March RSC Purple Blocks

I had a bit of time and finished up all of my different blocks for the RSC for the month of March.  The color for March was purple.

Purple Crown and Star block.  This is a Marcus fabric is which is a reproduction.  It almost looks brown or gray, but it is this lovely purple color. 

All of my Crown and Star blocks together.  I love how these blocks look together without sashing.

 Saw toothed square.  The purple I used was from my stash.  One of the few purples that I actually had enough to make the block.

My row of Saw toothed squares.

A couple of my favorite purple foxes.  Love the chipper fabric with the raspberry, lavender, pinks, and aquas.

All of my fox blocks.

There is a missing fox which is blue to add to this group.  

I finally got the Twisted blossom cut out and sewn.

So many fun purples, and background scraps I found to use.  

My row of twisted blossoms.

Finally the Navajo block.  

Love the colors and I found another small piece to add to the background stash for this quilt.  

All three of the Navajo blocks.  I have been choosing colors that remind me of the southwest.  The browns remind me of the red rock areas, the blues of the sunny cloudless skies, and twilight, ad the purples of the distant mountains, with the lavender the sky at sunset above those mountains. 

I am linking up with the So Scrappy and the Last Purple Saturday.

Last Minute Easter Bunny

I decided at the last minute to make some small Easter baskets.  I had seen a tutorial or blog post about a tiny basket, but knew I needed to make one a wee bit bigger.  I just kind of figured out how I was going to construct it and went with it.

The toughest part for me was finding some "boy" fabric without going shopping.  I raided my stash and think I came up with some boy looking baskets.

 A puppy basket for Finn.  I think I won this fabric a few years ago from Julia Graber it was her scraps from a quilt she had made for a grandson. 

A Batman basket for the middle grandson Gabriel. He told me recently when he grows up that he is going to change his name to Bruce Wayne.  (Embrace the superhero phase!)

Finally for the oldest grandson a space/planet basket.  I received this fabric from Dawn at Sew You Quilt 2.  Perfect for Xander who is all about space, aliens, and all things strange and wonderful. 

I just cut squares of fabric for top and bottom with some scraps of batting for the middle  the two baskets that I liked the best were 12 inch squares.  Sewed around the edge and then tried "pinking" Finn's basket.  I think my pinking shears are ancient and they were just not doing the job.  Also Finn's basket I made fabric wide enough, but probably a bit too long so that you saw doggie faces on all 4 sides and they were facing up.  The next two baskets I have a fiskars paper cutter which says it is a Victorian Edge and I used that to cut the edges of the next two baskets.   To make the corners I just matched the edges and sewed up through all layers about 2 inches from the point.  Handles were just two strips.  I like about 12 inches, sew around and use the decorative cutter, and sewn on using a pair of buttons.  I cut cardboard scraps to make the bottom stiff. 

If I decided to make these again I think I would probably opt for smaller squares maybe 10 or even 8 inches.  But they turned out cute.  Stuff a few eggs with whoppers, and jellybeans and we are all ready to hop.

Trouble Choosing

Have you seen the super cute blocks for the In Our Garden blog hop? 

Amy at Sew Incredibly Crazy is hosting this hop which is going  for a whole year.  No stress there right?  Two blocks each month, one block pieced and one block applique. Even this timid beginning appliquer is game. 

Here are my February blocks.

 These are my March blocks.

Theses were designed by Carol  at Just Let me Quilt. 

I will say that I spend more time choosing fabrics than to make these blocks. 

Many of the fabrics for this one came out of my string bins, most pieces were less than 1 1/2 inch wide so I could just dig for something that took my fancy.

Much Ado About Scrap

Have you seen it?  This wonderful quilt made of 1 1/2 inch wide strips cut from 1 1/2 inches to 4 1/2 inches long then sewn randomly end to end in a mega length?  Then you cut the strips into 12 or 18 inch strips and sew them together to make blocks.  I heard about it from Mama Sparks World, and I went searching on Pinterest.  I am not going to post a picture since it belongs to someone else but I found the originating post at Margaret's Hope Chest from 2012.

I have been working on mine as leader and enders.  I have a couple of different sets going, and they are getting quite long.  They will be going to a friend so she can make a quilt similar to the one on at Margaret's Hope Chest.  Now tell me isn't that a wonderful way to use up some of those scraps?

I had squishy packages waiting for me on the porch this afternoon when I got home from the diabetes nutrition class I am taking with the MIL.

Some fabric and a 6 inch curvy log cabin ruler which I purchased with the gift certificate which I received from my parents for my birthday.  The gift certificate was from The Fat Quarter Shop.  Then as I was blog hopping there was a 10% discount code for The Fat Quarter Shop so I went shopping again. 

I was trying to figure out some fabric to finish up a quilt, so I bought some Moda grunge in 2 different blues (they are the basic of the month) don't think I quite got it, but I can always order some other blues,  and I love the fabric with the little chicks on it. 

I then went on a search for fabric to finish up a quilt and found it at Hawthorne Threads. 

Next I had a 30% off coupon from Shabby Fabrics for my birthday and I purchased these.

The fabrics are called Scroll Ombre from Quilting Treasures.  I just love the colors in these fabrics. 

My last package was from Dawn at Sew You Quilt 2 .

Isn't the pinnie sweet?  Love it and the fabrics will be great in my stash!  Thanks Dawn for being my Easter Bunny!

National Quilting Day

How did you celebrate National Quilting Day?  Many people stayed home and sewed away.

DH and I went out, what we planned was to go pick up a part for DH antique tractor, and then to a quilt show, we headed out early in the morning.  Things didn't go quite as planned.  We picked up the part for the tractor and headed to the quilt show.  I had heard about this show, but when I looked up information I only found that it went all day.  When we arrived at the venue we found out that it didn't start until 1pm, or 3 pm depending on what sign you were looking at. 

Dh and I decided to go to a couple of antique stores that we had seen nearby.  Yes I did manage to do a lot of walking even though I had bruised up my foot pretty badly earlier this week.  One store was very cool, most of the items were salvaged out of homes, churches and other buildings that had been demolished.  I would love to be able to afford some of their light fixtures to go into our old house. 

Since we weren't too far and we still had a couple of hours we wandered to a little quilt store in Saline, Michigan called The Quilting Season.  I picked up these lovelies.

The snowflake fabric I bought because I think that is the one that was the guild fabric for the friendship block for January, the one where I won 11 blocks.  The reds I purchased because as I have been working on the Allietare and sewing the blocks together there was another part to cut.  I need a bunch of bigger squares of red, and I had used most of what I had in making my blocks.  The floral I bought, just because I loved the colors and how springy that it looked. 

The quilt show was nice, but I could not get any pictures.  It was put on by the Western Wayne County Quilt Guild and it was in the Old Van Buren Township Hall which was built in 1875.  Lets just say that the venue was very small, and they had the quilts hung from clothesline back to back in rows which were about 3 feet apart, and there were about 40 quilts.  You could not see them to get any real perspective.  I will say there were a lot of quilts which had been started years ago and recently finished, and there were quite a few which were hand quilted. 

When we finally got home I decided to do some sewing and DH went to work on his tractor.

I made a blue fox and I cut up quite a few scraps. 

I had a Gift Certificate from Fat Quarter Shop from my parents for my birthday, so I made some purchases.  Then as I was blog hopping through the Quilt Qwazy Queens which is hosted by Marian at Seams to be Sew  there was a coupon code for 10% off at Fat Quarter Shop so I placed another order.   I also had a 30% coupon from Shabby Fabric for my birthday so I decided that I was going to use that too.  I can't wait until my booty fabric acquisitions arrive. 

So how did you celebrate national quilting day?

A Passion for Purple

I had one of those weeks, not a lot got done.  DH took Monday off, and I started to take a class at the senior center with the MIL about nutrition, aging and diabetes.  I will take the class for the next 4 weeks.  Tuesday I worked on loading a quilt on the quilter, which was not easy, and I fought it big time, then I had a guild board meeting.  Tuesday afternoon while sitting at the breakfast bar chatting with DH, I went to push back into the captain's chair and my foot slipped and I kicked the cabinet.  Really hard!  DH decided that it warranted a trip to the emergency room.

I thought my foot should be part of the RSC see the nice purples streaks?  It isn't broken, just bruised really bad, and swollen.  Wednesday DH stayed home to help me wrangle "The Finn", and for some reason I spent the majority of the day sleeping.  Obviously my body needed to do some healing.  Thursday I still took it pretty easy, just hanging with Finn, cutting scraps, and reading. 

Friday was the day!  I pulled out all of those pretty purples, and started cutting.

A purple fox with a foxy face.  The fabric is the new Tula Pink line called Chipper for Free Spirit.

I know this line was by Joel Dewberry

I then decided to lay out my skulk of foxes (I love that a skulk of foxes).

Wait a minute here.... I am short a blue fox.  The orange fox was going to go into the original baby quilt but I chose not to use it. I went back and checked my other posts and I only had made 4 blue foxes.  I need to make another fox, a blue one. 

I forgot how much I like purple, except not on my feet other than maybe my toenails. 

Roll With It

There are times in your life you don't feel like you have a whole lot to say/or share.  Then there are times when things just roll.

The quilt guild friendship block is called Dottie. I understand it is a Moda Bakeshop Pattern I hope this link works.  Dottie

Look more purple!

I also managed to finish 2 6 blocks from the Allietare NSMQAL (Not So Mystery Quilt Along).

 

One of the gray and red, and 5 of the red, gold and black.  I have been kind of doing them as a leader and enders while I am working on other things. 

I made the Twinkle Star for the bag lady block for quilt guild.  Bag lady is when you select a pattern and about 4 or 5 yards of fabric.  Each month you get a new bag and you make your pattern out of the fabric in that bag.  At the end of 9 months you have 9 blocks.  The fabrics in this bag were just black on white, white on black and white flannels.  I think this one was much more a study in value, and it turned out pretty well. 

I also finished my purple block for RSC in the Saw Toothed Square pattern,and of course we have to have the obligatory picture of all the blocks.

I have been cleaning up scraps, and cutting them into strips. 

I cut 5 inch strips, 2 1/2 inch, 2 inch, and 1 1/2 inch strips. Some of the 2 1/2 inch strips are made into tumblers, and anything smaller is thrown into a strings box, and all the trimmings which cannot be used are put into a pet bed.  I am making a small dent in my scraps, but I have a long way to go.

Purples Aplenty

Obviously I went a wee bit overboard on acquiring purples.  I showed that I had went on a hunt for green fabric and had acquired some purples.

Then I did some online fabric acquisition and bought these from Hawthorne Threads.

And some solids also from Thousands of Bolts.

I think I am ready for my skulk of foxes, the Navajo block and twisted blossom.   I have a secret....I didn't think I had very many purples, and when I was rearranging my sewing room I found several selections of yardage in purple too.

Oh what you find when you aren't looking! 

Next Steps

I have had a couple of days where I have been sewing my little heart out.

Since I did not have a lot of purples for the RSC that I wanted to use for my foxes, twisted blossom, and I could not find one that I would like for the Crown and Star block I made some stash enhancements at one of my favorite quilt shops.  What was really great is that they will cut fat quarters for you so I chose a wide selection of purples and lavenders.

This is the Crown and Star block in purple.  I am not too sure if I am loving the purple because it almost reads as a brown.

Here are all of my blocks hanging out together.  

I finished filling the pet pillow for quilt guild.  I use scraps that I have trimmed from blocks, and when I square up my fat quarters, yardage.  It took me a year to fill this pillow it is about the size of a king size pillow.  I already have a gallon zip loc full of scraps for the next one. 

I finished all of these units for step 5 for the Allietare quilt.  Yay me!  I also had a few of these to make.

They are all done too.  So I am off to step 6, the final step.  Whatever will I do when I finish all of my steps and have an actual quilt top?

Choosing Shades

 My last post I had the conundrum, that I could not find a dark fabric to go with this piece.

I looked through my stash (and boy do I have a lot of green) and was not thrilled with what I came up.  This fabric is almost a Kelly Green with a lime color running through it.  I went to the quilt shop, and I put it next to all sorts of dark green batiks and did not like any of them.  I finally found this one and it was  slightly darker, and it was at least in the same color family.

The guild fabric is the bottom, the one I purchase is above it.  I made the block and it just did not have a whole lot of contrast.  The block is called Sunshine and Shadows.

At guild there were greens all over the rainbow, but none of them really looked good IMHO.  There were solids, some batiks, and even some polka dots.    I should have taken a picture to share how tough it was to find a complementary dark green. 

I also mentioned that Cheryl had shared fabric that looked like the one I had been searching for all over.

Mine is the small strip, and the one that Cheryl shared with me is the large piece.  Can you believe that it is about a shade or two darker.  I am going to use what Cheryl shared with me I don't think it will be really noticeable, and if it is I would put the two blocks made earlier will be put at opposite corners of the quilt.