Getting the green light

Participating in Rainbow Scrap Challenge is inspiring me in more ways than one.  

It's been 10 whole years since I started this blog and one of the first projects I blogged about were these English Paper Pieced hexagon flowers:

These little cuties measure just 1/2" on each side, and I had a lot of fun with fussy cuts and 1930's reproduction fabrics.  Back in 2009, I had a stack of 40 finished hexies, each with a yellow center.

I had always planned to make them into a table runner but instead, they had been stored away in the 30's fabric stash.  The idea of making lots and lots of white hexies to join them into a grandmother's flower garden was an intimidating prospect.

At this point, I can't help but think of that line from Beauty and the Beast:

Really?  Ten years!  

Then, along came the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I noticed that Deb A of VT quilter was sewing up a selection of hexagons each month as part of her challenge.  She is appliqueing her hexie flowers to a solid background fabric instead of connecting them with additional hexagons.    I wondered if I could do the same.  I sorted out my hexies by color and took a look:

We have already done the color red, but I could work on the green for this month and still have orange, blue, purple and pink to work on in future months.

I decided I want the appliqued blocks to finish at 3 1/2 inches.

I cut white background squares to 5 inches to give me some wiggle room that I can trim later,  and appliqued my first green hexagon.

Over the course of the next week, I finished the applique on the rest of the greens:

I'm really looking forward to getting these hexagons sewn up and put together into a quilt.

And speaking of green hexagons...here is a handy wearable magnet that I use when doing handwork as a place to capture pins:

So... to Deb A. and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, thank you for getting me going again on these little lovelies.

Searching for Shadows

As previously posted, I finished making all 12 squares for my quilt guild's Half Square Triangle sampler.  Here, I'll refresh your memory:

The pattern calls for sashing with cornerstones like this:

But, being the rogue quilter that I seem to have become, I wanted to try something different.  I wanted  to make the blocks stand out by creating an illusion of a shadow behind them.  Here is what I had in mind, from my Electric Quilt software:

To create the shadows, you start with two strip sets, each a combination of sashing fabric and shadow fabric:

Then you slice the fabric into individual strips:

For each sampler block I needed to sew one shadow/sashing to the bottom of the block

and then add the second shadow/sashing strip to the adjacent side:

So off I went, adding shadows to all 12 blocks:

I liked the effect, but thought that maybe the shadows were going to be too big for the blocks.  So, they each got a quarter inch trim and I tried again:

In retrospect, I probably should have gone with the first option, because after sewing the blocks together, I ended up with this:

Admittedly, it makes for a nice way to showcase the blocks, but I think the shadow effect got a little lost. Next time I will have faith and stick to the original plan. 😕

Anyhow, I'm still happy with the way it turned out, and I will be adding an additional outer border of a turquoise/lime green batik to bring out the turquoise in the blocks.

Greens for St. Paddy's Day

No surprise that the color for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge was GREEN.  I started with this small pile of precut green squares left over from the Kids quilts I just finished:

Then it was time to search out the greens to go with them.  Turns out there are a lot more different shades of green than I thought.

I eliminated the darks and the olive/forest/yellow-ish shades and came up with these:

Much as I loved that grass green fabric in the bottom left, it turned out to be a pristine fat quarter with nothing cut from it yet so I put that one back in the stash.    This is supposed to be a scrap challenge after all.  But....that brings up the question...

Just what is a SCRAP?

There are lots of different definitions I am sure, mostly concerned with the size of the piece of fabric.  But for me, and for purposes of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, a scrap had to be something that was left over from another project, regardless of the size of the piece.

Although it looks like a lot of yardage, most of those green fabrics had chunks of pieces missing:

Anyhow, now that we have that cleared up, 😉, here are my  green Birds In the Air blocks for this month's challenge:

and here is the matching crumb block:

zipper pocket tutorial

Start with two fabrics.  The gold is the outer fabric, and the red is the pocket lining.

Mark a line on the right side of the fabric

Find the center of the pocket lining fabric and draw a line.  Draw a rectangle for the pocket opening.

Position the lining right sides together over the outer fabric.  

Sew on the lines to make a rectangle.

Cut out the center of the rectangle through both fabrics.

How to do the corners:

Feed the lining fabric through the hole.

Press.

Reverse side:

Place opening over the zipper.

Sew the zipper

Reverse side after sewing the zipper:

Fold lining fabric right sides together, aligning raw edges:

Sew the three outer sides together.

Finished pocket with zipper closure: