Scrap Happy in August

It's time for our monthly display of scrappy goodness hosted by Kate and Gun. To see who else is participating you can hop over to Kate's blog. Not everyone works with fabric!

I've sewn nearly all the 6" Bow Tie blocks from my Parts Dept. into 12" circles.

Then it took a couple of days of arranging and rearranging them on the design wall to come up with a layout I was happy with.

I wanted to keep the lighter backgrounds in the middle of the quilt top. It was hard to get the blocks balanced, distributed evenly. The lighter ones always seemed to be clustered near one end. Eventually I hit upon an arrangement I could live with. 

This made the top 60" x 72." To make this more useful, say for a teen graduating from the foster care system, I wanted to add a bit of length. Another night of cogitation brought up the idea of creating a fringe effect by using a stripey print.

So now I have a 60" x 80" top. 

I also have a print ready to be pieced to make the back. That print is of dogs of various types and sizes. It's just occurred to me that these Bow Tie Circles could be seen as dog collars! After all, every dog ought to have a bow tie or a necklace to wear. 😉

I've made a few new blocks for the Parts Dept. recently too.

One of these days I'll have to see what I can do with them!

Two From Australia

The last of the Footsquare Freestyle blocks that have been made for me have arrived! As it happens, both sets hail from southern Australia.

These are from Robin. She got a little excited and made four blocks instead of just three!

Nanette made these:

I was delighted to see the House block. I almost made one for myself. Now I have a hedgehog and a vase of flowers, a tall ship and a house among all the other blocks. I have one more block to make for myself (although since Robin made four I guess I don't really have to!). I haven't a clue yet as to how I might set these. They could all go into one quilt or I might be able to get two smaller quilts out of them. And, of course, if I make one or more blocks on my own I'll have that much more to work with!

In the meantime, Claire has asked for blocks in turquoise, gray, and white with black prints.

Turquoise is a little tricky since it's a blend of green and blue. It could look more green or more blue depending on what's next to it. I've already made (and just mailed today) three blocks for Claire. I hope they fit in with her idea of turquoise. You'll have to wait to see what they are though!

Up to My Neck

Recently I had to move the Bow Tie blocks in my Parts Department to make room for still more Hole in the Barn Door blocks. The other day I decided to count up those Bow Ties to see if I had enough to do something with them on their own. I've used small quantities in the past as borders or rows in quilts with other blocks but I've also continued to make new scrappy Bow ties. Even though the 2 gallon plastic bag I'd stashed them in was pretty full I wasn't sure I'd have enough for a strictly Bow Tie quilt. 

That's 136 Bow Ties!

Just for kicks I started laying them out on the design wall.

I tried to ignore the bow ties themselves and focus on the background colors or values. It remains to be seen whether or not that was a good idea.

Turns out I have enough 6" Bow Tie blocks to make thirty 12" blocks, with maybe another ten Bow Ties left over. And, of course, there are more scraps in the wings that could be turned into Bow Ties! You may not see this again until Scrap Happy Day on the 15th. I have a couple of new projects brewing in the background. It's too hot to use the iron for very long currently. A quick press of yardage might be all it takes to get me started cutting for one or the other of those new projects. 😉

Bee, Myself & I in July

Last month I showed you the beginning of a new quilt I'm making for my own pleasure - which is the essence of the Bee, Myself & I challenge. I'm making a version of the free Rainbow Blur pattern offered by Free Spirit Fabrics. I'm using featuring botanical prints from the Kaffe Fasset Collection.

After making another 22 four-patch blocks in the correct size the top is complete:

It will measure about 60" x 75" when it's eventually a quilt.  Before that can happen I had to come up with a back. There wasn't enough yardage of anything in my stash that would have been appropriate. I haven't felt like shopping this month either. However...

Back in January of 2013 I made my first flimsy using the Jelly Roll Race or 1600" Quilt process.

I love the colors and prints in the batiks but wasn't overly impressed with the end results. So this has been living in the closet on a hanger ever since. I thought the day might come when I'd be courageous enough to cut it up and rearrange the parts for a more interesting design. It hasn't happened in over five years. I've also trotted it out once in a while to audition it as a quilt back. It was never right for that purpose either... until now. 😊

The colors are great with the Kaffe prints. All it needed was a bit more width and length to accommodate long arm quilting.

James, my quilter-son, is busy performing in three separate Shakespeare plays into the middle of August so there won't be any quilting taking place until the end of that season. I'll have to find something else to work on for next month's end-of-the-month post!

Stitching Along in July

It's been three weeks since our last SAL check in. I managed to complete the 'kindness' block in the block of the month series I've been working on.

The next two blocks in the series have been traced onto fabric but that's as far as I've gone with either of them.

Just this week it finally dawned on me that I could do another version of this needlepoint case for some mindless stitching.

I decided to make it all flying geese units, leaving out the pinwheel. This gives me an ideal place to use one strand of Nancy's hand dyed floss per "goose." I'll have a wonderful sampler of the various shades and colors I've collected from her when it's done.

Unfortunately, when I put in the first couple of geese I didn't realize I had the case upside down! I'm sure it will all work out in the end but that shows you how frail my thinking processes have been lately. 😉

There's a whole flock of us working on our individual needlework projects in this stitch along. We're welcoming Deborah to the group this time around so be sure to drop by and say hello to her. 😊 We have members all around the globe so if you don't see a relevant post the first time you visit you might want to try again another time. Our next check in will be 19 August.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina,

Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Mary Margaret,

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Tony, Megan, Timothy, Catherine, Deborah