A Little More Pink

It was a fun Saturday!  My company sponsors health fairs around the state to help kids get back-to-school check-ups.  Today's health fair was here in New Orleans, so our local office team helped out.  We had a great turn-out, and lots of kids got check-ups.  I was on my feet for a big chunk of the day, so I was happy to get home, have a cup of tea, and then do a little sewing!

I'm still making blocks for a Ring of Stars quilt.  They go together quickly and use up lots of scrappy chunks.  

I didn't start making these blocks until March of this year, so I missed a few Rainbow Scrap colors.  I'll have to go back and catch them later.

I found enough pink chunks to make another pink Burgoyne Surrounded block.  I only need three more Burgoyne blocks, so I think I'll just go ahead and finish them.  Maybe I won't make any mistakes if I do them all at the same time!

The days of pink for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are winding down, but there's still plenty of inspiration at the weekly link-up.

Making More Pink Scraps

Pink is the color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month.  As I looked through my fabric bins, I realized my scrappy pink choices were getting a little thin.  That meant I needed to make some more scraps, i.e. indulge in a little stash enhancement.  Fortunately, I found some great pink fat quarters and have sliced most of them up into usable strips and chunks to feed the RSC fun!

Before I started on the pink scraps though, I was inspired by the Fourth of July to make a red, white, and blue Burgoyne Surrounded block.

I wanted to use that red, white, and blue print that looks like fireworks as the central fabric for the block.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

I had already cut out this pink and green block last year, but never got around to stitching it.  It went together quickly, although I just now spotted two errors.  Just when I think I can finally make these blocks without mistakes, I mess up!

I used some of my new pink scraps and chunks for two Sugar Bowl blocks.

They will join previous Sugar Bowl blocks.  I think I only need two more colors to finish out all the blocks for this quilt.

There are still some more pink projects to work on this month, but first I need to go fix that &*@! Burgoyne block.  Go enjoy some pink scrappy projects at the RSC link-up while I practice my seam ripping!

Some Rainbow Scrap Challenge Finishes

I've put the finishing touches on several Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts recently, but did not take the time to photograph all the results.  Since we spent the long Independence Day holiday at our camp last weekend, I packed up my finished quilts so I could hang them from the balcony for photos.

I started making the 9-patch variation blocks in 2015 and put the finishing stitches in the quilt late last year.  

Diane Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting did the long-arm quilting for me - lots of swirls to counteract all the squares and angles on the front of the quilt!  

The handprint backing fabric has been hanging around in my stash for 20 years, at least.  This seemed like a great project to use it up!  I also shopped in my stash for the binding fabric - a purple cross-hatch fabric that worked perfectly.

Another long-running Rainbow Scrap Challenge project is this sampler quilt.  Our RSC leader, Angela Feldbush, shared block instructions every week throughout 2014, resulting in lots of scrappy sampler quilts.

My finished sampler top languished in the "Needs Quilting" pile for a couple years, until I had the great idea to ask Diane Knott to long-arm quilt it for me.

I spent some binge-watching TV time hand-stitching the binding last week so I could add this quilt to the Finished pile.

I was being optimistic when I put the finished date on my label!

Windblown Wishes was a more recent Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  My inspiration was the Windblown Wishes quilt in Diane Knott's Scrap Quilt Secrets book.  I used a different border treatment than Diane's pattern, but I think it worked out well for the RSC format.

Of course I had to ask Diane to quilt this project!  Even the quilting reflects the "windblown" idea!

I used some leftover binding fabric to make a frame for the quilt label.  

So the UFO pile has shrunk a little, but there are still plenty of projects waiting for their finishing touches.  If I can tear myself way from non-stop weather coverage on television, I might actually do some sewing today.  And since our power is still on, I'm going to go look at more Rainbow Scrap Challenge inspiration at Angela's Soscrappy blog.

(FYI, we're still waiting for Tropical Storm Barry to make his presence felt in the New Orleans area.  Forget about the sensational coverage on the Weather Channel.  We've had minimal rain, minimal wind, and little storm surge.  Conditions are a little worse closer to the coast, but still not life-threatening.)

Drunk Uncle Barry or the "Half-i-cane"

Once again, the Louisiana coast is bracing for stormy weather.  This time, it's a weird system that started in Georgia, found its way to the Gulf of Mexico, and is now only half a hurricane (tropical storm, really), but threatening all kinds of havoc in the state.  

Of course, the national media have been breathlessly reporting on the potential, dire impacts on New Orleans.  To be honest, we had a flooding rain event on Wednesday, but that was nothing all that unusual, and not specifically related to the storm.  

I was amused to see the City of New Orleans official Twitter feed take the Washington Post to task for "fake news"!

We are not fleeing the city.  Like most of our friends and neighbors, we've taken precautions and prepped for the storm.  We will probably experience heavy rain, but our neighborhood is not flood-prone, and our house is elevated an additional 3 - 4 feet above street level.  Drunk Uncle Barry may become a full-fledged hurricane right before landfall, but the winds reaching us will not be all that forceful.  There will also be storm surge pushing water up our rivers and lakes, but the city is protected by levees to help mitigate that water.  Yes, we're collectively nervous about the levees holding back water (failed levees caused the massive flooding after Hurricane Katrina), but there have been serious upgrades to the system in the last 14 years.  

Hopefully, the worst that will happen is a power failure.  I can still use one of my people-powered sewing machines if that happens, but it's pretty miserable to be without air conditioning in New Orleans in July!

In other news, we spent a wonderful July 4th weekend at our camp, and I was able to take full-length pictures of some recent quilt finishes.  I'm going to be optimistic and save those for tomorrow's Rainbow Scrap Challenge link-up.