RSC 2014 November

I am amazingly close to being caught up with all the colors for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. It is truly shiny.

I do not do Block of the Month (BOM) quilts or Quilt Alongs (QAL). I am so limited in the time I have to quilt, that 1. I need anytime I can eek out for quilting on my own projects and 2. I can never keep up the pace.

The exception has been the RSC. I was delighted to find a QAL I could do! I chose a simple block: Snowball. 

I’ve been keeping up…until school started and I had to go back and work. August is surely the bane of my existence! (You can find woesome posts singing the dirges of August here: 2014, 2013) When August rolls around, about three months of my own life disappear under stacks of paperwork, meetings, trainings, assessments, and inservicing teachers. Believe it or not, I’m a teacher. Sometimes it takes me two hours to answer my email for a day. I have an inordinate amount of paperwork. I would love to just teach, it is a joy, my passion. I think I spend almost as much time doing non-teaching tasks as teaching.

But I digress. As for the RSC, August was light green and September was orange. I was able to pick out my light green and orange scraps. 

For October, the color was light blue. I've patted myself on the back and have done a little dancing because I got it done. I just didn't get it posted. And now, here they are:

This month is browns/greys maybe blacks. And I made those also! As for August and September and the fabrics I picked out...there a tragedy unfolds as I can’t find my orange or light green fabric!

I’m a great believer that if you search for something and just can’t seem to find it, then stop. It will show up sometime soon. For me, it translates into months or years before things show up.

Now that your hanky is perfectly soggy, here are my November blocks! I now see that I have a plethora of stripes. Oh well, I liked all the fabrics when I chose them and so they remain!

I'm hooking up at RSC 2014, you can mosey over there by using the button on the left sidebar. It's a great deal of uniquenesses to see what blocks everyone has been making!

Here are the fabrics that I have in each color: At least one novelty, a plaid and a vintage fabric

Seeing Red: RSC 14

I’ve found something quiet I can do!

I’ve been up since 3:00 a.m. Of course I went to bed at 8:00 p.m. because of a migraine…ouch! Sleeping did its magical work, along with migraine meds and I’m a functioning person again!

And now I am here in the quilting room trying to find something quiet to do so I won’t wake up hubby. He’s a very light sleeper. The last time I tried to be quiet in here I ended up having boxes fall out of both my quilt closets. I don’t do quiet very well.

It’s Saturday and Rainbow Scrap Challenge! This month the color is red and I’ve been able to pick out some great fabrics from my stash!

Some stripes. Isn't that second fabric cool? And of course plaid!
I wrote a post on what fabrics I want in each color for RSC.

The first fabric has gold glitter. My novelty fabric, thanks to friend! I love the dishes in the fourth one.
See my post about my recent fabric finds, including the little red hen!

What am I to do? My cat, Kaiju, is so darn cute, even when she's helping in the quilting room!
The second fabric reminds me of spools. The third fabric: duck's feet or leaves. And for informational purposes,
the fourth fabric really isn't plaid, it's checked. Who wants to be that picky?

 You can see lots of creative ways that other quilters are making their RSC red blocks by clicking on the badge on the left bar.

And to leave you with some insight into how much I love reading...

See my Reading List (from Goodreads) below!

Caught Up At Last!

I caught up with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge this weekend. Hurray!

Last month, May, the color was green. Just couldn’t get “a round tuit” because (everyone join in!) school…






This month is yellow and I’m finished already. There’s a first time for everything!

Here are the greens:





The blocks in the bottom row of four contains some special blocks. Left to right: Daisies from a vintage sheet, I think I had that exact pattern on a sheet in the 60s? Plaid, I lovey dovey plaid! Realio, trulio 30s fabric from my Aunt Marie’s stash, froggies from my Sisty Ugler’s stash.

Now that I’m half a year into RSC, I’ve come up with a plan!

For each color, I want one plaid block, one vintage block and quite a few novelty fabrics. I don’t have many novelty fabrics and especially in my past quilts. I decided that I’d like to get a bunch in here for the giggles.

Moving right along…get along little doggies…




The bottom set has the special ones. Left to right:
Row 1: Authentic 30s fabric, a yellow I adore, used sparingly, plaid,
Row 2: vintage gingham (like you can tell!), a baby print (nothing special), a quilt from our local guild show 2007

Row 3: My dad and I—Happy Father’s Dad!, A silly photo of my hubby wearing my sisty ugler’s glasses and my grandpa’s hat, my sisty ugler 1989.

Hooking up with Rainbow Scrap Challenge (badge on the left) and the wonderful blogs listed on the right. Be sure to check them out and see other quilter’s wonderful work.

A Big Finish & Rainbow Purple

This finish deserves a fanfare of trumpets!

The log cabin flimsy is finally done! After a year’s journey I have reached the first finish line!

My last step was to fix the fraying yellow strips so the seams wouldn’t come apart. After all this is a marriage quilt and, besides, after all this work—who wants it to fall apart?

I didn’t take a picture of the top because, well, it is just too darn big! It is a king-size. Due to the 14” blocks and no border, I was stuck with just one size choice. 112 x 112. That just about cover a king size top with some generous over-hang, doncha’ think?

For those of you who haven’t seen this quilt a gazillion times in the past year, here is the best picture taken when it practically filled up my garage wall.

Also on the “design wall” is my latest finish of blocks for the RSC 2014. I’ve been making snowball blocks in each month's colors. April’s color was purple and, true to form, I finished them this month!

I’m trying to get lots of novelty fabrics in my blocks. Didn’t have many in my purples. I did get my plaid purple in though. I’m trying to get a plaid block in each color because, well, I’m crazy, loony about plaid!!! And always one vintage, which looks like I scanned the same block twice!

The lavender in the upper right corner is one of my favorite colors. True to form it looks blue next to the purples. If I put it with blue blocks, it would look purple! And of course a gratuitous picture of my children. This was taken on our recent trip to the ocean. Noel Heart and Sweetie are running through the waves here. They were trying to the Baywatch slow-motion run!

I want to encourage everyone to go and see the website, Life Sew Crafty. She is hosting a blog hop to educate people about breast cancer. Every two weeks there are 2-3 guests and each one displays a pink block that they have made. I am going to be hosting on June 7!! I'm very excited, it's my first hosting! Fun for days! To learn more, read my previous post giving more information, plus pictures of Nancy Drew and family's recent visit. If that isn't a draw, I don't know what is!

I’m hooking up with the following blogs. Hop on by to check out lots of lovely quilts! Their badges are in the right sidebar.
So Scrappy RSC Saturday
Patchwork Times
Show & Tell Tuesday
Fabric Story
Linky Tuesday
WIP Wednesday
We Did It Wednesday
I Quilt
Fabric Frenzy

RSC: April Purples

I had a happy day on Friday. I stopped off at our local quilt “thrift” store. It reminds me of the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, you just can’t resist!

The Legacy, as it is called, is run by the city’s Senior Center. All the fabric, notions, yarns, lace, patterns, etc. are donated. They have both yardage and plastic bins of smaller pieces. I love the plastic bins because it’s a great place for scrap quilters. And the dreamy part of this is they charge $2.00 per pound for fabric!

On Friday, I went in looking for purples. I had gone through my stash and actually did very well in finding many purples. But, it was a good excuse to go there!

It was a good day for purple! It was also a good day for turquoise and orange, and pink and green and blue…you get the picture.

I looked through the orphan blocks and found some nice ones that I bought for pieced backs. I was dizzy with fabric fumes!

Take a look and see! Purple, purple, purple!

The batik on the left and the purple fourth from the right were from the Legacy. The rest were from my stash. I love the purple at the right!

The dotted fabric 2nd from left was from The Legacy.

I have some dusty pink but am not sure if I will use it.

It’s amazing the different shades of purple! Some look downright pink next to others. I only need 14 purples for my snowballs so I have leeway.

By far my favorite is this one:

This was someone’s donation that I ended up taking home from our guild. I don’t have much, but I’ve used little pieces of it in a couple of quilts.

The pinky/purple fabric the third from the right on the first picture you probably identified immediately as “old” fabric. Definitely. Where else do you see this kind of selvage?



Can you imagine making quilts or bags or… out of the selvages from yesteryear?

It’s not even halfway through April and I’ve got my fabric. Next step: cutting 6.5” squares! See you next week.

I’m linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Everyone there is making beautiful things. Click on the badge in the upper left side bar and see some great blocks!

Scrappy Turquoise

I know I'm not the only one who hasn't finished their turquoise/aqua blocks. At least I  hope so! When I finally got the fabric, I did have so much fun sewing them together and they look so purty, IMHO. I finally got time to sew their little snowball corners on Saturday. 

Part of my delay was I galavanted around Riverton, where Nancy Drew lives, on Spring Break. I got to visit 2 of a gazillion quilt shops there--and that's only within a 10 miles radius of her home. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a smidgen. Just a little.

It's amazing to go to Utah from a county that has 2 homegrown quilt stores, 1 Joann's and 1 California-based fabric/quilt/yarn/craft store. When I used to visit Nancy Drew in Massachusetts, her situation there was worse than mine! Now I'm eagerly waiting to go back to Utah so I can visit even more quilt stores my adorable grandchildren!

Here are my snowball blocks for March. I had fun finding some novelty fabric for this month. I guess only about half of these are scrappy. Then again, once I bought them they became part of my stash that I’ve been using to make my blocks! Nod if you agree!

If you number them right to left starting in upper left, here’s the skinny on the blocks.
1,3,5,7,8-10 were all from fat quarters from Utah
2 is a fun one from my stash
7 is a favorite that I keep cutting small pieces off to put in one quilt or another
9 is from a shirt I bought at Goodwill for fabric

I was much luckier this month than last. I had lots of purples to choose from! Next week I’ll show the ones I picked!

Fabrics, Redwork and a Tale of Woe

Busy week, but not for my sewing machine! I know it’s pining away for me… It’s hard to quilt when your machine is in California and you are in Utah.

Yes indeedy, here I am the lucky Nonnie visiting Nancy Drew and her family including two adorable grandchildren!

Curly, SWH & Sweetie

It makes for a brand-new genre of design wall! It’s called: What did I bring with me?
I bought 4 more fabrics for the Rainbow Challenge. This month the color is turquoise. My daughter took me to a quilt store that was under a mile away from her home! I’m green with envy. On Thursday when she has a day off we are going shopping and visit a few more quilt stores. I’m a happy camper.

I bought this fabric at: My Sister's Quilts in Riverton, Utah.
It's a wonderful store.

 My attempt to at least pull some minutes out for my 30/30. I have a redwork quilt I’m working towards. I started in 2007 embroidering blocks. I had copied pictures from a 1964 coloring book my Aunt Marie kept for the young nieces and nephews to color.


I’m almost done with this one:

Excuse the wrinkles from the hoop. I didn’t want to iron on the floss. I’m pretty sure I tested it for bleeding, but not taking a chance today. Also, it has a water type mark (I hope that’s what it is!) which I’m not messing with today either.

I have left all the faces blank on my blocks, except for two. One of my attempts turned out making the child looking like an alien. The other made the children look deformed. I’m looking up a friend that embroiders a lot to teach me how to do the cute faces from the 60’s.

Well, sad to say, *sniff* I have discovered that the 30/30SC challenge is too challenging. I started out March 1 with 30 minutes. Then March 3 with 60 minutes. March 5th at my weekly quilt night with friend,  I started a tree skirt for Nancy Drew and family.

Hold it right there! 30/30SC is about eking out 30 minutes of quilting everyday for March for YOURSELF. I was so tickled to start and dream about quilting just for me! Me, Me, Me! As you can see it only took 5 days for me to fall apart. I haven’t quilted everyday for someone, much less myself! Ah, shoot, I was so hoping.

That brings me to another more woeful tale. And it involves my evil pets again. First it was my cats. Read about it here, if you dare!

I am hoping your have a strong stomach, cause this ain’t gonna be pleasant. You've been warned…

On Saturday, after a grueling week of slaving away in the sweatshop that someone calls a job, I decided to fritter away my day. Quilt all day. Considering I had been through a week where I cried about an incident at work, plus got indignant about the treatment being dished out to my husband at work…It was all those hours ahead where I could dabble in my quilting room.
I was a-twitter with the excitement of working on the love-bird’s log cabin quilt. I had it spiderwebbed by column and was ready for joining the rows. The finish line was in sight! Time for the last sprint!

Arrival in Quilting Room

Picking Up theLog Cabin Bundle  from Chair

Placing Bundle on Cutting Table

Opening the Bundle

Right….There…In…The…Middle!

Dog Poop!

Where is that mangy mutt? I’m going to strangle her!

Don’t you EVEN try looking cute!

Dog slinks away avoiding looking at my face.

She'd better hide

It will take a few days years eons, okay, weeks for me to look kindly at her.

I punished her by going on vacation! What an evil scheme!

For those who are going to experience this horrific event:

1. I was able to take the three affected blocks out of the quilt since they were spiderwebbed.
2. Soak blocks (quilt) in cold water with Woolite.
3. Let soak for 30-60 minutes.
4. Upon inspection if staining is gone, remove it from water.
5. DO NOT WRING!
6. Place blocks on a hard surface. I used my washing machine top.
7. Gently scrape at any remnants of doody from fabric.
8. Rinse gently…gently…gently.
9. Press blocks together in your hand without twisting.
10. If you have not pre-washed your fabric, you will have to pin the blocks to a flat surface, gently stretching the fabric to the size of unwashed blocks.
11. If you have prewashed fabrics, continue from here.
12. Dry in a place where it will be undisturbed by Devil Dog.
13. Make sure there is air circulation to both sides or place on a thick towel.
14. Let air dry.

I thought this dog was the cutest thing when I got her!

I should have recognized the signs…

Hooking up with:

Patchwork Times
I Have to Say
Quilt Story
Linky Tuesday
WiP Wednesday
We Did It Wednesday
Needle and Thread Thursday
Fabric Frenzy
I Quilt

Picture of Woman’s Surprised Face credit: http://carseatblog.com/3405/baby-on-board-2/

Pink Design Wall & January Quilting Results

Happy, happy, joyful Monday!

It may seem a little overboard for most, but I have the day off today. Hurrah!

I'm a teacher of blind and visually impaired students. In this county they take off the Monday before President's Day as a holiday; I like to think of it as Lincoln's Birthday. The following week we have President's Day Holiday. I'm a-shiver with Quilting Time.

OH QUILTING TIME!

(sung to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree)

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time!

How wondrous are your hours.

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time

It's like sunshine on the flowers.

I scarce can sleep the night before

As dreams of fabric o'er which I pore

Oh quilting time, oh quilting time,

I toss and turn till comes the dawn. 

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time!

I wake up bright and early

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time!

My patience holds, but barely.

With fabric cut and iron hot

Machine is ready to sew a lot

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time

Your wonders are amazing.

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time!

The hours pass like minutes

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time!

Too soon my time doth exit.

I long for more dear time with you

Cutting, pinning, sewing too

Oh quilting time, oh quilting time!

Pressing seams is quite divine.

Oh quilting time, Oh quilting time

I count the hours between thee

Oh quilting time, oh quilting time

Come quickly now, I do so plead

Everybody sing!

I didn't even wax this poetic for summer vacation! Sometime ya just hav'ta let it out!

On my design wall today are part this month's blocks for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month the color is PINK! I blogged on Saturday about my blocks for the RSC quilters. You can read every pinkalicious detail here.

Here are the five I got done yesterday:

Check out the tabs above for my Quilty Goals for 2014. I've added my January progress. Then check out my Stash Count for January. I'm looking good. Oh yeah!

And thank you so much for dropping by. I love to see that lots of you have looked. I adore comments. Let me know if you sang my song (in a closet or to one you love!)

After you've made it through my blog, singing, oohing and aahhing, trot on over to these blogs that I am sharing with. (Badges on right sidebar).

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

Show & Tell Tuesday @ I Have to Say

Fabric Story @ Quilt Story

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

It's A Party @ Creative Princess

We Did It Wednesday @ Sew Much Ado

In the Pink! Rainbow Scraps

This month at soscrappy the color is Pink! Like Pink Panther. Pinker than Pepto Bismol. Tasty pink like cotton candy. Sweet pink like strawberry ice cream. Christmas pink like Sweetie at Christmas.

Yikes! I thought...I don't have much pink fabric. What am I to do? (Wringing hands). I'd better go look at the dismal amount of pink I have.

My pinks drawer...and that's not counting my pink fat quarters!

Whoa doggie! That's a lot of pink. Bright pink! Dark pink! Flowery pink! Pastel pink! Let's not go overboard, I think you know what I mean...This month is brights and darks. Save the pastels for later, she (the creative mind behind Rainbow Scrap Challenge) said.

There I am, in pink heaven, picking out the brights and darks. Omigosh! The stack is growing and growing and growing... 21 chosen. Eek! All in one month????? Am I crrrr-aaaa-zzzy, or what? (Do NOT answer)

Thank goodness I chose an easy block, the Snowball. Here's the pinks I've picked.

Dark pinks top, bright pinks middle, just because I want pinks bottom

In the drawer picture, you can see some pinks tied together with a fabric strip. Those are the ones for pastel pink!

I'm counting the pinks I've chosen. One, two, three...six...ten...thirteen! Shut the door! Isn't that an unlucky number? Truth be told, that is my husband's favorite number. This coming from a guy whose favorite color is black. You can see why I married this guy...he's interesting!

Must....add....one....more....pink the little voice in my head said.

Hopefully you can see the sparkly little diamonds!

More math! Wahoo! 14 fabrics divided by 3 weeks left in February equals 4.666666666. I need to make roughly 4 and a half blocks per week to get all the colors in. Can do! Another reason I chose snowballs.

See you next week! Have a pinkety pinkest pinky week!

January Rainbow Challenge #1

I'm just finishing up on a great weekend. I spent a good deal of time on Saturday making quilt blocks for RSC 14. RSC is Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I had seen the posts from my blog reader last year and it looked like fun. It was geared in a way that I could take it at my speed.

I love challenges, but I definitely cannot do BOMs. I tried to follow a group doing the Farmer's Wife Quilt in one year. It meant two blocks per week. Argggh! I could barely keep up, well, not quite. I didn't keep up. It was only two little 6" blocks a week, how hard could that be?

Incredible Learning Line

Every try to make a 6" block with 75 pieces in it? Or 12 1-1/2" half square triangles? Along with 3 triangles (which with my math is half of a 1-1/2" half square triangle). Do you see what I have to deal with? Not with 6" blocks, though that was an incredible learning curve that basically didn't curve. No, I mean, trying to be a quilter with a no-math brain.

This is my math brain.

You pity me, don't you?

Actually this is my brain. All pretty colors
and flowers. This actually is about as good
as I can draw too.

If you are really liking my math brain above and you are a geek or mathematician, you can read the scintillating description of how the maze was computer generated below. But I'm thinking only my Talented Geek Son will understand it. Hi honey! Mommy finally wrote a blog that you will love!

The RSC14 is the brain child of this great woman who writes the soscrappy blog. Each month she picks a color and everyone makes blocks using that color. Some people are so amazing in the amount and variety of blocks they make. You can see January's blocks here in all their variety--it's really super to look at. And maybe you'd like to join. You don't have to be in at the beginning. Any takers?

You can use the badge on my sidebar to get to the information about the challenge.

I decided that I would make my blocks all in the same pattern. I chose the Snowball blocks. They are easy and don't take much time. I chose black as the triangles at the corners. I've not made a quilt with black to make colors pop, so this is for me!

Every Saturday there is a linky party for blocks of that month. Saturday was the last one for January. I didn't make my blocks until Saturday because the black fabric I ordered didn't come in until ________. (guess!) Nope! Friday.

Here's my blue blocks. There are fourteen 6" blocks. I decided on 6" because I wanted a smaller block; I usually make quilt blocks around 10-12". Then the number had to be divisible by three, so I was given the choices of 3, 6, and 9. Those numbers were in the running because the answers to x/3 = a number without fractions. 

I love anything that's going to use my stash and I have loads of blue. There's no reason for just 14 blocks, I just went through my stash and picked out fabrics that I really liked that would looked good to me for a snowball. Now that's my kind of math brain! I chose it because I like it. No fancy formulas. 

Thanks for moseying by and checking up on me!

I'm hooking up with the following blogs and I bet you'd love it if you traipsed on over and saw some cute stuff. The badges are on the right sidebar.

RSC14

Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times

Show and Tell Tuesday

Linky Tuesday

WiP Wednesday

It's A Party

We Did It Wednesday

Needle and Thread Thursday

I Quilt

For the geek-minded
The following mazes were computer generated using a path digging algorithm. The generator maintains a list of all of the cells that have been added to the maze. At each step, it chooses one of the previous cells and randomly adds one of its unvisited neighbors to the maze. If a neighboring cell contains a perpendicular hallway followed by an empty cell, then this cell is also a valid choice to be added, replacing the hallway with a crossover cell. 9/10 of the time, the chosen previous cell is the last one that was added to the maze allowing the algorithm to construct longer paths without branching than if the previous cell were chosen completely randomly. Furthermore, the neighboring cell that is in the same direction as the last choosen neighbor is given a higher priority to encourage the creation of straight hallways that allow for crossovers. The direction of the crossover is based on the parity of the cell coordinates.
The mazes are output in Postscript, rendered with anti-aliasing using gv, and then screen captured. More recently, I'm rendering the mazes using POV-Ray.

Eventually, I'd like to find an algorithm that can create the non-tree like mazes that make up my three sheet weave mazes.