dark and dreary sewing, dark and dreary Saturday

the weather has been a bit rainy and dreary around here this week, but no complaints from me! i'm pleased with the sewing i was able to do this week (mostly squeezed into a marathon late night last night, but that's ok!) 

7 wonky, twinkly stars added to the pile (grey, brown, tan and black)  

*i forgot to take a picture of the brights/black twinkly star... 

i did some more of the donuts and shoo fly blocks as well, in the darker colors. 

my darker blue efforts can be seen here  and here, JICYMI. when i planned on my shoo fly blocks and donuts as my RSC21 project, i pulled a *rather large* piece of yardage from my stash. (3++ yards, i think!) and thought that would be plenty to finish out the year...

 turns out, not quite! so these blocks are on a slight hold, until more fabric comes. i'm thankful for my KONA color card board, and a match was easily, quickly and confidently found, with no agonizing wondering if i was actually picking the correct color. the matching grey is KONA Lighthouse- a new color for me. 

make sure to go see what everyone else is working on- you're sure to be inspired!

finishing ALL the purples:

from the lightest (and darkest) pinks to nearly brown...

life is busy- but i do find some time to have some quiet time up in the sewing room, and keep up with my RSC projects. it's something i really enjoy! 

i added a few more twinkly stars to the growing, colorful pile. instead of keeping the blocks all 3x3, 4x4 or even 5x5 i decided to make them all random, according to the shades of the COM that i had. 

then, at the end of the year, i'll piece the blocks all together randomly, higgelty-piggelty style. i think it will be more interesting that way anyway... 

i made a whole slew of purple donuts and shoo-fly blocks, too. very happy with them as well!

 4 more waffle blocks join the wings, waiting for breakfast time in December. haha. 

i also finished a lingering RSC UFO- from 2019! i made a large pile of 9 patches- both light and dark, planning on making them into a tablecloth. we're having a *modestly sized church/family picnic* tomorrow {what was i thinking?!} and its debut is planned. stay tuned for a post about that. (the quilt, not the picnic, necessarily. i haven't' taken a picture of the quilt yet.. ) 

click on over the our favorite spot for Saturday mornings and see what everyone else is working on! 

### !!! """ [[[ ]]] *** ;;;

i was procrastinating *just a little* bit on my Full Stop quilt for RSC21. finally yesterday, i buckled down and worked out the kinks, and really moved this quilt forward. very, very happy with it now!!!

(there are a few quilts to be seen if you check out the hashtag #fullstopquiltalong, there are a few of these RSC21 quilts popping up over on instagram) 

first up was to decide on the layout of this quilt. i know aqua is coming up yet this year, and i wanted to work in the aqua and BOTH blues. so far that lime green (between the yellow quotation marks and the green brackets) is the only "place holder" row. 

hopefully, it doesn't look too out of place (it will probably fall smack dab in the middle of the quilt) or too belly-button-ish. 

last week A had an orthodontist appointment, so we took the opportunity to go to a fabric store. (our LQS closed a few years ago, and we don't really have one in handy distance anymore). i'll admit to purchasing the purple and orange yardage for this quilt; i just don't really have those colors in abundance in my stash...

 you can see that i changed up the red exclamation points a bit- a combination of not liking the angled version, and being too lazy to figure out the freezer paper directions. once the exclamation points are sewn together in the row, they won't look so chunky. 

the semi-colins did get a bit lost in the purple, but i have no complaints about the blue asterisks! 

go see all the other beautiful rainbow creations... 

quilty friends are perfect friends!

once again, not too much blogging happening over here, but lots of quilting and sewing! i'm grateful for the chances i get to go up to the sewing room and create! 

 

this quilt is actually done now: quilted, bound and on my bed! but in the interest of sharing it, i'll just post the pictures of it in the flimsy stage...

(in case you're wondering, the Kona colors in this quilt are stratosphere and duckling. the whites are just a huge hodge-podge of low volume scraps) 

i started this quilt a few years ago (maybe 2?) when Amanda Jean (of Crazy Mom Quilts) was doing a JuneQAL on her blog. ( i have several of the books that she's written, along with Cheryl, which are some of my FAVORITE quilting books of all time) 

obviously i changed up the color scheme quite a bit, but i made this quilt to be more of a "summer" quilt, and it matches the scrappy bed quilt i made 2 years ago. 

what's with the chicken, you wonder? the girls (my 2 teenage daughters, A & B) are always frustrated with the chickens in our flock- they can be so mean to any chicken that has a perceived weakness. so they "rescued" this hen from the flock, and brought her up to be with the donkey, Daisy. the rescued hens usually stay up with the donkey for awhile, making a general nuisance of themselves, and then she (the hen!) gets kicked out of the pasture, and goes back down with the flock. 

and just for fun- here's another quilt that i did AFTER the SnowflakeQAL last fall. i'm especially pleased with the backing fabric- ITSSOPERFECT! 

i'll be back soon with the catchup post about our RSC21 project, the #fullstop quilt. i'm really happy how it's turning out! 

land of the free; home of the brave...

did not intend to make such a patriotic looking post with these blocks, but here we are...

all my red blocks are now done for May RSC21, and i'm "circling back" to catch up on the blue donuts that i forgot to show from last month...

when i first started my RSC21 projects, i was definitely liking the shoo fly blocks better than the donuts. but looking at the picture above, the donuts are beginning to grow on me! 

 we're almost halfway through the RSC year, and i'm getting a nice little stack of blocks for future quilts. go see what everyone else is working on- and be inspired! 

I'm hungry! let's have waffles!

this post has been waiting in draft form for a few weeks now; might as well add the words and get these blocks out in bloggy land! 

some sewing has been happening for me behind the scenes; our garden is looking different this year (as in not ridiculously huge, no CSA or Farmer's Markets, and i'm just planning on growing for our family with *perhaps* a bit extra produce to sell) 

so far, Dave and i are still talking to each other, (ha! but not ha!) and we're navigating this new season with less stress, and hopefully more understanding and respect going both ways in our relationship

. 

i've got quite the stack of brown waffles, and low volume waffle blocks with the COM. i'm sure more than 2 quilts will be forthcoming in November. 

i "joined" the facebook UFO Bingo page, and i'm slowly working my way through some of my UFOs, as well as UFWannaDos. 

 my most current project is the baby quilt for #babywise. he's grandchild #6, grandson #3, and Baby T should be here any week now. (maybe even next week, if he's as impatient as his mama thinks he might be!) 

i'll be back soon(ish) with some more RSC blocks, but be sure and click over to Angela's to see all the RSCgoodness happening this month!

blue skies and yellow daffodils...

 my blues are SOOOOOOOOOOOO plentiful! i've had some sewing time, and have begun to make my RSC21 blue blocks. i have the shoo fly and wonky twinkle stars to show today. 

i know our gracious hostess has called the light blue for this month, with darker blues to be saved for another month, but honestly, it's just easier for me to sew all my blue blocks, instead of spending time to sort the color twice. 

                                             

18 shoo fly blocks were added to my blue RSC21 collection. i did 7 wonky, scrappy twinkle stars, too. 

                   

                    

with only 1 duplicate in my wonky stars, there are 137 different 3" squares in these blocks! YIKES! 

but: remember, i did say i have ALOT of blues. totally not kidding here...

many, many different dresses, bags, quilts, projects, gifts, skirts, pillowcases, shirts, crib sheets, bibs and aprons are represented in these squares. 

and here's some more happy news: my DIL, P, commented on instagram that she REALLY likes the scrappy twinkle stars. so, i'm planning on gifting the quilt to her when it's done! it makes me happy to know that i'm sewing the quilt for her, and it will have a happy home when it's done, and not just sit as a pile of finished blocks.

*ahem* not that that ever happens around here...

it just goes on and on my friends... the fabric that never ends...

use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without...

that's a saying that a very good (and old) friend told me years and years ago. there's definitely some wisdom in that! 

well, in regards to the pink fabric i'm going to write about today, i've definitely accomplished the first part of this saying!

about 15+ years ago, i bought a bunch of (Civil War-esque) fabrics for making quilts to sell at a local shop. (the selling of quilts has never been a giant success for me. usually i end up giving my quilts as gifts, or donating them to MCC...) 

i must have bought a ridiculous amount, because the above quilt, made for my oldest daughter, M, was about the third or so out of that particular grouping of fabrics. 

the time stamp on the photo is correct. now M is a mama to 3 littles, and A is almost 15! (you can see the pink fabric i'm referring to in the upper left corner of the picture) 

this pinwheel quilt doesn't have the particular pink fabric in it, but there are a bunch of the other Civil War-esque fabrics from that grouping. this quilt was finished and sold to a gas guy during the big gas boom here in our county about 8 years ago or so...

i was still in possession of many of these fabrics, and decided to make a flying geese quilt, using the Eleanor Burns method and ruler. i will say: Easy. Peasy. if you shy away from triangles (like me), then this is definitely the technique for you!

you can see the pink feather fabric second from the left in this grouping. 

this LARGE flying geese quilt was the result...

and was gifted to my oldest son and his girlfriend in our Great Christmas Gifting of 2017. (about time, i'd say, as i started the quilt in 2010!)

A chose this Sunshine and Shadows quilt- same fabrics, same Christmas Gifting of 2017. overheard in the living room after the choosing: A "this is my favorite quilt, ever. it's so beautiful! thanks, Mama!"

some of the feather-y pink fabric made it into this quilt, too! 

one a side note: i even did a tutorial for this block, if you're interested. 

so, if you're keeping track, that's 6 quilts (and counting) for that stack of Civil War-esque fabrics. and i still had some left over! there was some remaning fabric from the original quilt, plus some completed FG blocks. Way back in early January i asked for some suggestions about a UFO finish along. (i work well under pressure) Suzanne was kind enough to tell me about the Facebook UFO Bingo group.

 

so i made my bingo card, and February was I13- the remainder of my Civil War geese and fabrics. i didn't get the top done until March, but now all the geese are used, the quilt top is pieced for MCC, and hopefully, this quilt can give hope and comfort somewhere, letting someone know that they're not forgotten. 

last but not least, there was a just enough of this pink in February to make this waffle block with the COM and low volume fabrics. with the completion of the waffle block, in addition to the latest flying geese quilt, that's it for the pink feather-y fabric! i'd say i've gotten my money's worth, spread the love around, and have finally used every last schnibble of this fabric from my deep stash! 

make sure to click back to Angela's and see what everyone else is working on this week in the RSC21! 

 

the GREEN, she was overflowing!

so. much. green. yikes! but i worked through the whole pile of my 3" squares, and sewed all my planned blocks for RSC21. (and i'm also very happy that i've managed to "get rid" of all the darker/muted greens, leaving the bright and clear greens for my RSC projects.)

my preferences, and my stash has changed in the last 7 years or so... 

5 wonky stars blocks and 86 individual greens. (see above: YIKES!) 

donuts and shoo fly blocks were done, too. 

and last, but not least, the "waffle blocks". the lighting was overcast this morning; the brown is a nice, rich chocolat-y Swiss dot. 

 

what's GREEN on the inside, but BROWN on the outside?

MARCH, of course! (if you're sewing along with the RSC21 color of the month...)

i've had lots of sewing time this week- i'll have to remember to be especially thankful for that come June, July and august... 

i'm very pleased with how my Full Stop quilt is coming along! i decided to make it 65" wide, and arrange the punctuation in rainbow order. i added a lime green spacer row between the yellow quotations and green brackets. i'll sew the rows together as we complete each color. i'd like this quilt to be about 85" long when done. 

and just because it's the green month: here's another I Spy quilt i'm making for my DIL's sister. E was recently widowed, and she has 3 young children. (her husband was a police officer, killed in the line of duty) I've been feeling that i need to spread my quilts out a bit more, so this was a perfect opportunity to use some more of my I Spy 5" squares. 

it's hard to tell from the {poor} lighting in the picture, but the solid blocks are a hunter green. 

                                                    

 i plan on quilting it this morning while listening to our Saturday Morning Radio Shows (anyone ever listened to Ranger Bill? {warrior of the woodlands...})

make sure to click over and see what everyone else is doing!