Quilting

I made two Scraptastic Stars by Melissa Corry this month so that I could have orange & peach. The Scrap Stash Plus blocks are from a free pattern by Quilty Love & there are only a few left to make to finish this quilt, as I cut them all out in January.

The next 5 Moda Blockheads are done & I’m really loving how these turned out. This leaves one more orange block for next week, so I’m doing well with my progress.

I sewed more Scrappy Chains for the Many Hands and Many Hearts block drive, making a total of 38 to send off. Instructions here if you want to add to Cynthia’s pile.

Happy summer sewing!

Two more orange blocks done this week: County Fair blocks by Amy Smart from “Scrap School” by Lissa Alexander and Angela’s Sawtooth Star with the Woven Four Patches center block. So happy to finally be making these from her 2015 tab! They’ve been on my wish list for 10 years. Y’all know how that is!

You may recall I had plans to make one of these small hangings for this stand that correspond to each month. I have most of the kits & got Jan-March done and this April cut out. Then all the things happened that got me behind & I just left this project. I pieced, hand-quilting, & bound it this week & we are pretending it’s for June. I’m going to have to catch up next week. It’s all good.

I started on blocks for the next block drive for Many Hands and Many Hearts. It’s called Scrappy Chains & you can make some, too! Instructions here. I started cutting strips like crazy & then turned them into blocks, getting 16 done, with more to go next week. I do love this pattern & need to use up some of my stash to make some for myself one day.

June’s color is orange & I made a start on some blocks. I got the Patchwork Hearts done in orange & the related peach & coral, plus 4 more scrappy rail fence blocks with 2.5″ squares.

Remember Bonnie Hunter’s L&E Challenge from last summer called County Clare? I was excited about it because I like it & also loved the colors she chose for it. But it turned out to be too fiddly for me as an L&E, so after working on it for a while, I let it languish & started working on a new L&E project (Ocean Waves with scrap HSTs). I was inspired to get it out this week & power through to a finish. Admittedly, it was much easier to do when focused on it full-time and I’m happy with the result. I bought a green grunge for some continuity, then the blues & LVs are all dug out of my bins. As usual, mine is smaller than hers & finished at a lap size. It’s now hanging in the closet waiting for its turn at the quilters.

I finished binding this group quilt project this week. I’m very happy with how it turned out. We each made one with our own choices of fabrics & made the same blocks each week, working together. I made this entirely from my stash, using the cool half of an old Elizabeth Hartman layer cake, supplemented with matching fabrics I had in my bins. The sashing came from the cut-off sides of another quilt’s backing. Scrappy samplers often seem overwhelming to me, so I wanted to experiment with a limited palette & I’m very happy with the result. The pattern is from “Sampler Spree, 100+ Fresh & Fun Quilt Blocks” by Susan Ache.

I didn’t use all the Bonnie Hunter Catching Rainbows blocks from a previous RSC year in the quilt I ended up making, so what to do with leftovers? Make two donation quilts designed by yours truly, quilted by one of my quilting partners, & bound by me. Glad to have these done.

The top is my Strippy Slab Star using crumbs & strips from my bins.

For RSC2024, I made these 18.5″ heart blocks for the Scrappy Hearts pattern by Quilty Love & in the fall when I went to put it together, I realized I was two blocks short. Huh? And there were no greens. So I set it aside & told myself that when the 2025 green month came around, I would make a dark & a light, then put it together. So that is what I did this week!

If you are interested in these things, it’s the Throw size with scrappy background. Now it goes in the closet to hang around & wait for quilting, but at least I’ve managed a WIP finished for this month.

The last green project is the Patchwork Hearts from Quilty Love. I needed 4 greens to replicate my design from last year’s RSC project. I feel really good about being all caught up with my 8 RSC projects, plus my Frightful Fun BOM blocks.

One of those necessary, but not so fun, tasks got done today: cutting out this year’s Festival of Trees auction quilt. It has a Twelve Days of Christmas theme, because it’s a family tradition to sing it every Christmas Eve with pictures we hold up for each day. I used a Riley Blake panel & scrounged Etsy shops for matching fabric.

So….you may recall that Santa brought me the Frightful Fun! BOM for Christmas & I vowed to improved my FPP skills & stay caught up each month. Life intervened & I got behind, but May has been my catch-up month. Squeee! Three of the bones were made in March, on time, but then I just kept printing patterns & hoping to get back to it.

This week I’ve been an FPP machine! It’s been super fun. I made the other three bones to finish off March, then made the pumpkin stack & candy corn blocks for April. May’s blocks are the 18″ bat on the moon & the little bat, so I’m all caught up & ready to go for June’s pattern drop next weekend.