crumbing along: piece by piece..

i've been MIA most of the summer- it's been crazy! and by crazy, i mean more crazy than normal. {how is that even possible?!} more about that soon... 

you can click HERE to get a brief update of where my summer went... 

i've been working on my crumb blocks here and there as time, energy and my schedule allows... i have many of my colors sorted out- and stacked on paper plates, ready to grab, sew and press when i need a little break! 

greens, browns, blues... always SO MANY of those crumbs in my stash... 

i have a big enamel bucket, full to the brim, of these 6½" (unfinished) crumb blocks! 

and i'm "way behind" - i haven't even started (or sorted!) the purple and orange scraps... 

thanks for stopping- and i'm trying to get a bit caught up on my bloggy/quilty/life news. (wish me luck at NOT spending all afternoon at the computer!) make sure to stop by Angela's blog- our RSC hostess with the mostest!

 

a parade of blocks: hope you brought your lawn chair!

somehow life got really, really busy! i've been sewing in the background (remember: I'm like a duck. all calm on the surface, but paddling like crazy under the water! haha...) 

a couple months ago, i sorted my dark neutrals jar of crumb scraps- it was really (REALLY!) full, and i thought to get a head start on November...

I'm glad i did, too! i still have several paper plates of browns and blacks to piece into the 6½

 crumb blocks. as it is, there are 80 (!!!) finished blocks to show here today.... 

i also have LOTS of green, so i did separate my green crumb sewing into the suggested RSC May colors of sage and dark greens, saving the brights and lights for next time.... 

i also sewed 25 Railroad Track blocks (rectangles 4½" X 9½") as a start on this quilt. 

 be sure to click back to Angela's blog, and see all the other green (and colorful projects) everyone else is working on! 

A Pink to Beat Them All...

i've pieced several more of my {Kona school bus} house blocks (finishing at 6") in pinks. i've started on the browns, grays and blacks for November, too. this brings my total up to 12 little houses. 

but who wants to talk about quilts, when we can talk about BABIES! our 7th grandchild (4th granddaughter) was born last Friday!!! She came a couple days early, a surprise to all of us, since my daughter, M, is typically a week late. 

of course, we're all just smitten with baby Sadie Ella, and love her to pieces! 

her baby quilt, Hop Skip, was finished (and washed to crinkly softness) just in time, too! 

M, (Sadie's mama) bought the deer fabric and i combined some muted Kona pastels for a subtle, but cozy quilt for our newest little one. 

Aunts A&B are also always thrilled with a new niece, and we've tried really hard to all be polite to one another and take turns holding the new baby. ha!

Sadie has a big sister, Addie Kathleen (who will be 2 this week!) and i'm sure they'll be the best of friends!

here's the whole family: M and husband K, along with C (5½), L (4), A (2) and newborn Sadie. as you can imagine, their household is busy and noisy! 

in other exciting news: A and B talked me into going with them to a for King & Country concert in Bingamtno, NY. (it happened to be the same day that Sadie was born, and also my first in-person, real live concert. i'll readily admit I had fun, and wasn't as bad, boring or loud as i thought it would be...)

we made a weekend of it, staying overnight in a hotel, and doing some shopping, too. it was  a lovely time, and we made some great memories. 

in more quiting news, A decided that she wanted to make her piano teacher a quilt. (free pattern here) this was truly a labor of love for A, as she really doesn't enjoy sewing. Mrs. Weed has taught  A piano for 7 (?) years, and last week was A's last piano lesson from her for a while, since the Weeds are going to Italy for a mission trip. 

I'm almost done quilting the top, and we'll put the binding on and gift the quilt early this upcoming week. We've found a new piano teacher for A (Mrs. Davis studied at the Cleveland Conservatory!) and we're all confident that although we'll miss Mrs. Weed, A will continue excel in her piano endeavors. 

 and since it's Saturday, and the RSClinky party, I'll close with just a *bit* of green for this rainy May morning: obviously, i have lots of green in my crumb jar, and I'll be busy making some green crumb blocks this week. (in my spare time. ha!) 

i've been working on the railroad....

all the live-long day....

hum a few bars with me...

i've been piecing the railroad crumb rectangles this year for RSC22, to join the other RR crumbs from RSC16 (?). part of my hold up, and not getting any further on this particular project was my uncertainty on how i would want to assemble the top when i had enough blocks. most of the quilts i've seen using the crumb/strip rectangles are made with trapezoidy-shaped blocks, and i definitely want to stick with rectangles. (call me lazy or algebraically challenged...) 

seems i'm just as forgetful as i ever was... (i should read my own blog more often; ha!) i remembered this week that i had intended to use Amanda Jean's (Crazy Mom Quilts) June QAL pattern for this Rainbow Rails quilt. 

after a lightbulb of an idea went off in my head, and a brief but colorful design session with EQ5, here's what i came up with. i'm very happy with this layout, and even have some black fabric (from my stash!) in mind. 

so now that i've got a clear design direction, i feel excited about this project again. although i LOVE the rainbow effect from corner to corner in my EQ layout, i've a feeling that the rows will be more determined by how many of each of the colors i have available to work with, rather than rainbow order. 

thanks for stopping by! click back on over to Angela's and see what everyone else is working on! you just might be inspired... 

 

more pinkity pink pinkness...

i'm happy that i've been able to make some progress on my pink RSC blocks in this busy, busy month! there's so much going on, that it's nice to retreat to the sewing room for some soothing fabric play!

lots of HSTs this month- i'm getting excited about this project, and the design possibilities! originally, i was thinking that i'd piece linear, colorful columns,  but at the moment i'm leaning towards a bit for ecclectic and interesting.... (think Gee's Bend) i'll see how this project evolves, and what it needs when it's time to piece the top... 

35 crumb blocks this month will join the pile...

lots of pinks: hot pink, pale pink, salmon, purple-ish pink and some dusty rose join the party... 

 i'm almost done with the pink for our April RSC22- just need to work on some of the schoolhouse blocks- pink, and there are a few holdovers from aqua last month... 

Pretty is Pink!

life gets so busy: tasks, responsibilities, jobs, relationships, to-do lists... i really appreciate the direction, creativeness and camaraderie of my RSC friends and sewing! 

13 (Kona) framed 9 patches were completed for April's pink. (a few of them definitely lean toward salmon. there may be a few more salmon blocks lurking in the orange jar; i'll find out when we get there in a few months... 

18 more "two step" blocks joined the party, too. 

crumb blocks: 

Where  I Started (January 2022)

How It's Going (April 2022) 

i discovered Angela's RSC monthly colors in January of 2014. i've been piecing crumb blocks ever since: RSC14, RSC15, RSC16, RSC17, RSC19 and RSC20, only taking a break during the years of RSC18 and RSC21. 

somehow, the jars never get empty! (they do look pretty, though, don't they?!) you can see that even though the colors red, aqua and yellow have already been done for RSC22, there's still some seeds of colorful scraps in there to grow for next year! 

also: looks like i'll be very busy in the months of green, grey and blue! and i didn't even get started on pink yet. maybe this week... i had a {commissioned} wedding quilt to finish, and grandbaby #7 {a girl} will be here in a few weeks. i have her fabric, the pattern and a date with the long arm quilter. i plan to start that quilt today... 

if you have eagle eyes, you'll notice that there are no browns or blacks in the gallon jars on my shelf: TOO MANY! i mentioned in my last post that i had decided to get a head start on Novembers brown/black colors. good thing i have a head start! 

44 crumb blocks of tan, foxy brown, inky browns, black, chocolate and golden browns and this isnt' even a quarter of the scraps, i'd guess! 

when i'm ready to piece the crumb blocks, i sort the color from the jars into monochromatic piles on paper plates. (no picture, sorry. it turned out terrible. but here's how Julie does it, which is exactly how i do it. after the initial sorting of colors, it makes the mindless piecing of the crumb blocks mindless and relaxing.) i had 16 plates of different tans, browns and blacks. if i remember correctly, these crumb blocks are from 4 or 5 of the plates...

thanks for stopping! thanks for looking! thanks for commenting! i read every comment, and *sometimes* even reply! and i'm a faithful, lurky visitor to most of the RSC linkups every weekend! 

yellows, kona cotton solids and a UFO, too!

i'm all done with my yellow and gold for March. in a fit of a brainstorm, i decided to start on the browns and blacks for November: my scrap jars are overflowing, and i enjoy having the mindless piecing of the crumb blocks at the end of a long day... (no pictures of the browns and blacks yet, but soon...)

but, here's the rest of my yellow projects for RSC22. (above) starting on the left of the design wall is the yellow blocks for my Two Step Quilt. Next are the framed 4 patches with Kona neutrals

(i didn't piece any yellow house blocks for March- with the Kona School Bus background fabric, there would not be enough contrast in the colors...) 

the 1930's blocks on the right are an ancient UFO.( i belong to a Facebook group, UFOBingo, and it's helped me get some of my UFOs to the DONE pile!) This month is G-34, and that was my stack of 1930's reproduction blocks. (it's been in the UFO queue for YEARS now...) 

 

this quilt was in the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine February 2007 edition.( I TOLD you it was an old UFO!) i thought it would make a beautiful quilt for baby BJ, and after she was born, we realized that the blue in the quilt perfectly matched her blue eyes... 

anyway, there was SO MUCH fabric left, and i originally intended to make a matching quilt for our bed. (baby BJ shared our room for a while.) but it took me so long, and the baby grew up (she's 14 now!), we moved, and life just moved on while the blocks sat in a drawer in the sewing room. but February 2022 was the time- i got the blocks back out, sat down with my EQ5, and figured out how i wanted to put the blocks together. 

there were so many blocks that i decided to make 2 quilts- very similar, but different. and actually, these are the first "round robin" quilts that i've ever done. EQ5 made the math *almost* painless, and i'm really happy with how they turned out. (both quilts are 76" square)

at the moment, i 'm thinking one of these quilts for B's bed, (eventually) and i'm undecided about the other one. it's a toss up between A, or my daughter-in-law, P. the{machine} quilting will be baptist fan. 

 the above square turned out too big for the center of the second quilt. instead of ripping it out and fixing the *bad math* i just made another center medallion. (which fit perfectly, thank goodness!) 

so now all the blocks are used up (and giving me 2 baby/dolly quilts for my daughters or granddaughters) and a long-neglected UFO has moved forward with some serious progress! 

yellow- it means Spring: she's really creeping up on us!

crocus in the side yard, forsythias peaking out, daffodils on the kitchen table: yellow means spring is finally coming! 

as usual, i've been busy in the sewing room, but absent here on the blog. i've got a nice little section of yellows pieced for my HST RSC22 quilt- every yellow from pale butter to deep cheddar. (typing that makes me hungry!) 

there's also a nice little pile of yellow crumb blocks: 52 to be precise! 

even though my yellow scraps shared a jar with the orange scraps, there were still many more block possibilities in there than i thought!

again- lots of yellows- butter, golden, almost orange, almost browns, sunshine, lemon and cheese, too!

i see a food theme emerging here... 

 last, but not least, a few "railroad' rectangles and squares. (some from last month, too) i'm uncertain what i'll be doing with these- i guess i figure it out as i go! 

be sure to visit Angela, our hostess for RSC22 and be inspired!