Hexies with yellow centers

In addition to the pieced blocks that I made each month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I made appliqued hexagon blocks.   

Prior to the challenge, I had a stack of English Paper Pieced hexies in a rainbow of hues:

I sorted them out by color and picked a batch each month to applique to a white background:

By the end of the challenge year, I had them all appliqued:

I had purposely appliqued them to an oversized white background square so that I could trim them up evenly when I was ready to sew them together.  Once again, I turned to my trusty Tucker Trimmer ruler to get them perfectly sized.  By positioning  the center point of the ruler over the center of the middle hexagon, I was able to size them all to a uniform  4 inch size.

Now they had a more cozy setting:

I chose to border them with a narrow yellow inner border, and a red outer border with yellow cornerstones.  I plan on using a solid red binding to corral those yellow cornerstones in with the rest of the gang.

I'm going to be make this into a Spring table topper for my kitchen.  Those bright "depression era" fabrics are anything but depressing.  

Another finish that would probably still be in a drawer if it hadn't been for the motivation of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.   You can see what this year's Rainbow Scrappers are creating here.

Rainbow Wrapup

Last year, I participated in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge but never got around to posting my finished quilt tops.

Each month, I made six Birds in the Air blocks and one Crumb block from the chosen color.

Eventually I had quite the rainbow of "birds".

I chose primary colored blocks and made this arrangement:

I added a bright border containing all the colors and the finished top looked like this:

Here's a closeup of the border fabric:

I still had all the pink/turquoise/fuschia blocks to work with, plus some extra primary colored birds so I put them together in a second quilt top:

Here is the border fabric I used for that one:

I was fortunate that both border fabrics were acquired for only $1.00 a yard at my quilt guild's yard sale last year.  Both quilt tops are child sized and were donated to my local chapter of Quilts for Kids.

I still had all the Crumb blocks to play with:

I decided to put them together in a wonky setting:

To get the wonky look, each block is sewn to asymmetrical borders, which were cut from rectangles of a splashy paint print fabric.

Here's an example of the pink block:

I ended up with this youthful quilt top:

In the end, I'm not crazy about it.  I would not have chosen the bright blue sashing if I had been working at home, but I sewed this together at a quilt retreat and the blue sashing was what I had with me.  However, I think a child will find it a fun distraction to cuddle under, so it was donated to Quilts for Kids as well.

Thank you , Angela, at Soscrappy for hosting another year of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  You can see what other scrappy creations are being sewn up for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2020 over at the link-up here.

Blues for June

This month's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is BLUE,  and so I have been busily appliqueing my blue hexagon squares to their white background fabrics:

The applique gets done at night while watching TV, and during the day I have been working on  a garment sewing project for my husband for Father's Day.  He asked me if I could make him a vest with inside pockets so that he could keep his phone handy.

We went together to JoAnn's fabrics to try and find a pattern.   Not a lot to choose from in men's vest patterns but we settled on a basic pattern and I told him I would engineer some pockets for it.

The outer fabric will be denim and the inner fabric will be flannel.  Here is a prototype of the pocket I have come up with so far:

It may not be a quilt, but I am working with scraps! And they are even dark blue!

It's always a treat to see what everyone else is creating with their scraps over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link up.  Happy Saturday!

I couldn't wait.

This month's chosen color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is ORANGE .  So why am I showing a rainbow of blocks?

The truth is, I have learned that the real challenge of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is...waiting!

This month, I dutifully pulled out the orange scraps

then I made my usual half dozen "Birds in the Air" blocks,

and, also the bonus crumb block:

But...rather than pack them away to wait until next month, I went ahead and sewed up the same blocks from the  blue and purple fabrics that I cut out last month.  Now what was a gal to do but put them up on the design wall and take a peek?!

Each month I have been making 6 blocks of each color, but this layout requires only 4 of most colors, so I will have plenty of leftovers to put towards a second quilt.

Whenever the June color is announced, I'll have to consider starting a new pattern for each month's scraps, as I'm planning on keeping this kid sized,  but I'm just fine with that. If I can't think of a pattern, there is plenty of inspiration from the other bloggers who post each month over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link up page.

True colors

The color that was chosen for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge was AQUA, and it seems that I am not the only participant who has had  a bit of trouble distinguishing between the colors of Aqua, Turquoise and/or Teal.  Or how about Cyan? Lets just go with bluish green and call it a month.  😊

Here are the Birds in the Air blocks I created  for this month:

And here is the crumb block that goes with it:

I get a lot of enjoyment out of choosing the fabrics for each month.  So much so, that I may have accidentally gone ahead and prepared the fabrics for some of the future months.  In fact, I may have also accidentally  decided to prepare both purple and red violet blocks even though there is only one month coming up designated as "purple". 😏

For now, here are the blocks I have completed so far:

It's starting to look like a rainbow!

My second project for the RSC is to applique my hexie blocks to a white background square.  I only had one aqua hexie, so I used this month to catch up on the red ones that would have been done back in February:

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.

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:

Two for one

A while back, I purchased a bunch of fat quarters in a clearance sale.  I had no plan in mind, but the price of about $0.80 each was too hard to pass up, so I just picked up some coordinating colors.

They sat on my shelf (for close to a year, I think)  while I waited for inspiration to strike.  Inspiration came when I found the perfect coordinating fabric that combined all the colors:

The plan was to make a strippy quilt using the floral fabric to tie it all together.

I cut strips from each of the fat quarters, but I also needed strips of white fabric to sew in between them.  This was another time when my Stripology ruler was the perfect tool for the job:

You lay the slotted ruler down one time, make several cuts at once, and when you remover the ruler, you have all your strips cut:

Next step was to sew a white strip to each of the colored strips.

Strip noodles anyone?

I lined up the white/fabric strips on my design board until I got an arrangement I liked:

This was looking nice, but would not be wide enough for a kid's quilt, so I went back to the beginning and created a second set of strips:

Now the resulting quilt would be too big.  Just like Goldilocks, I needed to find the combination that was just right.  I cut one set of strips in half,  and then  I liked the proportions.

I sewed it all together, and added more floral fabric to make a border:

But...what to do with the leftovers from the strips I cut in half? That was easy, make a second quilt! I cut a 3rd set of strips from my original fat quarter bundle, added the white strips and created a second quilt.

I did not have enough of the  floral fabric left for a border on this one so I just made the outer white borders a little wider.

When all was said and done, I had two quilt tops to donate to Quilts for Kids. 😄

With the leftover bits, I cut out some squares for the upcoming months of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Being only 2 months into the challenge, we have not done aqua, green or blue.  I've got a head start!