Rainbow Scrap Challenge for March

Well, I'm barely making it under the wire for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of Aqua for the month of March.  I thought there was one more day in the month - you know it's harder to keep track now that we're all staying in place.  All of the days are running together!

This is how my lovely aqua blocks are shaping up:

And this is why I got a little behind in my sewing:

Yardwork!  I haven't been able to go to the gym so decided to do some yardwork for exercise.  I asked the lawn guy to cut the crepe myrtles for me but then to just leave them where they fell and I would cut them up myself for the yard waste collection.  And I did:

Bad timing on my part.  They just suspended yard waste collection in order to concentrate on and keep up with house waste collection.  Bummer.  I'm left with my buckets full and more limbs to trim with no buckets to put them in.  This is the side I haven't finished:

I'll figure something out.  If that's my only problem, then I consider myself blessed!

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE FOR FEBRUARY

Today was my day to wrap up a few February items.  I finished the orange blocks for the soscrappy challenge - continuing with my faux log cabin blocks:

Apparently, I forgot how many blocks I had made in green for January and overshot the mark.  I made 8 orange blocks and I only have 6 green ones.  I'll have to go back and make two more greens because that number gives you more design options.  Here they are together:

And I also finished up another Challenge.  A member of the Sunshine On-line Quilt Guild -  a group I'm in - had sent out five 2.5 inch strips to those who accepted the challenge to make blocks out of those strips.  Blocks in any multiple of 3 was acceptable - 3.5 inches, 6.5 inches, 9.5 inches or 12.5 inches.  I don't think I remembered to take a photo of the strips when they were uncut, but they included a yellow, a green, a blue, a red and a print strip.  

These were my blocks:

The finished kids' quilts for charity are going to be so-o-o-o cute!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Feb

The color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for February is ORANGE!

That's not in my top five color favorites, so I thought I'd have trouble finding much in my bindings scrap bin.  Au Contraire!  I found all of these:

I guess I use a bit of orange for bindings!

I'm continuing on with my Faux Log Cabin Blocks and have already cut myself a bunch of orange pieces to make my blocks this month.

Trying to keep on top of my projects/challenges.  We'll see how long that lasts, but right now I'm having fun with colors...

Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January

I decided to make blocks from the Faux Log Cabin pattern for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2020 (see this post).

All was going well with my greens until I spotted myself starting to put together this block (the one at the top is correct - the two strips at the bottom left are goofy):

No, you can’t make some right-handed blocks and some left-handed blocks and expect them to fit into these design choices – lol !!

So a little rip-rip-rippit occurred, but eventually I finished this lovely batch for the Challenge:

Now waiting for February’s oranges to be selected from my scrap bins...

Two More Elephants

Still working on making a few elephants each month for the monthly Rainbow Scrap Color Challenge:

The one on the left is the last one from April's multi-color challenge and the one on the right is for May's green challenge.  The green one is feeling lucky because she has lots of lucky ladybugs!

I have quilted a few more for Sunshine On-line Quilters, but I need to have a Binding Blitz day to finish these up and get a box out.  Maybe this weekend ...

Panto is Arrowhead

Panto is Celtic Scroll

Panto is Mod Hearts

Check Out the Multi-Color!!

Speaking of the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, I picked out my multi-color scraps for more elephants last weekend (see this post), and finally started making them last night.  I’m lovin’ the newest additions to the herd!

Only two are done, since I am undecided about the third fabric.  But I’m pretty sure I want to go ahead and work with the directional rainbow fabric, so watch for that elephant soon!

 

This is the quilting design I picked for the giant Project Linus chevron top that I have mentioned:

It was a panto called Cool Beans and it stitched out beautifully – nice easy curves.  It’s finally finished and already returned to the Project Linus local group – whew!

I must repeat that it’s such a joy to return to smaller kid’s quilts … this one was 63 x 65 and seemed huge!

And in news of the weird, my poor dog has been in the cone-of-shame this week:

 

Although the vet really couldn’t pin down the origin, she somehow got an infection in her paw at the nailbed of one toe.  I suspect that she either got cut when they tried to trim the dark toenail or when trimming the fur between her paw pads, or she cut herself on the sharp acorn tops due to the bazillion of acorns we have had this year.  I’m not kidding about those acorns – they have been so abundant that it’s been hard for her to walk on the grass – it’s been like walking on gravel around our pond and you can’t avoid the oak trees that drop the acorns around here.

Anyway, after paying the ransom for antiseptic wipes, oral antibiotics and an antibiotic ointment, she is doing much better.  She only limps now when she has to go on the grass and then it’s much less than it was.  She doesn’t limp anymore when walking on the sidewalk, so the cone might come off tomorrow.  She will be so happy!

Auditioning for Multi-Color Madness

You may remember that I am sewing along with ScrapHappy’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  The colors have been Purple, Aqua, and Red for the first three months and the April color is Multi-Color!

This month will require me to undertake me a little auditioning from the old fabric stash.  Some of my previously made elephants have had a few extra colors, like this one:

 

But the background fabric makes this block *read* aqua.  My personal challenge is to find fabrics that don’t read a certain color, so the auditions begin:

The above were rejected because the first one definitely reads yellow and the second one reads green.  Out they go.

Now these are questionable:

 

They have lots of colors and the bugs are cute – that one might make the cut, but the rainbow beads might be hard to turn into elephants since the fabric is directional.

Now these are really getting on target.  This one will do nicely - looks like an elephant to me - lol:

And this one has lots of color and the black background is minimized – it’s a keeper:

This one is great!

But what to do with that directional fabric issue?  Might require some heavy brain work that I’m not up to right now.  It’s in the *let’s think about it* pile right now.

Look for some multi-color elephants later this week and see which fabric made the cut (oh, those sewing puns are endless – groan)!

And on a side note:  Can you believe I’ve had this box of fabrics for a few days and still haven’t opened it?!

It’s full of fabrics that will be used as backing for my children’s charity quilts.  The sale prices were good and I’m stocking up for when my quilting will be in demand after a retreat of the Sunshine On-line Quilt Guild in June.  We’re expecting to make over a hundred quilt tops – fun! 

And the Project Linus giant top is still on the frame - this is a photo before I loaded it up when I was trying to think up a quilting design.  I hope it gets finished soon - sigh.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017

Since I've joined the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017, I've had fun making my preferred block in various scraps.  And today I've made progress on the February color of Sea Green/Aqua/Turquoise/etc. 

Three more elephants have been added to the elephant parade.  January's color was Purple so they are on the bottom.  If you'll notice, one of the January elephants has gone to the dogs and one of the February elephants ate a dinosaur (maybe he wasn't an elephant - maybe he was a Wooly Mammoth?).  I'm really liking these ... they are going to make great children's donation quilts!

Thanks to Miri at Milk and Honey quilts for the free elephant block pattern:
http://milkandhoneyquilts.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-pattern-elephant-baby-quilt-block.html

Two Are Quilted

I had such trouble with my machine last year that I was frustrated and sent it back to the factory to be refurbished.  It was returned in fantastic shape and is quilting up a storm now.  I had done one quilt that I debated whether to remove all of the quilting stitches or just donate it as it was (in bad shape).

After a short deliberation, I decided that I had to send in something reasonably proper especially for a donation quilt where the recipient's feelings must be respected.  You never know if this might be the only quilt they ever receive and it has to hold together.  So I spent time off and on ripping out quilting stitches and finally got the quilt top back to its pristine condition.  This lady makes particularly well made tops.

This is the quilt that inspired the fish panto described in the last post with its lovely fish blocks (to be bound).

And this is the quilt that I didn't know was wrapped in the other top until last weekend when I finished removing stitches (also to be bound).  It is quilted with musical notes and treble clefs - it is wrinkly from being folded:

What was the inspiration fabric for the panto for that one, you say?  It was this, of course!:

But then, what happened with the purple elephants of a few posts ago?  Well, they've been going to the dogs:

Sunday Sewing

I’m joining with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at: http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

My intention is to make various animals this year in the Challenge colors-of-the-month.  The January color is PURPLE, so these pieces were on the cutting mat this morning:

And sewn together, you've probably guessed that they make this (I have cut out all of the parts and will be making three):

This cute elephant block was designed by Miri and a free pattern is offered on her blog Milk and Honey Quilts:

http://milkandhoneyquilts.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-pattern-elephant-baby-quilt-block.html

And then I got distracted with organizing a little of the sewing room to decide what to put next on the quilting frame.  First, I put all of the UFOs into the purchased bins and labeled them:

Then I went through the cloth baskets of tops and backings and put each top with an intended back:

They look lovely now and all ready to pick one and quilt it up!  It feels good to be a little more organized.  Unfortunately, I discovered several more UFOs in one of the cloth baskets:

They never end!  Whatever made me think I had corralled them all?!

I just had to stop and unplug everything since we are expecting bad weather.  We are under a tornado watch until 10 this evening and there will be severe thunderstorms.  Our Sunshine Skyway bridge is already closed to all traffic due to high winds.  I definitely want to protect my expensive equipment, so it will have to be hand-sewing this evening.