WIP Wednesday: All New

My design wall has a new attitude on the current project side - my Faded Memories UFO 4 patches are fully in the "Hmmm" stage and I've got my purple HSTs ready to sew together into a strip for my RSC14 ROYGBIV Chevron quilt.

"Hmmm" because I have WAY more of these 4 patches than I was thinking... only half of them are on the wall. It's a good thing I have plenty of the coordinating yardage to play around with. I also have another charm pack of the woven fabrics available to use.

I'm thinking my table topper might turn into a lap quilt or maybe a table topper for me and some to share. Such a pretty wash of colors and shabby fabrics to admire... more "Hmmm".

Miss Elsa finds my indecision nap inducing. I love the light and dark split of this photo. Our sun is back but it is still windy and cold out. But, at least no snow flurries!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced.

Blue Crumbs and Plans

How can it be the last Friday in January already? So many plans... so little time left!

Our son Micah took this picture of Elsa before we left for Mpls./St. Paul last Friday morning. She was VERY unhappy once the suitcases started to appear and buried herself within her quilt. Kind of like I did once I got back actually for several days of reading, watching movies and napping. Elsa loved every minute!

I guess that is why we make quilts. Sometimes the comfort is in making them and other times the comfort is in using them.

On Wednesday night we took down the bunk bed in Micah's room to give to a young family in need. Before I start shopping for a queen bed suitable for a 19 year old and guests during the school year though I'm rather excited about putting this empty space to use. I'll give you a hint - it's right down the hall from my Quilting Room. More later!

I finally dragged myself off the sofa yesterday for a long sewing session. I should have made backings and sandwiched these tops but I just couldn't motivate myself. Instead I played with my blue scraps and turned them into 20 slabs.

This morning I laid them out on my design wall to ponder the next step for them. When I ran out of my scraps I started pulling some not so pretty 2.5" strips out of my bins to make them bigger but I'm not too fond of them now. I'd like to get them to 12" finished blocks so I guess my choices are keep going as they are (with prettier fabrics!), sash them with a solid or unifying print or something else. Your ideas are most welcome!

I've decided I'm not going to make blocks for the RSC15 Sawtooth Star Sampler after all. Instead I'm going to focus on getting caught up with my RSC14 Sampler blocks. Fortunately I had most of the January blue blocks made and was surprised to find 5 of the 6 pink blocks completely done from last February. Can you really say something was hiding when you totally forgot they exist?

Had I not taken the time to make this list yesterday I would have made those pink blocks twice. The good news is I'm a little further along than I thought. I'm also thinking a good sort through my room is in order as well in case there are more "hidden" items laying about.

Tomorrow I'll be linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy.com and I'm linking Elsa up at Feline Friday@sarahdidit! too.

WIP Thursday

This post was intended for yesterday but the day got away from me. After a weekend full of football I'm making baby steps toward real progress in my quilting room.

But first I have to mention how thrilling it was to watch the NDSU Bison win their 4th straight FCS Division 1 Football Championship defeating Illinois State 29-27 on Saturday. WOW! It was a total nail biter as the Bison had to score a touchdown with less than 2 minutes to go for the win after leading for most of the game. Tom, Megan and I are all proud NDSU graduates!

And then, to top it off, we cheered THE Ohio State Buckeyes on to victory in the other National Championship title game against the University of Oregon (fixed!) in Monday night's 42-20 win. Megan's fiance Chris is currently attending Ohio State for a Masters in Health Administration degree. What a fun football weekend... if only our Minnesota Vikings were in the playoffs. Next year!

I spent my some of my football time sorting through various boxes of stuff that found a home in my quilting room during my days of no sewing. Then I looked through some books to get ideas for blocks to work on for RSC15 and settled on this scrappy layout using bowtie blocks. 

And I pulled some charms from my bins to continue my ROYGBIV Chevron Quilt from RSC14. True Confession Time: the only row I finished last year was the Blue!

Continuing in the vein of unfinished RSC business I set up this UFO in my Quilting Notebook... my Crossroads blocks that were made for RSC13. I have enough blocks to make 4 quilts for Project Linus and I would love to finish 2 of them this month. You can find this handy Project Sheet at Pixels To Patchwork by clicking HERE.

2015 is the year I am actually going to USE them! I'll post more about my Quilting Notebook soon.

Yellow RSC Sampler Blocks

On this dark rainy day it made sense that sewing for RSC14 was what caught my eye while reading my blog roll this morning. So after some housekeeping this morning and attending my last graduation party of the season this afternoon I made some time to pull out my yellow scraps and sew.

Here are the 3 blocks I've completed so far:

I think my favorite one is the Wacky Pinwheel on the left because of the fun polka dot fabric. I've made 2 quilts in the last year using the Bright Hopes block on the top right so that was a quick one using my 2.5" remnant strip bin. The other block is called Framed Four Patch.

We have a thunderstorm moving in so my pictures are rather dark. I've also pulled out my charm bin to select some yellow charms to make my chevron stripe in bright yellow.

I have to go all the way back to January to show you my blue chevron stripe. I'm planning a ROYGBIV quilt using these for Project Linus.

Making these blocks is so much fun... hopefully I can play catch up the rest of the year!

RSC14 Catch Up

I've missed making Angela's RSC Sampler blocks since January so when I had a couple of free hours this afternoon I picked through my scraps and put these 4 blocks together. Bowtie, Four Corners and Jacob's Ladder from February's list and Friendship Star in shades of teal for March.

Those pink blocks are going to have to be scattered in the final quilt as they jangle my eyes next to each other! I've never made Bowtie or Friendship Star blocks before and could see making lots more of them one day.

My Thimbleberries Jacob's Ladder quilt that I finished last fall is one of my favorites. It is such a versatile and classic block.

Using the Easy Angle Ruler to make the HSTs helps these blocks go together so smoothly - what a great tool. I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and look forward to seeing what the rest of the RSC14 quilters have been stitching up!

Blue Scrappy Sewing

This week went by so fast... I can't believe it's already time to link up to RSC14! My blue chevron stripe is fully assembled - I'm using 12 5" charm squares from my stash paired with a white solid and planning to lay them out in ROYGBIV order for a Project Linus sized quilt.

I also added 2 more RSC Sampler blocks - Split Pinwheel and Happy Squares - to my collection. Ohio Star is almost finished (I wanted to take pictures before it got too dark!) and I realized this morning that I don't have a Tri Recs ruler so I'll be adding 54 40 or Fight to my wall when it arrives on Tuesday. How I LOVE Amazon Prime!

As always I am looking forward to sewing with a new color in February and wondering what color Angela has in mind. I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and can't wait to see what everyone else has been making this week!

Tangled Up in Blue

My favorite Bob Dylan song says it all today... my design wall is filling up with blue!

I've started putting my RSC Sampler blocks along the bottom so I can keep track of which ones I still need to make. The top 3 were added this week and I think I have 2 more to be caught up. I'm also trying to train my eyes to get used a mix of blocks in one project (I've never been a big fan of sampler quilts).

These little blocks are really fun to make and I do like very much the "one and done" aspect of making them. Maybe that will help me to get over my sampler quilt issues!

I've also started some HSTs for a rainbow chevron quilt using 5" charms and Bella bleached white. Since I feel a little behind having to assemble my RSC13 blocks into 7 Project Linus quilts this year I thought making a row each month would streamline assembly at year end.

Next week I should be ready to make some more blue Road to Oklahoma Blocks. I had to remove a column to make room for Charming Snowmen... I'm halfway done (24) with the star blocks and then I have to make 32 border blocks. I am really digging deep into my blues for these and trying to avoid repeats as much as possible.

Here is a picture showing them all from my WIP Wednesday post.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and tomorrow I will link up to Scrapbasket Sunday@Kim's Big Quilting Adventure.

Blue Scrappy Sewing

Blue is the color of the month for RSC14 - what a great color to kick off a new year of scrappy sewing because I have lots of blue to use!

Angela is not only hosting RSC14 this year but she is also doing a RSC Sampler Series of 6.5" blocks. I've never been drawn to sampler quilts which makes it easy for me to bypass BoMs... I guess my eyes look for patterns in quilts and samplers look like mixed up blocks to me. Just my personal opinion!

But after Angela started posting the cute little blocks I started thinking about them in a different way. Why not sew up some scraps, explore some new blocks and try some some new rulers? So I've made the 1st 4 and I'm really enjoying making them. If I don't like them when they are assembled I can donate the quilt and learn from the process.

I'm also making my blue blocks for Road to Oklahoma and I'm repeating a picture from yesterday's post for those that are following RSC14.

I forgot to include pictures of my scrap sorting assistant in my post the other day. I ended up moving to the floor because that is where everything ended up anyway the minute I turned my back. Her serious little face is pretty hard to resist!

Elsa is getting very adventurous and wants to play more so we have toys stashed on each level and I try to distract her with them. Of course she prefers my toys... lately pens are her target to nudge off tables or counters. Leftover batting strips are also great fun for her.

Here she is sleeping on a drawer of 2.5" strips on my lap. Aren't the markings on her nose cute?

The only time she and Tucker are in tandem is when they are wanting food! The rest of the time he prefers to keep watch from a safe distance. Elsa thinks his tail is her personal play toy which he tolerates pretty well until he gets a teeny claw.

I'm linking up to ScrapHappy Saturday@soscrappy and Feline Friday@sarah did it!.

Sunday Agenda

I love the NFL playoffs so my weekend sewing is pretty non existent this time of year.  But, it is the perfect time to page through books/magazines, do some sorting, some cutting and of course some hand sewing. Oh, and I need to give a big whoop whoop to the alma mater of all 3 college graduates in our household - North Dakota State University - for their 3 peat FCS National Championship in football yesterday. Hail the Mighty Bison!

Today my quilting goals look like this:

1. Clear off my cutting table. I've been putting off a tidy up in my quilting room for days and I'm starting to feel a bit grumpy about it.

2.  Trim and attach the binding to Minnesota Hot Dish for some Slow Sunday Stitching during the 2nd game.

3. Pull out my scrap bins and do some sorting. I love the ease of having these large bins right under my cutting surface for quick cleanup. I used to cut all my scraps down into sizes I use often ala Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User's System, but this year I decided to try stashing them, sorting them by color and see how that works for RSC14.

4. I want to cut into these fabrics to restart this UFO I found. I've always admired this cover quilt (the pattern is called Road to Oklahoma) when I've used this book for other projects and had been setting 2.5 strips and 5" charms aside... turns out I'd started making a test block so I'm calling it a UFO and want to get cracking on it. This will be my 3rd quilt from this book.

Since January's RSC14 color is blue I've decided to work on the 24 blocks with the blue chains for the middle of the quilt and the 16 border blocks in shades of blue. I've hesitated to dig too far into my blues for other projects knowing that this one was on my radar so it will be good to get everything cut that I need.

Blue & yellow quilts are my all time favorites and I use these colors in our master bedroom so a few more quilts to decorate with are always welcome!