A Little RSC Progress

 I have not had many active Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects this year.  I finished a few RSC projects from previous years, and made lots of leader-ender blocks.  I also started making 25-patch star blocks part-way through the year, and added to that collection as the year went on.

I've been trying to use print fabrics for the 25-patch star blocks.  Here are the results from October's RSC color, yellow.  

And since I'm trying to knock out as many blocks as possible before the end of the year, I went back and made some aqua/teal blocks as well.

I now have all the rainbow colors completed for this project, so next I'll go digging through the black and brown scraps for some useful prints.  I currently have 32 blocks made and would like at least 48 blocks before I start assembling.

I've also been making Bonnie Hunter's latest leader-ender block, Easy Breezy.  I try to keep a stack of leader-ender parts stacked up near the sewing machine, but I've run out and need to replenish my supply.  I'll keep making these through next year, as I don't have nearly enough for a quilt yet.

I leave you with this amazing map from the National Hurricane Center.

It seems like I've talked about hurricane warnings in every post this summer.  Turns out I wasn't far from wrong!  The map illustrates the number of days spent in the dreaded "Cone of Uncertainty" for tropical weather predictions.  This year is definitely one for the record books!

Scrappy Catch-Up and Finish

 I've done a little work on Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks this month.

Our challenge color was red, and I made four red, scrappy 25-patch stars earlier in the month.

Since I didn't start the 25-patch stars (yes, I'm using a throw-back name) until mid-year, I've been working backwards through previous RSC colors.  My green scraps were a little limited, but I still have lots of time to balance out colors if needed.

I also dug up some additional red scraps to make some Easy Breezy Leader-Ender blocks.  These are fun scrap-buster blocks; I need to cut some more parts to replenish my leader-ender stash.

I was finally able to photograph a finished quilt that started as an RSC project.

According to my notes, I started this quilt in 2014, but I apparently didn't blog about it until 2017.  This represents just about every blue fabric (excluding reproduction fabrics) that has made its way through my stash in the past six years!

The quilt is destined for the bed in my guest room; it measures 88 inches by 93 inches.  I didn't follow a specific pattern, just made Variable/Sawtooth Star blocks and Uneven Nine-patch blocks until the quilt was the size I wanted.  The Flying Geese border added a few extra inches and a finishing touch.

Long-arm quilting by Diane D. Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting.  I love how the double clamshell pattern worked out!

Some of you know I love the combination of blue and white.  Whether it's quilts, transferware china, or KLM houses (thanks, Barb!), I seem to gravitate to all things blue and white.  I figured this quilt was as much a collection of blue and white as anything else I collect, hence the quilt name.

Finishing this quilt was a great sunshine-y spot during the past crazy months!

Missing in Action

As usual, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s were a blogging break for me.  I don’t necessarily plan it that way, but time and desire to blog seem to disappear during that time frame.  Lucky for me, my quilting mojo didn’t disappear, so I have a few things to report on before we turn the page to a new year.

Our oldest son (Andrew) moved to Denver, Colorado at the beginning of September.  When he left, he only took the stuff he could fit in his car, and left his remaining belongings and dog with us until he could retrieve them later in the year.  He flew home for Thanksgiving, and by Saturday morning we had packed his stuff into Dear Husband’s pick-up truck and headed for Denver (dog included).

I won’t bore you will all of our adventures, but I will say I look forward to flying to Denver next time around!  We came back to New Orleans using a different route in an attempt to avoid some bad traffic congestion along the Texas/New Mexico route.  All told, we traveled 2700 miles and passed through seven states!

Just as we returned, our youngest son (David) flew in from Dallas.  It just so happened to be the perfect time to celebrate David and Dear Husband's December birthdays.  David is also a huge fan of his alma mater's football team - LSU - so his Dallas friends surprised him with an LSU football-themed birthday cake. 

Dear Husband and Bailey

Right before Christmas, our dog Bailey, a black lab mix, succumbed to a rapidly spreading form of cancer.  Bailey came to us as a puppy twelve years ago.  She was left on our front door-step in a basket with pink toys and a pink blanket.  Since she arrived just before my husband’s birthday, he considered her the Best Birthday Present Ever, and they were bonded at the hip.  The house feels pretty empty now, since Andrew’s dog is gone, too.  Our sweetheart yellow lab, McKenzie, doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.

In between all that, I managed to do some stitching here and there.

Project Numero Uno was to finish the black and gold Endless Chain quilt I started for Andrew.  I completed the piecing before Thanksgiving, and Diane Knott (Butterfly Threads Quilting) was able to long-arm quilt it for me while I was adventuring out west.  I’ve been trying to get the binding stitched and label attached so I can send it to Andrew as soon as possible.

I also made some blocks for Barb Vedder’s Oh My Stars swap.  Oops!  I didn’t take any pictures before I sent the finished blocks to Barb.  I did the Modern swap this time, and I’m looking forward to playing with my blocks later in January!

Thinking toward 2020, I knew there were a couple of Rainbow Scrap projects that needed some attention.  I made a batch of yellow Ring of Stars blocks, but I still need red blocks before I can assemble my RSC efforts on this quilt.

I also cut up lots of scraps for Carolina Chain leader-ender blocks.  Some Christmas fabric scraps made it into the latest batch of blocks.

There’s more to share, but I’ll stop here for now.  I’m not in much of a mind to do a retrospective of the quilts of 2019, but I have been giving a lot of thought to what stitching projects will be under the needle in 2020.  Let’s hope it’s a great year for quilting!

Leaders or Enders?

I was a relative late-comer to the concept of using leader-ender projects to increase one's quilt-making output.  I never used the leader-ender practice when piecing, mostly because I never saw the need for it.  But when Bonnie Hunter promoted the idea of working on two quilts at the same time - one as the "main" quilting project, the other as a leader-ender project - I was sold!  Now I feel guilty if I do any stitching and don't use leader-enders as part of the process.

The Queen of Leader-Endering - Bonnie Hunter - has announced this year's L-E quilt along will be Tumblers.  I didn't really want to jump on the bandwagon because I have other quilty ideas in mind that will work just as well as leader-enders.  But Diane of Butterfly Threads blogged about her Tumblers AND her great Tumbler templates and I started weakening.

 

I rationalized that I already had some Tumbler pieces cut and ready to go. 

Inspired by Karen at Nana Girl Quilts, I had cut a stack of Tumbler pieces several months ago.  I had finished making memory quilts from my late father's shirt collection, but I had way too much shirt fabric left over to just toss the remainders (the fabric is mostly poly-cotton blends, so I didn't want to mix the left-overs into my regular fabric stash).  Karen inspired me to make a Tumbler quilt to use up more of the shirt fabrics; I had started cutting pieces, but hadn't progressed any farther.

 

I've done some tentative piecing of the Tumbler parts, but I'm not sure there's enough color variety in my shirt fabrics for a successful quilt.  I'm trying to decide if I want to throw in some random scraps of cotton quilting fabrics that were also used in the memory quilts.  I don't have any of the scraps cut in Tumbler shapes yet, so I guess my next step is to do some more cutting.  BTW, I'm using a Fons & Porter Wedge Template because it was the only ruler I could find at Hancock's when I first started cutting Tumbler pieces several months ago.

I'm still undecided about whether I'll use this as a leader-ender project, but I think a little more experimentation will be a good thing!  

DIY: Design It Yourself

I've been working with another of last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  Simple 16-patch blocks were my first-ever RSC blocks.  I dug into my bin of scrappy 2 inch  squares and strips and pieced a year's worth of rainbow blocks.  I knew from the beginning I wanted to set the 16-patch blocks with hourglass blocks, and in the early months of the challenge I also cut the hourglass triangles as I went along.  The triangles fell by the wayside as the year went on though, so I have some catching up to do.  

When I'm piecing a quilt by the seat of my pants I always wish I had a reference book with instructions on how to cut the blocks or block components I need.  I have a few books with great instructions for certain blocks or borders, but no one reference with everything in one handy place.  Wouldn't a Dorling-Kindersley type book on quilt block construction be great?!

The hourglass blocks were easy.  They're really just quarter-square triangles, and there are lots of methods for constructing those.  From my old standby Template-Free Quilt Making, I know quarter-square triangles can be made by adding 1 1/4 inches to to the size of the finished block.  Since my 16-patch blocks finish at 6 inches, I cut 7 1/4 inch squares and then cut the squares on each diagonal to make 4 triangles.  Match the appropriate color triangle to its adjacent 16-patch and the hourglass blocks are ready to go!

Since I had already cut batches of triangles, my method of choice for making flying geese blocks (for the end rows) was limited.  Fortunately, I had bookmarked a great flying geese tutorial on Marcia Hohn's wonderful website, Quilter's Cache.  

Geese are under construction.  I only need to make 10 more of these!  

That's OK, it gives me the opportunity to also make the 8-patch rectangle panels as a leader-ender project.

These are a no-brainer to construct, but I think we can all thank Bonnie Hunter for raising our awareness about leader-ender projects!

When it comes to Design It Yourself quilt projects - do you have any favorite reference books or websites?  I'd love to hear about them.  I'd love to compile a list and share it with everyone!