ORANGE you THANKFUL for friends?

i wrote about my dilemma with my Growing Up Odd quilt a couple weeks ago. The blocks were all pieced, with the exception of one 49 patch. I asked for suggestions, as to what color block to piece, AND: 

a never-before-met-quilty-friend, Dorthy, sent me a bag of orange scraps (more like orange hunks and small pieces, really!)

there were 50+ (!!!) pieces of orange in the surprise package i received the other day... enough to make the remaining 7X7 block for my Growing Up Odd quilt. 

the infusion of fun, new and colorful fabrics has spurred me on to finish this top! i dug out some neutral from my drawer, did some simple math (since my squares are cut at 3"; different than the size in the tutorial) and got to sewing. hopefully i'll have a finished flimsy to show next week! 

while my cat (Millie) naps in the sewing room, i've been busy making forward progress on this fun quilt. she's laying in the box of *another quilt that i've started*: the blue is kona cotton stratosphere, with a patchwork design with 1 of all the different 3" squares in my drawer. i think it's going to be obnoxiously big (the quilt, not Millie!) as there are far more squares in that drawer than i imagined!

and just to keep things interesting- i'm along for the ride on Bonnie's mystery quilt this year- Good Fortune. i've done all the shopping from my stash (yay, me!) and have substituted the orange for cheddar yellow. i'm thrilled with my colors- especially love those blues! 

i've pieced all of clue #1- just need to do the spinning of the middle seam and then the pressing. this is my fourth Bonnie mystery. i love the colors, so i'm hoping i love the quilt, too!

( i was a bit disappointed in the MQ from 2014) but after all, it's just fabric, right? i know the completed quilt will be loved by someone, no matter what!

linking up to Angela at soscrappy and Bonnie at Quiltville. thanks for stopping! 

how odd is that- TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY!

  I've been working on my Growing Up Odd quilt right along, and was making pretty good progress until i hit the wall...

above is a "cheater picture" from my instagram layout... i like the controlled riot of colors. 

my squares are 3", and the quilt will have 9 blocks, making for a pretty large quilt....

i was thinking of doing the sashing for in each of the blocks, and between the blocks in white/cream. 

that may change, though...

i do tend to get hung up (more than just a little bit, i'll admit!) on keeping my blocks monochromatic within themselves. 

does that last sentence even make any sense?!

some colors i have LOTS AND LOTS of... (like blue, red and whites/creams)

and then there are colors within my stash that are pretty poorly represented.

orange and brown come to mind...

so: maybe you can help me? (pretty please?) i need one more 49 patch to finish out this RSC18 quilt, and i welcome suggestions! i do not have enough orange or chocolate brown to do the last big block, which would maybe seem to be the logical conclusion. a green block was suggested by a friend on facebook. 

what say you, quilty friends? and be sure to click over and visit all the other RSC18 projects at Angie's blog- it's the end of the year, and the fantastic finishes are really starting to roll in! 

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!

bleeding red: a photo dump for July!

I saw a hashtag on instagram: #julyvalanche and I can attest that that accurately describes July (and August) in the gardens and fields! SO. MUCH. PRODUCE.

 

lots of Farmer's Markets, too- sometimes 3 a week, but it's all good! Most of our produce is selling well, and we're eating well ourselves. life is good!

4 more 9 patches with the Kona indigo. I think I have a few more reds in my stash, but I need to dig them out first...

17 more eclectic AND bohemian 9 patches were added to my stack this month.

I've made progress on the Squared Away BOM, just no pictures to sew. (maybe next week...) I've pulled the red and teal 3" squares for my RSC18 Growing Up Odd, but that's as far as I got...

Be sure to click on over to So Scrappy and see what everyone else is doing!

all the pretty little {aqua} squares!

my fingers are flying as I type zippy-quick like... today is a busy day with a 12th (!) birthday party planned at the amusement park (Knoebel's) for A. excitement is running high, of course, and still some things to do to be ready to leave on time...

17 blocks of aqua 9 patches- eclectic and bohemian is the look I'm going for...

and a lonely tag-along of pink from last month...

4 indigo 9 patches in the Kona: teal, breakers, cyan and turquoise. azure coming soon, as soon as I have time...

 

be sure to go look at what everyone else is working on as we finish out aqua, and wait for the next color...

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!