are basically the same pattern as the big Scrap Jar Star. What???

I know!! I don't understand why it took me so long to see this too!

Anywho, four stars are done, and three more to go. 

Then, it was Star Bloom's turn. Oops! Forgot to check on this one last month. I'll remedy it right away.

It turns out that four purple blocks were made last year so there is no additional one to do; there were only two green blocks though. So I whipped up two more. 

The top left and bottom right are the newest blocks. While the green scraps were out, I added two more Irish Stars (Can't. Stop. Making. These!!) for a total of 6 green stars. 

Following some cleaning up, I got more purple out. I found two 9-Patch that I didn't like the fabric combination as the colours were too similar. In my usual way, I took them apart. That's when I noticed that they were 2.5" on one side and 2.25" on the other side. Now I understand why they were gifted to me. Haha. So I cropped them down to 2! 

Hairy purples

I used some right away. Can you spot one? Two? 

Finally, some Friends' Favourite blocks got started. 

Weather-wise, Spring was skipped this year. We went from winter to summer within a week. 

The ice storm of last week and ... 

... this morning, April 15, 2023. There is still a bit of snow closer to the forest. The branches in front of the shed were cut from a maple that split during last week's ice storm. 

DH cut it down right away as it was hanging precariously over the neighbour's fence. I'm thinking of cutting it down completely and starting anew with a red maple tree. We'll see what hubby says about that. (This picture was taken two hours after the first one this morning. Isn't the sky a wonderful blue?)

We heard that in some places, they went without power for three days. I consider myself blessed. 

Have a lovely weekend. 

;^)

Joining some talented quilters here: 

Angela at So Scrappy 

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Sarah for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? 

Wendy for Peacock Party

The Bluest Saturday

(I know it is now Pink month but this was to be posted two weeks ago.)

Lots of projects to choose from but I'm stuck on this one.

Irish Star blocks: love making these little stars. 

I need to make a few alternate blocks too otherwise there will be too many to do at the end and I might get bored. 

Someone commented that I have a lot of projects with solid-coloured fabric. It made me look at my projects differently and an idea popped up. 

The only project that I have with only solid-coloured fabrics is the Buckeye Beauty variant. 

The idea is to add a border of tone-on-tone blocks. It might just bring it to a decent size. Thanks, Linda for the inspiration. 

I don't seem to have a lot of tone-on-tone blues but managed to make four. 

The bright blue one might not get into the quilt but I'll see how it plays once I have more blocks done. 

Most of my sewing time was spent cutting squares for Twinkling Scrap Star (Galaxy Star). Should I sew them into HSTs now or do it at the retreat? 

9-Patch, anyone? 

On to Pink. 

Have a great scrappy week. 

;^)

More wonderful projects are linked on these blogs:

Angela at So Scrappy 

Frédérique for Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Sarah for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? 

Another Friday, Another Snow Storm

That's how we roll around here lately. Every Friday is Shovel Day!!!

Every Saturday morning is Winter Wonderland once again. 

On the first Tuesday of the month, we had our Artisanat reunion. The challenge of the month was snowman! I know someone who just LOVES snowmen; me. :^) Of course, I had to participate in this challenge. I waited till the last day to do something as there were so many snowmen I wanted to do all month long. Anywho! Let's have a look. I took very few (good) pictures. 

I just loved those little reindeer.  Her snowman was also knitted but the picture is too blurry. Sorry. 

This is Michelle. She is presenting her own challenge. So whimsical! I love it. 

And this is my take on the snowman challenge.  Cardboard, colouring pencils, a piece of ribbon, and a LED tea light. Voilà! 

With the tealight on. It sits on my desk at work and I turn it on every morning just for fun. 

So, what did I sew? I sewed two blue stars for the Irish Star quilt...

... and an ID card holder for a co-worker. This little 3 X 4.5" pocket took way too long to do. I don't know how many times I had to redo the sides, then the top part was crooked. Anywho! It's done! It is very dark as per her request with purple swirls all over.  

I also got this one together. Yay! 

Jericho Wall (RSC 2022) is a top. I'm very happy with how this one turned out. 

Can you see how deep the snow is? We had a good 7-8" of snow and I didn't bother to shovel the deck before taking the pictures. Oh! I'm getting lazy, haha. 

Hope you are all well and warm! 

;^) 

Joining 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique for Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Sarah for Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?