Irish Quadrille

I have been working on a St. Patrick's Day ornament, Irish Quadrille by The Sweetheart Tree.  I have had this kit for a few years, and pulled it out in mid January, thinking that I'd surely have it done by mid March.  Last week I realized that February was almost half over, and I hadn't made much progress.  Now I'm trying to get in a hour of stitching on it every day.  The key is I need to get the stitching done during the day when the lighting is good.  At night, my eyes are too tired to cross stitch.

This ornament will have a four sided body with points at either end.  Stay tuned to see if I get the finishing done by St. Patrick's Day!

Linking up: http://www.supermomnocape.com/vintage-embroidery-monday-stitchery-link-party-97/

Rainbow Scrap Challenge: Aqua

I worked on RSC this week.  Aqua is not a color I tend to buy, but my friend Holly has given me a lot of aqua scraps lately.  I made 19 string blocks:

And two Inverted Star blocks.  

This brings my total Inverted Star blocks up to eight.  I think I need at least 24 to make a decent sized quilt.  

Linking up:  http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2017/02/scraphappy-saturday-teal.html

http://www.shecanquilt.ca/2017/02/february-scraptastic-tuesday-link-is.html

Surrounded by Scraps

The second clue in Charlotte Hawk's Surrounded by Scraps came out yesterday.  I am making the smaller of these quilts, so I was able to get this clue done quickly.

Based on these units, the number of small four and nine patch squares we made last month and the fact that we cut no triangles, I predict a quilt based on Burgoyne Surrounded and Irish Chain.

Bee Blocks

I joined my first online quilting bee this month.  Daisy asked for scrappy semicolon blocks:

Tina is in a sister hive, but her block was so easy, I made one for her too.

Stash Report

I spent 2 days last week cleaning up my sewing room.  I was sorting scraps most of the time.  I also found some flannel and minky scraps and books to give to a quilting friend. I filled a giveaway box  with fabrics that weren't quiting  cotton:  lawn, upholstery samples, silk and linen.  I know I might wish I had these fabrics someday, but the truth is I probably wouldn't be able to find them if I needed them, and what I really need is storage space, not more scraps.  There is more cleaning and sorting to be done in my sewing room, but now I'm burned out on organization and just want to sew.

I have a ton of blue and green scraps to use up.  I also have a whole tub of selvages.  There must be at least two quilts in this tub!

Used this week: 4.75 (binding Stars Around the Corner, charity top)
Used year to date: 21.625 yards
Added this week: 3.875 (red from QC, blue for charity quilt, pillowcase fabric)
Added year to date: 17.125 yards
Net Used:  4.5 yards

Linking up:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2017/02/05/stash-report-february-5-2017/

Stars Around the Corner Finished!

I did a big post on Stars Around the Corner when I finished the top. http://sewingoutofmycomfortzone.blogspot.com/2016/12/stars-around-corner-with-borders.html

Here's the completed top.  It was quilted by Virginia Longarm and bound by me last week.

The quilting is a big looping pantograph.  I have found that with very scrappy quilts, most of the quilting gets lost in the busy design.  It shows up best on the back and the borders.

To see more finishes:

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2017/02/kindness-pillow.html

http://persimondreams.blogspot.com/p/scrap-quilt-challenge.html

Quick Curve Ruler

Last month I got a quick curve ruler for my birthday.  I've been meaning to learn how to sew curves for several years but just hadn't found the right class.  When I saw how gentle the curve was on this ruler, I thought I might be able to teach myself.

My first hurdle was coming up with big enough sized scraps from my stash.  These blocks are much bigger than most of the scraps in my stash, and I hated to cut into fat quarters, but I did it anyway. Here are my first test units.

Three of them turned out OK, one of them did not.  I haven't used this ruler enough to figure out the problem, but I assure you, it is a user error, and I suspect it happened during the cutting.  The cutting does not feel natural to me as this is my first slotted ruler.

I ended up making a lot of  lantern shaped units using some fat quarters that were left over from a previous quilt. I wanted to make a donation quilt out of them, but I didn't have enough lanterns for a good sized quilt.  That's when this quilt went off the rails.  I used some text print and scraps left over from the lanterns to stretch this quilt.  I wanted it twin size, and I almost got there, but at the expense of design.  

They are not colors I use a lot.  You will have to trust me when I tell you that the addition of the navy fabric helped a great deal.

This quilt is getting mixed reviews from my family.  My blunt sister didn't care for the colors. My diplomatic husband said he liked the outside blocks but it wasn't one of his favorite quilts, and he is not a fan of the text print.  This isn't one of my favorite quilts either, but it accomplished my goals:  a top for donation and practice with my new ruler.

Linking up:  https://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/2017/02/lets-bee-social-163.html