Sue

Sometimes life throws you a curve & you just have to breathe & run with it. I had been slowly working on the Split 4-Patch blocks for Many Hands Many Hearts & for some reason I had in my head that they were due at the end of March. Then I saw the post announcing the block drive for March/April was LV 9-patches. (face palm) So this week I spent time getting my 43 Splits all done & then made 16 LV 9-patches to send in at the same time. Along with some cutting out for other projects, that was my week. No scrap blues.

We got the Wholehearted by A Bright Corner all sewed up this week in our FaceTime quilt group, so it goes in the closet to wait for the quilter. I’m so in love with that Albion fabric line by Amy Smart!

The last of my blue RSC blocks will have to get done next week while I start on yellow. I was frustrated at first, but then I realized that nobody is making me do any of this, so relax & enjoy & if I don’t make deadlines, there’s still time next month. It’s all good!

Finishes first! This RSC2022 project got derailed by my accident & sat in a box until last year when I got it out to see what I had left to do. Turned out I only had 2 colors left, so I got those done during the appropriate months, got it quilted & sewed on the binding this month.

Another finish is this March small quilt for the stand. It slipped in for a photo shoot, but won’t make its appearance until 1 March. Sorry it’s so dark, but all the colors are Sparkler fabrics.

This is Scrappy Hearts by Quilty Love. I was making these for RSC2024 & when I went to put the flimsy together at the end of the year, I found that I was short 3 hearts. So I laid them out & determined I needed a navy, light green & dark green. So whenever green rolls around, I’ll make those & get busy putting it together.

Here are the blue Scrap Stash Plus blocks from a free pattern by Quilty Love. They are using up a background jelly roll from another project where I only used a couple strips, & a clearance curated jelly roll from a shop going out of business. Seemed like a perfect project to “roll” these fabrics out of my stash.

The last of the WholeHearted blocks got put together in this week’s FaceTime quilt group, so next week we begin the sashing. So far, this is the quickest we’ve ever worked a quilt & we are astonished. It means we finished up our meeting by discussing ideas for our next project.

One of my goals this year is to turn a WIP into a finished flimsy. Since this Rocky Road to Grayson has a blue background, I thought it would be a good project for this month. By assembling all the various pieces I had already made, I ended up with 10 blocks. I don’t see any notes in the box (eye roll), so don’t know what I planned originally, except I know I never planned to make the giant size of the pattern. So the next step is to sit down with the pattern & do some quilt math & see if I can really get it done this month.

The top is the navy blue Scraptastic Stars by Melissa Corry of HappyQuilting. This one has really nice contrast.

Then below are 4 more rail fence variations to add to the pile from last year’s accumulation. The pile is getting bigger & soon I’ll get them all out & see where I’m at with putting together quilts. Or I’ll just keeping making them all year & then see. Who knows?

Halfway through the month & I have half of my blue projects done, so I’d say that’s staying on track! I haven’t tackled a WIP for the month yet, but there’s still time. I have a goal to finish one each month in 2025.

Remember how I started working on Bonnie Hunter’s winter mystery, Old Town, in November? Well, it’s been sitting neglected, so I got it out & did clue #2, which is 244 little four patches. You know Bonnie’s quilts are always full of lots of piecing, so they take time. And I’m in no hurry on this one, except to finish it before this year’s mystery arrives!

Our quilt group progress on the WholeHearted quilt means there are 5 more full blocks to put together, then we start the sashing. So it’s really moving along. I wish I could get the photos to reflect the real colors, as the pinks are much more pink than the reddish shown here.

Here is Angela’s 2015 Sawtooth Star Sampler with a Carrie Nation block for the center. I thought the blues for the little 4-patches would be more contrasting, but ended up blending. Ah, well; still cute. I did the first pink star with Sparkler fabric for the points & have decided that will be my one consistency in this scrappiness. I picked up some Sparkler in the rainbow colors I didn’t already have so I’m set for the year.

I made 6 dark blue County Fair blocks by Amy Smart in the book, “Scrap School” by Lissa Alexander. These are fun to grab stray squares & sew them up.

The first February FPP block for the Frightfully Fun! BOM is the tombstone which I’ve done in these bright colors. Love that rainbow sunburst at the top. This was a more complicated block, but my FPP skills are coming back!

I finished my February small quilt from The Flying Geese Log Cabin for the stand. I have the March pattern & will start cutting that out next week so that I’m ready.

And finally, this week’s quilt group progress on the WholeHearted quilt. We made one full block, and the 6 half-blocks.

These are my Moda Blockheads. They’ve done a set of blocks every year & a couple years ago, they published the first two years in a book of 48 blocks & hubby got it for me. It’s been sitting around & this is the year to make some rainbow flavored scrap blocks from the book.

And the last of my 8 RSC projects for 2025. (What the?? Epic fail on cutting back on projects. I know.) This is Scraptastic Stars by Melissa Corry of HappyQuilting. This may be the first of many patterns I’ve purchased from her & yet I’ve never made it. This is the year as it’s made to be a stash-buster. I bought the white grunge to use for the chain & had enough black grunge for the sashing, so the colors are all 2.5″ scraps.

In other projects, our quilt group was busy & we each got 6 hearts around our centers for the WholeHearted quilt. We are halfway there on the full blocks, then there are 6 half-blocks to do. I so love this Albion fabric by Amy Smart!

And the other January FPP block for the Frightfully Fun! BOM is done with a pink band on the turquoise Witch’s Hat. I’m transitioning from pink to the blue month!