Green for May, Part One

The RSC colour for September is orange, and I finished my three orange blocks for my Technicolor Turkey quilt last week. I still have to catch up for two months that I missed -- multicolour for April, and green for May. When I started looking through my scraps for green, I had a huge pile in no time at all!

That's no surprise since green is my favourite colour. But also, I had a lot of strips left over from my mostly green colourway of Bonnie Hunter's last mystery, En Provence. Remember the flamingos? They still make me happy.

I already have some plans for the next mystery, and I am looking right now at a pile of new fabric that I need to wash for that.

But, first things first. Looking at my pile of green strips, I decided to increase my green blocks from four to six, and divide them into warm, light limes and cool dark forests, same as I did for En Provence.

Then I can send the worst of the yellow blocks, made when I'd cut everything too small, to the orphan box.

And instead of three multicolour blocks, I'll only make two. I'm feeling some doubt about how those are going to turn out! But, that's the fun of the challenge.

The scrap box still yielded an intact female cardinal from my Cardinal Stars quilt! It seemed right to pair her with some Canadian flags, since the cardinals stay with us year round.

So, that finishes up the three forest green blocks. Next week, lime. I'm starting to get the scent of the finish!

I really appreciate that Angela has already revealed the order of the last two RSC colours -- it will be pink in October, and darks in November. I'm determined to finish this flimsy by Turkey Day (Thanksgiving) in the US. Then I can start Bonnie's mystery with a clear conscience!

Click here to see all the other posts for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week. Enjoy your weekend!

Orange Turkey

Turkey à la Orange? I guess that's usually duck.

Anyway...it's back to Bonnie Hunter's Talkin' Turkey blocks and my RSC17 project, Technicolor Turkey.

It's actually about six weeks since I worked on this project, and it was fun to get back to it today. The oranges sure are juicy, aren't they?

And I guess orange represents Florida this week too. Prayers and best wishes for everyone who is hunkered down or getting out before Irma comes ashore tonight.

I know there are a lot of bloggers and families of bloggers living in Florida, including the RSC organizer Angela. So click the link here and wish everyone well!

Winner!

So, this is the second time I've said I'm taking a blog break, and then posted again within a week. I'm just going to stop trying to be structured all together!

I won a prize in Pets on Quilts 2017! Olive and Wilma were not able to beat the devious Molly, who cannot possibly be as innocent as she looks. But, they won a great participation prize from Eagle's Wings Quilts. The prize was a generous full set of papers for the English paper pieced Castor and Pollux. But sadly, my hand stitching problems continue, so Cathy agreed to send me her traditionally pieced (yes, traditional now means by machine!) pattern for Sisters Across the Miles instead:

I really love that sunburst effect! And since Olive & Wilma are my sister's cats, it seemed very appropriate.

Plus, as a bonus, Cathy sent me her pattern for Nine in the Pond as well:

It's really pretty, isn't it? In fact, I started tinkering right away with a colour scheme for Sisters that was inspired by Pond!

I have been thinking that it would be great to get it done for Pets on Quilts next year! I know, it is most likely a pipe dream. In any case, big thanks to Cathy for the lovely prize, and to Snoodles too for organizing such a great event.

Now, can you believe it's already September? That means it's time for a new colour for RSC. September is orange, and orange is just another word for cheddar!

It's been a looong time since you've seen this project, the Cheddar Broken Dishes from the October 2016 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.

Back when RSC was blue for July, I made a big push to finish all the indigo HSTs for the broken dishes units.

1,176 indigo HSTs are now sewn, papers removed, dog ears clipped, and neatly pressed!

I still need 60 more, but they are not going to be indigo.

And, as you see, I have eight different cheddars to work with. Those are all now cut, so with luck things should really start to move.

It's a simple design, but I think the impact is going to be huge!

Click here to see the rest of the RSC offerings this week. Have a great weekend!

Time to Unplug

Ok, seriously, now I really am going to unplug for a while...

It's time for some tidying and re-organization, because the project pile is getting unmanageable. has been unmanageable for some time!

And even though the project pile is getting unmanageable, I'm getting twitchy and ready for something new. (Do you see Olive's tail in the photo?)

I already had one close call with a potential new project last week! So it's time to take charge.

About a month ago I bought this book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I agree with everything she says -- even the weird stuff.

To me, it's not so much a book about tidying, it's a book about how to make decisions. The practice is tidying.

Today I started the process with my clothes (the first step on the list). My wardrobe was already in good shape, I thought, but I still reduced it by more than half. There were some surprises too, for what made the cut and what didn't.

The next step is my books, which is quite a sticky source of attachment for me. But, I'm committed, and interested to see what will happen!

So, I'm going to clear out of blogland for a while.

And with luck, I'll be clearing out the house a little too. Maybe a lot!

Don't wait up. :D

(And no, there is no mention of a quilt fabric stash in Kondo's book. But, I want to do it too. Maybe last! Honestly, I think the books will be the hardest.)

In the meantime, happy stitching!

Neutral?

Last night I said to myself, "Omigosh, tomorrow is Saturday already!" Saturday is the RSC link up, and I have done very little sewing for two weeks now. But today I managed to shift into gear and make a start on my neutral string units for Rose Boll.

Although, "neutral" seems like the wrong term for all my rosey florals!

A few of these fabrics have been in my stash since the 90s. And of course, I did buy a few more too.

My first thought was to keep these strings very light. But, the alternate sawtooth blocks are quite stark and high contrast. So, I decided to put in the darker pink and gold strings to balance the final quilt a little better.

I am getting keen to see how it will look all together!

This is 14 done, and 50 needed, so there is still a lot to do. But, it feels like good progress.

Click here to see all the other variations on neutral at RSC today!

Pets on Proust

Pets on Quilts on Proust

Over at Lily Pad Quilting it's time for the annual Pets on Quilts party. In the "cats on quilts" category, this is one of my quilts, "Black and White and Read all Over," with my sister's well-read cats, Olive and Wilma. And a little Marcel Proust for good measure!

Wilma

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes."

Olive

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

The link up is in preview mode now. Click here to view all the other entries. Then come back on August 21 to vote for your favourite!

Many thanks to my sister for rising to the occasion and working for two days to get these two "spontaneous and natural" photos!

Middling Along

I'm back in the middle of Rose Boll this week. Aren't these fabrics gorgeous? I just love them! Click any photo to see them all full sized.

I have to say, it is already looking better than I dared to dream. When I bought the fabric last fall, I admit I felt some guilt about it. Couldn't I have made do with what I had?

Now I have no doubt that it was the right call to buy all the extra reds. The deep reds are needed to hold their own with all the florals.

And, I certainly didn't want to skimp on florals!

The mix of prints is so much fun. This time the pictures really do not do it justice.

Anyway, the middles are all done. The sawtooth edges are next!

Whisperin' Turkey

If the name of these Bonnie Hunter blocks is Talkin' Turkey, then this low volume colourway must surely be whisperin!

When I was deciding whether or not to start this project, the idea of these inverse, white blocks was the clincher. And I'm so happy with how they turned out!

I already knew I was on the right track when I finished the string units:

I really think this is my favourite colour scheme.

I've been saying for a while that I'm ready to close the book on all these text fabrics (yes, sorry). But now that I am near the end on this Warm Wishes fabric, I will miss it. It has been just the right touch in so many projects! Maybe I will have to look for some more text fabrics after all.

Anyway, once again only three blocks are needed for this month's colour.

But, I definitely hope to re-visit these white strings in a future project! We'll see how things shake out. 

And as always, you can see all the other variations on "light" at the RSC link up, right here.

High Summer Stitching

Doesn't look like a lake, does it? That's Lake Ontario, looking southwest down the length of the lake from Bluffer's Park in Toronto. We've had some wonderful high summer weather this week, and I took my camera out for a drive.

Here are the Scarborough Bluffs, with lovely puffy white clouds (aka source material):

And the marina, with puffy clouds and shiny boats:

A good day! Some memories to re-visit when it's below freezing this winter.

Inside, I finally finished edge stitching the fusible applique blocks that I last shared in June, here and here. They are for my quilt "El Camino SoCal," based on the cover quilt from Nancy Rink's book El Camino Real. And even though summer is still in full swing, you can see that my sunny patch on the wall is getting narrower:

After considerable thought, I decided to top stitch the flowers as if they had individual petals. It was a lot easier to run straight and pivot, rather than inching around all the inside curves.

I want this quilt to have a bright, casual feel, so I just stitched the petals by eye.

I did the same thing on the smaller "forget-me-nots."

The yellow (and citron) centres are reverse applique, which is why the top stitching is only on the purple.

Here's the whole block stitched:

And the last block of the five I've done so far:

They remind me of poppies.

I think this block benefited quite a lot from the top stitching. It really helped to separate and define all the light coloured leaves.

And I'm still happy with my choice of dark red thread for all the edge stitching. It shows up well on every colour.

These blocks have been lying flat on my sewing table for two months, because I didn't want to fold them until they were stitched. I've had to move them every time I sew. Now I can finally put them away!

I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads now, and I'm not sure which project I'll pick up next. It's been nothing but this project and Technicolor Turkey for two months, so maybe it's time to give some love to some of my other projects!

And the next Ad Hoc Improv Quilters challenge is to use words in a quilt, which is right up my alley. You can read about it here. I have at least three wordy ideas that I've been sitting on, and I thought it would be easy to just pick one. But...I'm feeling the need to be more spontaneous. So we'll see what happens!

Red for March

The original Bonnie Hunter Talkin' Turkey quilt is all in shades of red and beige. I can see why! The red blocks really pop.

These blocks are so fun to make! This has been the most string units I've made for a project so far. They are so effective that I've been making an effort to take photos before I cut them. Do you see the sushi fabric?

I still had a scrap left!

Interestingly, I found that it's hard to have a range of values in red. You have to run between pink and black, or rely on red and white prints. Or red and black prints.

I bought quite a lot of that Canadian flag fabric from Connecting Threads. I think I'll be using it for many years!

And there are still a lot of Kaffe Collective scraps as well. Most of those are originally from Collector.

So, that's March done and dusted. I'm zooming along! What will be next?

But for now, don't forget to check out all the other blue blocks still being made for RSC in July, right here.

Bonjour Beautiful Blue!

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for July 2017 is blue. My three blue Talkin' Turkey blocks for my Technicolor Turkey quilt are done!

My stash is mostly sorted by colour, and I have to admit that I don't open my blue box as often as I should. I found a lot of goodies in there! Even though I have a lot of fabric, I still remember where and why I bought almost all of it. But there were a few that I truly had forgotten.

See that gorgeous batik with the orange leaves? My best guess is that I must have bought that on a whim at a show somewhere. I used to always buy fabric with a specific project in mind, but I cannot remember any plan for that one.

And the fabric with the little sunflowers? I also have that in sage green, which tells you something about its age. Those are also probably from a show. I always buy sunflower fabric when I see it!

Anyway, three blue blocks are all I need, so I think that next time I will keep catching up on the months I missed, and go back to red for March.

In the meantime, there is plenty more blue in the RSC link up, right here.

Have a great weekend!