Saturday, December 30, 2017

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Orphan Block Recap

I’m away from home and my computer, and didn’t have a chance to prepare this in advance, so I’ll be posting links today to all the orphan block quilts I competed in conjunction with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  My entire collection of orphan blocks was exhausted in this endeavor, which feels pretty good!

I started the effort in November of 2016, when I had finished all my RSC projects.  First off the presses was a blue medallion quilt, followed shortly by a more liberated pink, green, and purple quilt. The blue quilt has so many orphan seeds I’m not sure I could trace them all!  The pink, etc., came from the girl’s stash and test patches, as well as oddly shaped useable, but not usual scraps from me, as well as TriRecs and triangle sets.

January saw a yellow, black, white and grey alphabet quilt as well as a purple pincushion.  The purple strip was left from making my newest sister-in-law a placemat.  The alphabet quilt found its seeds in a large Z from learning to free piece letters as well as a collection of awkward yellow, black, and white scraps.

February left a little turquoise and red baby quilt from blocks leftover from Spunky’s big girl bed quilt.

April was for a little fall-colored baby quilt that found its way to my sister during a hard season.  Leftovers came from my grandfather’s forest quilt, my 9s and 6s quilt, the off cut triangles from a quilt for DH’s Memaw, and finally triangle blocks from one of last year’s RSC Quilts, in which I used up a large bag of untrimmed and sorted triangles.  This quilt was a bit of a stone soup!

May found another small baby quilt, in green and orange.  Some of the nine patches were left from a Judy Laquidara pattern, and I think I added orange because I wanted to!

In July, I made a lovely star quilt.  Some triangles were left from a blue, gold, and white baby quilt, while a number of the TriRecs pairs were from miscutting an entire set of pieces for last year’s Bonnie Hunter Mystery.  I wasn’t ready to pitch them, but I wasn’t sure how to tackle them.

In October, I finished a sherbet-flavored quilt, with a leftover Dresden plate from a quilt challenge, as well as some coordinating stash and scraps.  There was also a body pillow constructed from leftovers from the backing to my hand pieced next quilt.

Finally, November found the orphan block box empty.  Some (unpictured) blue scraps crept into an apron, and the very last triangles snuggled into a doll quilt for a niece.

It’s been a great year for baby quilts, apparently, and next year will be something new!

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

5 comments:

LIttle Penguin Quilts said...

Your year-long orphan block project has been fun to follow, Katie! I especially love the black, gray, and yellow ABC quilt!

Kate said...

You did so well at cleaning out those orphan blocks. Looking forward to seeing what you've got planned for 2018.

Deb A said...

Great job clearing out the orphans! I need to create one of those when I clean up the sewing area - on tap for tomorrow. The house needs it today. So fun to see what you did with them all - I needed the inspiration! Hope you have a wonderful new years weekend.

The Joyful Quilter said...

I have enjoyed your Orphan Block Adventure. You did a wonderful job on each and every quilt. Best of all was that empty basket as the end of the year approached. Congratulations!!

scraphappy said...

So many great quilts produced, and empty bins too! Congratulations.

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