Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2019

I'm joining something new (to me) this year! I love rainbow-themed quilting and have a number of scrappy projects on the go. I'm going to join the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by soscrappy and make some progress on these UFOs this year.

From her page:
Each month I will announce a color.  Your job is to use your scraps to make something.  A block, a few blocks, a small project, an entire quilt.  The details are all us to you.  Hopefully, by the end of the year, you will have enough blocks for a quilt, or a finished project or two. 10 Colors for 2019 in no special order: red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, dark blue, light blue, purple, pink, brown or black.

These are the projects I'll be working on:

Crumb blocks - these use up my smallest bits and pieces:

I plan to use these to make a sewing machine cover using the original polyester dust cover as a pattern (and base). I'll have to take some measurements and plot how many more I need to make of each colour.

String blocks:

I have a few different projects on the go that need string blocks. This one was made for Bonnie Hunters' Zuckerwatte pattern, found in her first String Fling book. You can see all the quilts here - I have several on my to-do list. I'm going to do this in all the colours, in a variety of sizes ranging from 3 1/2" to  8 1/2" - if I don't have a quilt in mind quite yet for a particular colour, I'll make them in the largest size, because I can always cut them down. I use old telephone books as a base for sizing.

Boxy Stars:

Another Bonnie Hunter pattern - this one can be found on her Free Patterns page (she is such a generous lady):

I started this one simply to use up some of my many 2 1/2" strips.

Maverick Stars:

Another freebie from Bonnie, these are great for using up those little leftover triangles.

I'm going to do some with light backgrounds and others with the colour as the background. I think is going to be so much fun to look at when it is done. 

I know I have many more UFOS that could also fit into the Rainbow Challenge, but these four will make a good start and conceivable be finished this year as well!

I also found out how to backup my blog today! After six years of blogging, I would hate to lose it all. Here a screen shot of where to go in blogger from your design page (follow the yellow highlighter!) 

Linking up to the RSC2019 for the first time! If you are a first-time visitor, my name is Terri and I live on the beautiful West Coast of Canada, about 2 1/2 hours north of Seattle, WA. I still work full-time (about 4 years before my planned retirement), raised my 2 daughters as a single parent and now have 3 beautiful grandchildren that live on the same street as I do. My blog name reflects the fact that I am the queen of UFOs (50 at last count) and the "all-knowing goddess of everything" according to one of my friends - my mind is full of Useless Bits of Information (UBIs)! Looking forward to seeing what everybody else is up to!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

This is my first time posting on soscrappy's Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I love using up my scraps, right down to the littlest crumbs, so this challenge is right up my alley.  The colour for the month of January is blue, and I have lots of those!

 

I've started by rummaging through my jar of cool-coloured crumbs:

 

 

I made one crummy block (3 1/2" unfinished):

 

 

 

I also added another house to my Tiny Houses collection (3 1/2" unfinished):

 

 

 

And a block to my Polaroid collection (3 1/2"x 4 1/2" unfinished):

 

 

 

(Not sure why the solid white looks wavy when I imported it into blogger, it looked fine on my computer!)

 

Next up, sort through my bin of scraps:

 

 

I'm too lazy to put everything away as I finish projects, so I stuff the leftovers in this bin and when I have a few minutes (i.e. bored, unmotivated, etc.) I pull it out and cut them into usable size strips and squares, a la Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User System.  I highly recommend it if you struggle with scraps!

 

To see what others are doing with their scraps, check out this week's links on soscrappy's blog!

 

Happy Scrapping,

 

Terri in BC



Easy Street, Step #2

 

I am loving Easy Street!  Thanks to Bonnie's great instructions, I finally have made perfect flying geese that are straight and true, with no trimming required!  First, I made some more 4-patches:

 

 

Then on to the flying geese - they are so pretty!

 

 

I have about 14 different black-on-white, and about 8-10 different greens and I am really pleased with the results.  I've changed the colour combination and using lime green in place of the purple.  I'm hoping my daughter and her husband like the quilt layout, and if they do, I'm making this king-size.

 

 

My finished pieces so far:

 

Step 1: 4-patch - 111 of est. 300

 

Step 2: Flying Geese - 73 of est. 200

 

I used the leftover ends of the strips to make a couple of 3 1/2" crumb blocks.

 

 

When I was doing my Orca Bay mystery last year, I used the trimmings from my string blocks to make some crumb blocks in monochromes:

 

 

I have no immediate plans for them, but they make a nice decoration in my sewing room.  I also make 3 1/2" selvedge blocks and houses:

 

 

 

 

And even a 3 1/2" x 6 1/2" block from the trimmings of my Union Jack pillow.

 

 

Once the line is full, maybe then I'll decide what to do!

 

 

 

 



Sunday Stash Report, Week 8

It's that time of the week again, and I am so glad that I started keeping track of my purchases and my finishes.  It gives me the accountability I need, both to not buy what I don't need right away, and to use what I have. Of course it hasn't stopped me from starting new projects!  More on that later. 

In the meantime, I stopped by my LSS this week for a very good reason!  I took my Orca Bay quilt to a long-arm quilter recommened by my LSS.  Linda of Quilted Cats Hideaway does most of Hamels quilting and going to do a nice, simple meander on this quilt that has so many seams and fabrics in it.  Of course, the backing I brought was 10" too short (I was going to use muslin, but have stolen some strips off the end of it which made it too short).  I went to Hamels and they had beautiful wide-backing flannels on sale so I got a beautiful red with a black swirl. It's in the washer right now, so I can't show it to you, but trust me it is perfect for this quilt.  I had to buy 90", which translated to 2.3 metres.  Of course, it's 110" wide so it was a screaming deal at $15.97/metre for quilt-shop quality flannel.  I'm going to have to take another look at some of the wide backings for yardage.  I also picked up 4 fat eigths to add to my scrap bins, which some are looking a little empty since doing Orca Bay! 

Used this Week: 0 metres

Used year to Date: 30.5 metres

Added this Week: 2.8 metres

Added Year to Date: 14.4 metres
Net Used for 2012: -16.1 metres

No finishes this week, my sewing machine is lost somewhere - apparently the servicing was finished on Wednesday, but they don't have a tracking system to figure out where exactly it is.  So...hopefully it shows up tomorrow, or on the next delivery Thursday.  If not, I'll be doing the freak-out dance all over somebody Thursday night!

In the meantime, I improved my setup of my baby machine this crammed corner between my ironing table and me and my scrapbooking stuff to my right:

to the spot formerly occupied by my regular machine:

Doesn't she look tiny?  I've put a USB drive and my scissors beside her for scale.

At least, I got a few more scrap blocks done and started 3 more tiny houses.  By time I finish these three, I might be able to dump those scraps.  Not bad for stuff I would have thrown out hoarded forever.  I'm going to start filling a pillow for my dog, as she has taken over a piece of fleece and made a nest under the cutting table.

These little blocks all measure 3 1/2 " and will finish at 3".  I'm not sure if they will appear in the same quilt yet, but it's a possibility.

Building Houses from Scraps

Have you heard of "Building Houses from Scraps"?  I joined the blog challenge that started on New Year's to make a house a day for one year - FAIL! I finally got my rear in gear tonight and tried out a couple of these little houses - my goodness, they are small! I've used a flower-head pin for scale.

They're not as crooked as they look in these pictures.  I took them at 11 p.m. and didn't use the flash, so I was trying to avoid shadows.

I'm foundation-piecing them as that is the only way I can get any accuracy.  These ones were pieced on my half-size machine, cuz I sent my regular machine in for servicing two weeks ago, and it's still not back.  I was suffering from withdrawal, and had even resorted to cleaning and dusting my sewing room!

There are four of these on each sheet of paper - look how tiny those pieces are - perfect for crumbs!

I've decided on yellow for windows (to simulate the glow of lights or candles) and red doors, and blue for the sky.  Other than that, anything goes!

Green House:

Scraps from a diaper bag I made for my first grandchild (green dot), blue roof is leftovers from his crib quilt, and a '90s calico in the chimneys. The rest is from scrap bags I bought at a couple of quilt shops to fill out my stash a couple of years ago (and never did anything with until Orca Bay came along!)

Purple House:

Purple gifted from a friend's scrap stash, chimneys from my granddaughter's crib set, blue starry fabric has been in my stash for about 10 years, rest from scrap bags.

I'm pulling the reds and blues from my crumbs that are left from my Orca Bay quilt.  They look so pretty in my jars!

Once I've made some crumb blocks and a few houses from the usable pieces, I'm dumping the rest.  I have a hard time getting rid of scraps, but I think I've done my best with these!



And then there were four (steps, that is!)

As Christmas is getting closer, it's tougher to get to the sewing room, but I've managed to get a few red string blocks done.  I am really loving these blocks - I also tried a couple of new things this week that I'll keep doing in the future.

First, I sewed the strings together to the full length of the first strip, except for the very last ones.

Then, I followed Bonnie's revised cutting instructions to cut the blocks in half first, then use the companion angle template to trim the triangles to size.

This one got sewn a little crooked, but I was able to fix it by trimming it after cutting it in half.

I also like this method because the paper blocks are a little larger then we needed, so I could adjust the trimming so the seams fell further away from the corners (this is one of the blocks I cut to size first before cutting in half).

It makes for 2 different looking triangles!

Don't they look pretty all lined up!

Making a crumb block was a lot easier with these trimmings - but I don't think they have as much character.  Check out everyone else's progess at Bonnie's Linky-thing at http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/12/mystery-monday-link-up.html

Other things of note:

This was my view driving home from work the other day - the full moon rising over the local mountains.  The pointy one in the centre is Mt. Cheam, and it is only about 15 km from my home.

I have a collection of nativities, but last year I had to buy the Fisher-Price one for my grandson, Alex, to play with (and learn the Christmas story).  I have to set it up on his little table, because my dog likes to try to steal the little people (jealous, a little?)

And Zoey was mesmerized by the feel of the branches of the Christmas tree.  She didn't bother with the lights or the decorations, but kept reaching for the prickly branches.

Ouch, Gramma!

By the Third Week of the Mystery, Bonnie had me make:

350 Half-Square Triangles  (322 to go)

74 Little String Blocks (36 to go)

& 224 Hour-Glass Blocks (156 to go)!

The Twelve Days of Christmas kept going through my mind with these new verses!  I have a lovely pile of blue strings & crumbs building up, so I couldn't resist making a little (3 1/2") crumb block from the trimmings of my string blocks.  Not sure if I'll make more, but it is a great way to keep things out of my garbage can!

I'm thinking of my mystery quilt as a marathon, not a race, so as long as I plug away at each step until the next one comes along, I'll be happy for now. It's just so busy between work, getting ready for Christmas and playing with the little ones that I'm not going to stress over yet.