New Orleans House Project

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Done With Orange Fun

How quickly we've arrived at the end of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge month of orange scrappy stitching!  I've definitely made a dent in my orange scraps, especially the scraps in the bin of 2 inch strips and squares.

I had a big stack of 2 inch squares in the bin, so I trimmed them down to 1.5 inches and made a 49-patch block.  I'll only have 8 of these blocks at the end of the year, so I think this project will carry over for at least another year.  The next round of blocks will use the same design, but I'm going to resort to using scrappy strips instead of individual squares.

I also had enough orange scrappy pieces to make some 4-patch blocks.  For now, these are for the "parts department", as Cathy calls it.  On the other hand, I was intrigued by a quilt in the latest issue of Quiltmania (121) called Four Patch Trip Around the World.  Unfortunately, there isn't a picture of the quilt on their website, so you'll have to get your hands on a copy of the magazine to see what I'm talking about.  No affiliation with Quiltmania, other than it being my favorite quilting magazine!

I enjoyed reading everyone's responses last week about their favorite pumpkin spice-flavored treats.  Since I had pumpkin spice on the brain, I did a search to look for treats that were new and different to me.  I had a huge fit of the giggles when I discovered this unexpected pumpkin spice product.  Go ahead & click on it - it's part of a Pinterest board I set up just to catalog pumpkin spice products!


Saturday, September 23, 2017

Orange You Glad It's Pumpkin Spice Season?

When the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color is orange, it's hard to resist making puns based on that hue!

I like pumpkin spice flavoring, but its use does seem to have gotten a bit out of hand in the last couple of years.  I try to have at least one Pumpkin Spice Latte' before they disappear for the season, but other pumpkin spice treats seem to elude me.  What's your favorite specialty pumpkin spice treat?

I whipped up this little pumpkin spice Burgoyne Surrounded this week.  

The happy, scrappy house blocks continued to call my name this week, too.  
I made four new house blocks to bring my total to 49.  Last night I started sewing all the blocks together, so it won't be long until I'm on to the next step on this quilt journey: a border full of words.

We're hanging out at our camp this weekend.  The weather is not at all autumnal, so the dogs are still enjoying their doggie pool.
Here's Bailey, cooling off after a hard morning of Chase the Tennis Ball.

I'm linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge today - looking forward to seeing more pumpkin spice er, orange inspiration!



Saturday, September 16, 2017

Slicing Into Orange

I managed to use up a few more orange scraps this week, slicing them up into components for different Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

Orange Windblown Wishes blocks from Diane D. Knott's Scrap Quilt Secrets.

Windblown Wishes number two.  I only want to include rainbow colors in this quilt, so once the RSC gets to the color pink, I'll be finished making blocks.  

Ditto for orange Pinwheel blocks - just rainbow colors planned.  Almost time to start assembling these into a quilt top, too!

I meant to share this picture last week - the reunion of my son David and his dog Jozy.
Jozy stayed with us for a good chunk of the summer while David was out of town for work.  My husband and older son (Andrew) drove up to Dallas last weekend to take Jozy home.  Do you think they were happy to see each other again?!  BTW, Jozy is a boy dog, named for American soccer player Jozy Altidore.  There's a pun in there, of course:  Jozy Labrador.




Sunday, September 10, 2017

Summer Star Scrappy SAL: Finished Flimsy!

Thanks to some dedicated sewing time last weekend, I was able to finish piecing my version of Diane Knott's Summer Star Scrappy Sew Along quilt.

The SAL appealed to me because it was a scrappy project and I felt the need to make use of more fabrics and scraps from the blue stash.  My blue fabric stash is huge and never seems to shrink, so this seemed like a good way to try to make a dent.

This did help me use up lots of blue scraps and when the scraps were used up I cut into yardage.  The blue fabric drawers now have a bit more room, but they're far from empty!  I also made a big dent in my collection of off-white, cream and white scraps and yardage.

This is not a complicated pattern, and Diane's instructions are very clear.  The assembly went quickly, especially since I had a stack of ready-cut blue strips left over from other projects.  The finished quilt is about 90 inches by 90 inches.  I will have it quilted by my local long-arm quilter - there's no way I want to attempt to quilt this on my sewing machine!  

And...amazingly - I just noticed a mistake in the top row.  I never even saw this when it was pinned to the design wall!

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Distracted by Scrappy Houses

My goal for the month is to use up lots of orange scraps, making blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I decided to start by making wonky borders for my New Orleans-inspired Happy, Scrappy House blocks.  That's when I got distracted.

After making orange wonky borders, there were only a few borderless blocks left.  I picked out border fabrics for those blocks and have completed most of those, as well.

After pinning the blocks to the design wall (not all of them are visible in the picture), I counted up and decided I liked the idea of a 7 x 7 arrangement.  I'll need to make a few more houses to get to the magic number of 49.  I also need to trim all of these blocks to get them to a uniform size.  I was hoping the wonky borders would allow me to cut the blocks to 10.5 inches, but no luck.  The trimmed size wound up being 10 inches, so they'll finish at 9.5 inches.  I'm trying to decide if I want to add sashing and cornerstones, but that much orderliness is out of character for New Orleans.

I thought it might be fun to incorporate some sunflowers into this quilt.  After the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina, volunteer sunflowers popped up all over the city and became kind of an unofficial harbinger of the city's rebirth.  I found a picture of this block on Pinterest, and last night I tried my hand at re-creating it.  This block won't go in the quilt, but I think I will make some more - maybe putting a block in each corner.

Speaking of hurricanes, I hope all my Florida quilting friends have finished their evacuations or preparations and are ready for Hurricane Irma.  My family and my husband's family all live in Florida, so we've been watching and worrying along with everyone else.  Here's hoping (and praying and maybe even using a little gris-gris) that Irma fizzles before inflicting too much damage on the Sunshine State and all her inhabitants!


Saturday, September 2, 2017

Burgoyne Surrounded by Neutrals

Most of my sewing time in August was wrapped up in completing a Sew Along, so I didn't spend much time playing with neutral scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

However, I really wanted to see if I could make a Burgoyne Surrounded block using neutral scraps.

I don't know if this block will fit in with all the rainbow-colored Burgoyne Surrounded blocks, but I'm sure happy with how it turned out!

I made five additional Pinwheel blocks for my collection.

That brings my total of neutral Pinwheel blocks to fifteen.  It's almost time to make a quilt from these three-inch blocks!

A few weeks ago, I shared a picture of a quilt made by Alex Anderson using neutral fabrics.  I've admired that quilt for years, and thought about trying to make it just by studying the picture (there's no pattern in the book featuring the quilt).  Thanks to some Google-searching, I discovered the quilt pattern is included in a "vintage" Alex Anderson book.

There are several fun quilts in here, but I'm all about the Stars and Pinwheels quilt (Alex is resting her arm on it in the book cover shot).  I won't be starting the quilt any time soon, but it's definitely on my Bucket List!

All good neutrals must come to an end.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for September is orange.  Here's just a sample of some orange scrappy strips that will get made into Pinwheel blocks and Four-Patch blocks.

If you love orange, there's more scrappy inspiration at Angela's Soscrappy blog.