Rainbow Scraps Transformed

The happy result of playing along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every month is having a pile of colorful blocks to assemble into a quilt at the end of the year.  Sometimes it takes a little more than a year to finish up the quilt(s), but it's still a fun process.

Inspired by all the colorful houses in New Orleans, I started making Bonnie Hunter's Happy Scrappy House blocks in 2013.  It took some time to get these assembled because I kept changing my mind on what the final quilt should look like.  I thought I wanted to applique some words in the outer borders, but after experimenting, it just wasn't working out.  Eventually, I decided it was time to stop dithering and finish this quilt top!

For 2015's Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I used reproduction fabric scraps to make a Scrap Jar Stars quilt.  I finished hand-stitching the binding on this quilt recently and recruited my son to hold it up for photography.  Compared with an earlier Scrap Jar Stars quilt in bright colors, I love the softer, more subdued look of this quilt.

My local long-arm quilter, Cindy Braiwick, did a great job on the quilting design.   She used a multi-color thread that really added some pop to the background fabric.  I'd love to keep this for myself, but I planned it to be a gift it from the beginning, so off it goes!

There are still several more unfinished Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects in my UFO pile, but the year isn't over yet, so they may get transformed, too!

Check out more Rainbow Scrap transformations at the weekly scrappy link-up!

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!

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!

My (Scrappy) Dreams Come True on Blue Bayou

Whenever the Rainbow Scrap Challenge focuses on the color blue, I seem to spend the month humming songs with "blue" in the title.  This gives me a great excuse share Youtube videos like this one:

"Blue Bayou" was a big hit for Roy Orbison, but I love this version with Linda Ronstadt and the Muppets, circa 1980!

OK, now that we've had our musical interlude, I'll start the quilting part of our program. 😎

Here's a blue 49-patch block, made with all scrappy 1 1/2 inch pieces.  This did a pretty good job of cleaning out all the smallish blue scraps.

Since we've gone half-way through the year, I decided to contemplate all the previous blocks together.  Once I finish the RSC colors for the year, I'll have to decide if I want to keep making theses scrappy blocks piece by piece or resort to strip piecing.  Since the blocks only measure 7 inches when finished, I'll need quite a few more blocks to make a quilt. 

Blue selvage blocks were also completed.

And all the selvage blocks were duly contemplated.  The individual selvage blocks measure 4 inches finished, so this is another project that will need many more blocks to reach a respectable size.  I'm thinking this might become part of a large selvage sampler project (i.e. make more selvage blocks in different styles/patterns next year).

A few more house blocks got wonky borders.  

Here are all the Happy, Scrappy Houses so far (I jumped ahead and did some pink wonky borders, too).  Once all the wonky borders are added, I'll be making some appliquéd words to mix in with the houses.  Maybe this will get finished by the end of the year?

Last - but not least - a scrappy blue Burgoyne Surrounded block.  That blue fabric with dragonflies has been hanging around in the stash for over 10 years.  I keep trying to use it up, but the scraps never seem to diminish!  

All the Burgoyne blocks are trying to play nicely with each other.  I love the colorful funkiness going on here!  Check out Cathy's finished Burgoyne top or the original pattern from Becky - I think they'll bring a smile to your face!

Now that I've brought all my RSC documentation up to date, I'm off to do some more stitching.  There are still more RSC projects to work on, as well as Diane Knott's Summer Scrappy Sew Along.  In between, I'll be playing with all the dogs (aka the Swirling Dog Mass) and humming more songs with "blue" in the title!

Yellow Takes Over the Neighborhood

The New Orleans House Project, aka Happy Scrappy Houses, came out to play this week.  As I made house blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge several years ago, I tried to share a New Orleans house in a matching color.  It was fun searching for just the right house to inspire or match my weekly RSC house block.  

Now my weekly RSC project is to go back and add RSC-colored wonky borders to each house.  This week, several houses joined the yellow neighborhood.

I'm happy to report the wonky borders used up a lot of yellow chunks from the scrap stash.

I miss sharing pictures of New Orleans houses each week, but my job doesn't have me driving around the city as much as a few years ago.  If you're interested in seeing more New Orleans houses, check out the following Instagram folks for lots of great photos from the Crescent City!

risingcrescent

the.preservationist

nolamaven

davidnola

gonola504

If you're interested in scrap quilts, check out all the Rainbow Scrappiness at Soscrappy!

Green Scrap Therapy

A little more green scrap therapy happened this week.

These Rail Fence selvage blocks barely made a dent in the green selvages.  I may have to make more!

Some Happy Scrappy House blocks got green wonky borders.  This project is starting to speak very loudly about being finished, so I might have to move ahead and make more wonky borders without waiting for RSC inspiration.

I hand-pieced a few green scrappy pieces, too.  These are for my Hex Vex project.  One trick I learned for piecing hexies is to use tape to hold the hexie parts together for flat back-stitching - note the tape on the flamingo block.

This also happened:

I had admired and been inspired by Cathy's Burgoyne Surrounded blocks for several months.  Then Gayle acted on her inspiration, so I decided to challenge myself to try making a block.  I like the kind of low volume way my block turned out, but what I really like are Cathy's bright color schemes.  I don't think my stash will support that look, so I'm not sure I will keep making these blocks.  I left this one pinned to the design wall to see what inspiration will flow from it!

For more green, scrappy inspiration, check out the link-up at Soscrappy today!

The Last of the Red Hot Scraps

I had fun digging through the last of the red scraps (and a few fabric chunks) to finish up my Rainbow Scrap projects for the month.

One of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects is making pinwheel blocks.  I have a specific plan for them, but I need to have all the colors completed before I start putting them together.  

Some red selvages got sliced and diced into Rail Fence blocks.

Just for fun, I added some purple and aqua blocks from earlier RSC months.

I had to go digging through the fabric bins to find large enough red chunks to make the wonky borders for my New Orleans houses.  As I was choosing the fabrics, I was really pleased with how the reds "worked" with the house blocks.  But after looking at the bordered blocks on my design wall all week, I was a little worried about the border fabrics being too dark.

Last night, I pulled out some of the already bordered blocks to see if everyone would play well together.  I decided my worries were pointless.  I'm looking forward to the finish on this project!

That's the end of my red scrappiness for March.  Red was fun, but I'm looking forward to a new color and new scrappy challenges.  There's more red scrappiness on view at Angela's SoScrappy blog.

A Little Aquamarine to Soothe the Soul

It's Rainbow Scrap Challenge check-in day, and I have a few modest efforts to show.  Angela, our fearless RSC leader, used the word aquamarine to describe the color she wanted us to aim for this month.  I found that color to be a perfect description of the scraps I pulled to start my blocks. 

I started with the easiest of all projects:  selvedges pieced and cut into Rail Fence blocks.  Sally of The Objects of Design sent me a large box of selvedges last year.  Somehow it must be a magical box, because there never seems to be a dent in the contents! (Thanks, Sally!)

 Next I turned to the pile of Happy, Scrappy Houses I made as an RSC project several years ago.  My goal this year is to make wonky frames for all the house blocks so I can finally assemble them in a quilt.  I don't have a real plan for this, I just look at the blocks each month and try to find some that would look good with that month's RSC color as a frame.  I'm pleased with this month's results AND I got all the houses to go "down hill".  You may recall last month they all went "up hill" and not intentionally.

That's all my aquamarine until next week.  I spent most of today doing some long-neglected chores (yuck!) and now I'm too tired to be playing with sharp objects.  I think maybe a glass of wine and reading about everyone else's RSC adventures this week sounds like a good idea!

Scrappy Houses: Adding Wonky Borders

One of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects in 2013 was making house blocks using Bonnie Hunter's Happy, Scrappy Houses pattern.  I called my efforts the New Orleans House Project, and as I made my blocks, I tried to find New Orleans houses in the monthly challenge colors.  At the end of the year, I wasn't ready to assemble the blocks into a quilt top, so I put them away while I thought about how I wanted my New Orleans quilt to look.

 

These are my purple houses from 2013.  As you can see, I did not add the wonky borders Bonnie used on her blocks.  I finally decided those wonky borders were in keeping with how I wanted my finished New Orleans House Project quilt to look - so that's one of my RSC projects for this year. 

 

I don't want the wonky borders to be the same color as the house block, so I'll be picking the borders based on each month's RSC challenge color.  I looked through my purple scraps and matched scraps to houses.  I cut rectangles 3 inches by 12 inches for the borders.

The rectangles are cut diagonally lengthwise to create the border pieces.  The direction the lengthwise cut is made determines if the house runs "uphill" or "downhill".  The straight of grain side of each triangle gets sewn to the block.  

Plainly I need to be more careful about how I cut the border triangles if I want my houses to go uphill AND downhill!

There is more scrappy inspiration at the RSC weekly link-up.  I haven't had a chance to check out what everyone is working on, so I've got my evening's entertainment planned!

RSC 15: Goodbye to August

I'm happy to see the end of August approaching!  The days are getting shorter, the shadows are changing and the outdoor temps are actually even cooling down (a little).  After August ends, we'll be another month closer to the end of hurricane season and American football season is right around the corner. 

I'm also happy the incessant media focus on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina will end soon.  It's great to highlight the positive things that have happened in South Louisiana since the failure of the levees after the hurricane, but the constant bombardment of horrific images is just too painful, even at this distance of time and healing.  I turned to quilting as my therapy for coping after the floods and I'm thankful for the solace it provided.  In fact, I'd say the aftermath of the flooding was a rebirth of quilting focus for me and quilting therapy has become ever-important to me over the past 10 years.

 

Inspired by all the colorful houses of New Orleans, I made these Happy, Scrappy House blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2013.  While driving around town this week, I was struck by inspiration for assembling these blocks into a quilt.  I hope to focus on that this week while the inspiration is hot! 

 

I also focused on one of this year's ongoing RSC projects:  4" Sawtooth Stars.  I found enough scraps to make gray & black stars to add to the collection.

 

And in case you missed it, August 26th was National Dog Day - a social media invention if there ever was one!  We appreciate our four-legged kids every day, but they tolerated our cell phone picture snapping on Wednesday and even gave us a few smiles.  The dogs in the front of the photo, Bailey & McKenzie, live with us; Jozy (in the rear) visits with us each August while his human is away for work.  Jozy & McKenzie are from the same litter.  

And now I've wandered on enough, so I'm heading over to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link-up to see what colorful stuff everyone else has been up to this week.

 

A Rainbow Review

I've been off in Florida, sharing some holiday happiness with my mom & sisters.  It was great to see everyone and enjoy a bit of sunny Florida weather.  They even indulged me and let me poke around a quilt shop while we toured old downtown Winter Garden!

I've returned home to more typical gloomy & chilly December weather.  We're at our camp, but I've got a couple of sewing projects here, so I can blissfully ignore the weather.

Before leaving for Florida, I was able to complete the free-form scrappy border for the 9 patch and snowball Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt.  The 9 patch blocks were made for the 2012 RSC, and I made the scrappy snowball blocks during 2013.  I just need to stitch the scrappy border to the quilt and add another white outer border and the top will be complete.

I didn't want to do a year in review blog post, but I thought it would be fun to make a collage of all the Rainbow Scrap Challenge houses I made this past year.  I enjoyed looking back at the scrappy fabric and New Orleans houses that inspired all these blocks.  I hope 2014 provides the inspiration to assemble them all into a quilt!

I hope everyone has a festive and safe New Year's Eve and I look forward to sharing more sewing and quilting fun with everyone in the coming year!

Santa's Scrappy House

I couldn't resist making one last happy, scrappy house block for the New Orleans House Project.  

I really must do some serious scrap-busting of Christmas scraps.  I was planning to make a Christmas log cabin quilt for my youngest son, but DH has asked for a red, white and blue log cabin quilt.  I don't think two log cabins in one year is a good plan, so maybe Bonnie Hunter's Strip Twist pattern would make a good Christmas-themed scrap buster!

The design wall was empty earlier this week, so I threw all the Rainbow Scrap Challenge happy, scrappy houses up for a picture.  Unfortunately, I deleted the picture from my camera before saving it.  I currently have 48 rainbow-hued house blocks and several ideas for how to assemble them.  I'd like to see the houses get assembled in 2014, but for now they are marinating while I come up with a plan.

After I took down the house blocks, I put up my green Trip Around the World blocks.  This project is meant to use up some of the vintage, dark green fabric in my stash.  Other shades of green have found their way in as well.  I probably have enough green fabric to make two of these, one in dark greens and one in lime greens.  I need to make another 12 blocks for a decent sized quilt, then I'll decide on whether to mix shades or not.

In preparation for the new year, I've cleaned the cutting table and put away fabric, organized scraps and UFOs.  I won't have much time for sewing in the coming week, but I have been trying to cut some strips and squares cut for 2014 projects.  I'm looking forward to sharing all that soon!

Chocolate & Mint

Chocolate and mint have always been one of my favorite flavor combinations.

Girl Scout Thin Mints

York Peppermint Patties

Andes Mints

Mint chocolate chip ice cream

Wouldn't a chocolate and mint happy scrappy house be yummy?

I even managed to find a chocolate and mint New Orleans house.  This combo of business downstairs, living quarters upstairs is fairly common in the older parts of the city.  The panel van driving by is the perfect touch - it belongs to one of New Orleans' iconic confections:  Hubig's Pies.

Since it's Saturday, I'm linking up with the other Rainbow Scrappers over at Angela's SoScrappy blog.  After that I'm forgoing sewing today to attend a Geocaching event to celebrate the life of a friend and fellow geocacher.  Hope everyone has a great Saturday doing something they enjoy!

Vintage Brown

I went digging through the brown fabric stash this week, looking for the perfect brown reproduction-style fabrics.  What I found was some vintage fabric history!

I knew I wanted to use up a large scrap of brown floral fabric (top) for this week's happy, scrappy house.  I looked through the stash for coordinating fabrics and found about two yards of the brown check - from 1988!  I decided it was time for that checked fabric to get used up, so I cut several 18 x 18 squares for napkins.  I'll try to have pictures next week, as my dishes match this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color.

The hunk of vintage brown check was significantly reduced!  Back in the day, reproduction fabrics were not abundant, and I remember buying those fabrics by the yard whenever I happened to find them.  It's wonderful to have access to the abundance of repro fabrics that are available now!

I'm really happy with how this house came together!  Most of the fabrics have been marinating in the stash for a long time, so I'm happy to be using them up.  The chimneys are new reproduction fabrics from Barbara Brackman.

The New Orleans house for this week is another double shotgun, but I really loved the brown trim and shutters, as well as the ornate detailing on the gable.

If you would like more brown scrappy inspiration, vintage or modern, do stop by Angela's soscrappy blog to see what the other Rainbow Scrappers have been creating this week!