grab a cup of coffee, and settle in...

it's been awhile- and there's lots to catch up on! get your coffee, and settle in- we might be a while! 

the biggest news: i'm a grandma again! sweet little LL (named after me! imagine that...) joined our family a few weeks ago. she's the sweetest little thing ever, and evens up the score: grandsons- 2. granddaughters: 2. 

i don't think life was any more particularly busy than normal, but I've not had as much time in the sewing room. (not complaining, just explaining, as my MIL would say...)

my red SquaredAwayBOM blocks have been done for awhile (on time, even!) but i just realized that i had forgotten to post or blog about them.. 

you might recognize my black blocks as the GREEN October blocks. my March SABOM blocks were a mix of light and dark greens, so i decided to do these blocks black instead of green, rounding out the colors a bit in my quilt. 

(you can see my green blocks here. i guess i never blogged about them alone; they just got clumped in with some other blocks...)

i was a good little quilter, and followed the rules for September's blocks. (never mind that they just got finished this Saturday morning in November!) ha. 

i didn't think i really liked these blocks, but neither did i have the energy to come up with an alternate design for dark blue. 

however- after piecing them, they've grown on me, and i do like them now. 

this gives me 29 SquaredAway blocks to play with. i did enjoy piecing them, and using some more of my 3" squares (which do finally seem to be dwindling). i actually don't have any specific plans for these blocks, but i am considering sending them to a friend who had wanted to do the SA quilt, but for health reasons wasn't able to keep up. seems like a win/win- i had the fun of participating, and using up some of my fabric, and she'll have the fun of designing and finishing a quilt. i'll let you know how that works out... 

linking up to SoScrappy- and come back again soon, as i plan on catching up with some of my other RSC18 projects- like my BoHo 9 patch, and the Growing Up Odd quilt, too!

just under the wire...

WHAT?! it's still August while I'm posting this... haha! it was very busy at the beginning of the month, followed by a slow remainder of the month after loosing all our fall crops to some localized flash flooding...

 

but: we're all fine- house, children, belongings... and there's always next year (said almost every farmer ever..)

so: oranges and browns. pretty sparse in my stash- so it was fortuitous that both those colors were together, giving me a bit more to work with...

blogger grabbed the pictures all mixed up, so bear with me...

3 of the Squared Away BOM- you can tell I really dug deep to finish out these blocks..

and 12 eclectic and boho 9 patches. just a couple more months and colors to go...

fourteen 9 patches with kona indigo- don't know why I only got pictures of 8... I couldn't believe how many kona oranges I had- I think there were 8! not sure how that happened...

 

I've been busy with baby quilts (grandchild #4, a girl, due in a few weeks!) and after next week's baby shower, i'll share that quilt here) think: kona cotton solids and the 3" squares. I never seem to get tired of those...

click on over to soscrappy to see what everyone else is working on- and for the new color, too!

half-way there!

my Squared Away BOM is coming along great- we're halfway done with piecing the blocks! I've been using my 3" squares from my *formerly* suitcase of squares.

 

 

(once upon a time, the suitcase was even all neat and tidy like this, with orderly stacks of squares sorted by color)

despite sewing with 3" squares for RSC14, RSC15, RSC16, RSC17 AND RSC18, the suitcase never got any emptier. as a matter of fact, it got even fuller and fuller- so much so that now I have a DRAWER OF SQUARES.

 

(if you click on the linky tabs at the top of my page for RSC, you can see all the quilts I've made from this 3" square treasure trove. )

 

 

at some point recently, I gave up on being able to sew and piece faster than the squares were procreating and reproducing, and moved them all into a drawer. (and that's almost full already!)
 

 

so: just as well- I like to sew and piece the fabrics together, and I try to remind my family that sewing is soothing to me, and makes me a nicer person....

 

so there's that, anyway... ha!

a parade of pinks...

every oncet in a great while, I sneak up to the sewing room and sew on some of my pinks...

4 more blocks were added to my RSC18 take on Growing Up Odd.

9 different pink 9 patches were added to my Kona/indigo 9 patch pile.

and 3 more blocks of the Squared Away Sampler BOM were added, too.

the 3rd. block is a bit of an "oopsie!" maybe i'll fix it later...

lots more pink in the parade over here!

snatches of time and squares...

even though I've only been regularly blogging about the RSC for the last few years, it's hard to come up with a title every week. maybe I try to be too clever? anyway... hope the title isn't too dumb sounding...

I finished my 3 Wishing Rings, picking the purples that I #1- really liked and #2- had enough of.

I've enjoyed piecing these blocks- and I love how they're a bit different from what I normally do.

I pulled all the purples out of my suitcase of squares, and after rounding up a few stray purple pieces, I had 84 unique purples for my Growing Up Odd quilt!

quite a few of the purples were the only one, but I had enough variety/volume to make 3 blocks for my GUO quilt- a 7X7 block in purples (with lots of value variation) a 3X7 in lavenders and 1 9 patch in the redy-purple.

 

 

this weekend, my two youngest daughters talked me into a "Winter Gathering" party with a few friends from Sunday School- complete with a craft, a buffet (with several choices of snacks and tea!) and LOTS of decorating involving no less than 50 paper snowflakes. I'm definitely not the Hostess with the Mostest, but they're so excited, and their friends are too- I'll have to let you know how it went!

 

meanwhile, click on over to so scrappy to see what everyone else is piecing this wintery week!

 

 

 



RSC18- rolling right along...

it was a cold and snowy week here, but lots of sewing happened, so it's all good!

last week I forgot to mention that the tutorial I'm using for my #holidaypatchworkforest blocks is from Amy, over at Diary of a Quilter. 16 more blocks were added to my forest this week, making them the final of the blue blocks that I 'll be doing for RSC18.

 

despite this being my 5th (!!!) year of RSCing from my suitcase of squares, it never seems to get any emptier. rather, it just gets fuller and fuller- to the point that it won't even close anymore!

( I can save you the bother of clicking through and scrolling to find out more about my suitcase of squares: I cut all my scraps into 3" squares, and then store them in a vintage suitcase that belonged to my mother.)
 

I've pieced dozens of quilts (really!) from that suitcase... some fabrics are used up now- especially the favorites, but they've been replaced with some newer favorites, and gifted and shared fabrics. so the quilting goes on...

the nice thing about using the consistent size to piece {most} of my RSC blocks is that they're all interchangeable, and it makes using up orphan blocks fairly easy. (even if not terribly attractive.)

 

 

these blocks for the RSC18 Squared Away BOM will finish at 12½" inches. it was nice to actually sew with some triangles- I've done squares for so long, that it was a nice change. I tried to play nicely with all the other playground folks, and stuck to light blues, and a contrast for the + in the middle. I'm happy with these blocks, and I look forward to seeing what else Angie and Mari come up with for the rest of this quilt...

 

click on over to see what all the other RSCers were working on this week! (and click here to see my first finished UFOs of 2018!)