Friday, July 31, 2015

July Block Count

I've been busy!

I added 116 blocks this months:
42 for a quilt for my brother
22 for a baby quilt with my daughter, Spunky
13 triangle blocks
31 Bits and Bobs
8 -16-patches

My total for the year is now 704!  I so often think a month will be slower for block production or finishes, but somehow they keep slipping by me.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Stash Report Week #31

I have two finishes this week!  I finished two baby quilts, one for donation and one for a gift.  It seems to me I regularly have projects completed in clusters.  I wonder why that is?

IN this week: 0 yards
OUT this week: 5 3/4 yards

IN YTD: 3 3/4
OUT YTD: 84 1/4 yards
YTD Total: 80 1/2 yards OUT!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Scrap Explosion

Whew!  This was some kind of week, my friends.

The Rainbow Star is complete, down to the washing.  You might notice some light purple squares in the background.  Something bled, and only one white fabric picked up the loose dye.  Where is all this dye coming from?  (You might remember that I just had black fabric bleed.)  All the fabric on the front was prewashed.  Oh, well.  It works this time, and I love the quilting.  It finished at 40" square, and I'll be donating it to a fundraiser this fall.  Did I mention I love it?  I kinda want to keep it for myself, but since almost all of the colored squares were from a charity challenge initially, I feel it would be most appropriate to give it away.

Spunky and I also whipped out a cute little baby quilt from a found stack of scraps.  They were cut in 4" and 2 1/4" scraps, which don't play nicely with any of my other scraps.  We added grey, she matched things up and laid out the blocks, and here we go!  This quilt is about 33" x 36".  I forgot to take a shot of the backing, which is a lovely pink and grey floral.

Finally, in the red arena, I finished 31 Bits and Bobs blocks, with only one triangle turned wrong.  When I worked in green, I remember ripping out several!  I have oodles of scraps in the solid maroon and was recently lamenting how much there was (and how long it would take to use it up).

My mom came to the rescue on that one.  She requested a "woodsy" quolt for my grandpa for Christmas.  I pulled scraps and stash for my options, and Mom approved, so bye-bye maroon!

Unfortunately, JoJo only slept from 12-3:30 am, so I'm a bit tired.

Be sure to check out oodles and oodles of red scraps this Saturday!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Stash Report Week #30

Alas, no finishes this week!  I'm steady at 74 3/4 yards out for the year.

I did finish off another spool of thread, making my total 20 spools for the year.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Red Edition

Somehow, I had a notion that I would finish my Rainbow Star quilt this week.  Alas, I didn't even accomplish my reasonable goal for hand quilting, not to mention finishing it.  There's always next week, right?  I have one background section and one star point, so I'm down to the last 1/8 of this lovely little quilt.  I'll be a little sad when it's done, as I don't have another small project ready to go yet.

I sewed up my triangles for my Bits and Bobs quilt, so those blocks will work up quickly next week.  I will again have too many triangle blocks and  not enough tiny nines, but this is not the month to remedy that issue.

The Assistant is inches away from having all her block pieces sewn of a scrappy Irish chain, based n Bonnie Hunter's quilt.  I see many hours of pinning before me, but she's really enjoying her work, and I'm happy to share my love of quilting.

My friend who received the rainbow Carrie Nation quilt recently inherited a long arm, so we're making plans to figure it out together.  I'm kind of excited!

Be sure to be inspired this Saturday!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Little Girl Stitches

I finished an American Girl-sized jumper for the girls.  It's made from one of their old school's uniforms, and I think it's pretty cute!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Stash Report Week #29

I missed a week (or two?), but I have moved along in my stash busting!  I finished a collaborative baby quilt with my seven year old.

19 spools finished this year

IN this week: 0 yards
OUT this week: 2 3/4 yards

IN YTD: 3 3/4 yards
OUT YTD: 78 1/2 yards

YTD Total: 74 3/4 yards OUT!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Reveling in Red

Busy is the name of the game around here, folks.  JoJo isn't sleeping again, which means DH and I aren't sleeping enough, which means I'm too tired to quilt when there's time!

I did finish these blocks.
Thirteen isn't bad.  I'm nearing the end of the triangle bag, so I'm going to have to think about setting issues soon.  Borders?  On point?  How big do I want this?  I don't know!

Next week, I hope to have a finished Rainbow Star quilt to share, but that may be pushing my luck.

Be sure to check out all the other red projects (and if you haven't started playing with us yet, why not?)!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Mid Year Review

I made too many plans for my scraps this year, but it would appear they are playing out well this year.

My first was to make an "Omigosh"-ish quilt.  I've done away with the four-patches as the triangles would have been the death of me.  Clearly, I need to make more nine-patches, but I'm moving along steadily with this project each month.  I have far more blue than any other color, but since that's the status of my stash and scraps, I won't be doing much to change that.
My second project involves triangles.  I have an old zipper bag, like pillow cases come in, stuffed to the gills with triangles.  As you might know, if you're a long-time reader, triangles are not my favorite, despite my love for stars.  So the bag sat and sat and I couldn't throw it away.  This year, it will be empty (I only have orange and brown triangles left), and I will have a quilt done in the vein of AmandaJean's "Up, up and away." I have oodles of red triangles, so this month will see a nice additon  to these blocks.
My 1.5" strips and squares filled their tub, so I hatched a plan to make 16-patches.  Orignally, I intended to use light values as my background, but too many colors were too slim to make that work. Thus, the blues are a bit muddy.  This picture makes me happy, happy, happy!  I sometimes create without really knowing how it will look, and so it was with this quilt.  It's turning out great!  I'm over halfway done with the number of blocks I need (350), and at the end of the year I may need to revisit a few colors and see if I've created any more scraps in those colors.

I had a queen size Carrie Nation quilt planned as a wedding gift for late June, but when I hatched the plan to include some quilting lessons for the recipient, we made this quilt move along significantly faster.  As a result, I used up plenty of rainbow scraps, but not in the usual monthly order.

Another bag of scraps that was lurking in my sewing table contained leftovers from charity quilt challenges.  I wanted the bag empty but felt that the scraps should be used for another charity quilt. The Rainbow Star was born.  The colored scraps are all from the bag, but I did add plenty of background from my stash.  I'm hand-quilting this beauty and plan to be done by the end of the month.

One plan that fizzled out involved my 2.5"  scraps.  I had thought to cut bricks from each color and make zigzag quilts, but I had so many blues that I made three quilts and decided I really didn't want to make that many of the same quilt (boring!), so I finished the last quilt in June and will find something else for next year.  (One, two, and three!)

Along the way, I had some quilts whose colors coordinated with the scrap color for the month.  One was another Carrie Nation quilt in yellow, blue, and green.  Pushing myself to keep up with the color of the month spurred me to finish this one in time for my niece's visit.

Another month, I pulled purples (and coordinating prints) to finish this quilt for my mother-in-law.  I hesitated to cut into the large print, but the monthly deadline again kept me from stalling any longer.

Finally, during the blue month, I started a quilt for my brother.  The strip sets are sewn and subcut, awaiting pinning and sewing in free moments.

If you've hesitated to join the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, please join in!  I enjoy my Saturdays, browsing through all the color-coordinated inspiration.  Doing so both gives me new ideas and also allows me to enjoy projects I have pondered making, but decide not to after watching a project come together.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Rowdy Reds

The month began, as I have every month this year, with trimming down stray scraps.  I'm so glad I put this in my goals each month, as it's not terribly complicated unless it's out off for too long.  Once a month seems to be a good time frame.  This month didn't have many scraps to trim down, so I dove right into cutting and sorting my reds for my various projects.

I used every last bit of "true" red and several strips of maroon to make my eight paltry 16 patches.  I would have used more maroon, but it was all the same, and block after block of identical fabric isn't the vibe I'm going for in this quilt.  I was surprised by the lack of red.  I must have used them for something!

There were plenty of triangles for my next set of blocks, and with so few 16 patches, I've already made great headway on these.

Bits and Bobs won't make much of a showing this month either, at least with the tiny nines.  Maybe I'll get all of these out and see how outnumbered the tiny nines are!

I did finish the charm pack quilt from last month.  Spunky got her requested hearts and loops, and I have a finished baby quilt out of the deal.  The quilt is about 40" square.  I discovered a hidden stack of odd sizes (4" and 2 1/4" squares) that I think we'll use this month for another baby quilt.  Purple, blue, and grey aren't the chosen colors, but they're scraps and easy for Spunky to use, so on we go.

The Rainbow Star is in the homestretch.  Since I'm still in a "finishing" mood, this makes me happy.  I have 6 of 8 points quilted, 5 of 8 background areas, and 4 of 8 border sections.  This week I hope to wrap up another background section and a few more border areas.

My mind has been occupied with my plans for next year.  I think, instead of the same blocks every month, I'll pick a few color combos, like pink and green, and make one set of blocks of those two colors, then a different quilt from a different set of colors.  I don't know what I want in red, though.

Be sure to check out all the scrappy red projects this Saturday!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Friday, July 3, 2015

July Goals

In June, I wanted to...
1.  Finish the memorial quilts for my aunt.  Whew!  I found it hard to cut into my grandmother's handmade clothes.  It's over now, so I can stop worrying over these.

2.  Get my Scraps to Treasures quilt to flimsy stage.  (fat chance). Too afraid.  I cut the fabric and haven't sewn a lick.  I think this will have to wait until school starts.

3.  Get the strip sets done for the Assistant's scrappy Irish chain.  Instead, we sewed the 61 "alternate" blocks, which is a win in my book!

4.  Get Spunky's baby quilt to the flimsy stage.  We did it!  She had great fun laying out the squares without the Assistant's (ahem) help.

5.  Light blue scraps:  I quilted over half of the Rainbow Star, added 52 blocks to my Bits and Bobs collection, finished a quilt with (dark) blue scraps, and started a quilt in blues and greys for my brother.  All in all, well done!

In July, I'd like to...

1. Demolish the red scraps.  I have the usual: triangle nine patches, 16 patches, and Bibs and Bobs.  I'd love to finsh the Rainbow Star this month and pass it on to its donation home.

2. Finish Spunky's baby quilt.

3.  Help the Assistant finish the strip sets needed for the rest of the blocks to her quilt.

4.  Make a doll dress from uniform scraps.

5.  (this wasn't on my original goal list, but as I'm typing this post, I know Spunky will need a project.). I found a stack of light blues and purples I cut in odd sizes.  We'll try to make these work as a baby quilt.

If I finish those, I'll work in my brother's quilt and the last stack of coordinated fabrics.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

UFO Projects: June update

Number of projects in process, June 1: 27
Number of projects completed: 2
Number of new projects started: 0
Number of projects "trashed": 0
Number of projects in process, July 1: 25

I behaved myself this month and didn't create any new projects!  I finished my memory quilts for my aunt.  Let me tell you, cutting into my grandma's clothing was hard.  Any cut I made couldn't be taken back, and since my grandma had sewn lots of her own clothes, I felt an added weight.  But they're done!

I also finished my last set of bricks.  I had intended to make a bunch of chevron quilts in various colors before I realized how many "ongoing" projects I had created for myself.  I did finish three quilts, all different, and did some FMQ practice in each one to stretch my horizons.

In process:
1. 5" squares 
2. Bits and Bobs
3. 16-patches
4. Triangle scraps
5. Donation Rainbow Star
6. Irish chain in green and brown
7. Scraps to Treasures
8. Glacier fabrics
9.  Last set of coordinated fabrics

Non-Quilt Projects:
1. Placemat
2. Pillows
3. Someday, inherited embroidery
4. Old school uniforms 

I do have some new quilt ideas percolating for next year's rainbow scrap challenge, but I think I'll wait to add those to my future list since I'm not set on any of them yet.

This month, I hope to finish the Rainbow Star quilt, the baby quilt of 5" squares, and sew up the old school uniforms into a doll dress.  It's crazy time here on the farm, so those are lofty goals!

Future: 
1. Giant chevron for my mom
2.  Tell it to the Stars
3. Hand pieced hexi
4. Odd Fellow block
5. Scrap crystal
6. Hand dyed applique
7.  ABC quilts
8. Scrappy DWR
9. Lime/Aqua/white diamonds
10.  Alzbe's Tshirt quilt
11. Tom and Hannah
12. Orphan block quilt

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

June Block Count

I assisted the Assistant into finishing half her blocks for a queen size quilt, so my numbers are quite nice this month...

61 alternate blocks for an Irish chain quilt
9 blocks with Spunky for a baby quilt
26 blocks for another baby quilt
3 mini quilts made from my grandma's clothes
52 Bits and Bobs blocks
... 151 new blocks for a total of
...688 blocks for the year!

From the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

August Block Count

 I thought I wrote this, but it seems to be lost somewhere or I never wrote it at all… August was a quiet block month, with only 42 16-patch...