A Passion for Purple

This new purple Carrie Nation block is going to be just stunning in our Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts. And to think there are still 8 months/colours to go! Thanks to Angela at SoScrappy for her leadership with these.

Remember January = Blue? One of the projects that I took on was blue slabs and the creation of a slab quilt, so named by Cheryl Arkison, author of Sunday Morning Quilts. My friend Kerri saw my completed top and just knew that she wanted to use it to practice her LA ruler work. How could I turn down such an offer? Well, I don't think she needs much more practice. This quilt is now phenomenal (click on the photo for a closer view). Binding will be sewing on tonight.

I am sooooo close to having my RRCB completed. I showed it last night at my bee group and my good friends asked so innocently..."do you want to know if you have a piece in backwards"? Are you kidding me. So un-sew I did, and now I believe I have it. Not ready to show in the wider audience yet...but one day soon.

To catch up on other passionate purples, head on over to SoScrappy here.

Love and hugs
Kathy

Celebrating with Blue

While it seems that I have done nothing but work with blue at a frantic pace over this past week, there was also much to celebrate.

1. First I must say that I am very fortunate to have the time to quilt and a good job that supports my life style

2. that I have a fabulous family that I get to hang out with. Like on Saturday when Odessa was in town for a swim meet. Little swimmer is only six and looks so tiny in the McEwan U pool. What a little athlete she is...wow

3. that I did finish my slab quilt (well to flimsy stage) this week with the help of my very good friends Kim Caskey who drafted out a pattern on the whiteboard at work and Trish Krynowski who climbed up on the chairs to pin in the first row so we could get the blocks up on the wall. This is the room at the hospital that my Wednesday lunch time quilt group meets in...every Wednesday.

4. that I got the binding on "My Sisters the Caribou" wall hanging. Designed by my sister Connie, distant hills and foreground appliqued by my sister Marg MacKinnon and then quilted by moi...the baby sister. This quilt is one for me to treasure. I have an idea to add a few crystals on the far shore line.

5. that I finished another selvedge rug. This one will be for Tanea. This is her little dog Mr. JR trying it out for her.

6. while still in the vein of working with blue in hopes of getting trough the stack, I made a couple more blocks for my ''Farm Girl at Heart" quilt. Northern Lights was simple enough, but that Four Winds, it was a little complicated so I HAD to follow the fabric map.

Four Winds

Northern Lights

7. that on Wednesday night was the first guild meeting of 2015 and that I get to see so many of my good quilting friends after the Christmas break. I really don't know what I would do if it were not for the guild and all of the very good and positive relationships I have formed there. Today was the CPR (Community Projects Retreat) where 50 quilters got together and all day we worked on making quilts for our charity this year, the Be Brave Ranch for children that have been the victims of sexual abuse. There were pictures taken at the end of the day and I did not get pictures of the group, I do have one of the one I was sewing the binding on (and somehow they are no longer on my camera, but are on my facebook page)

All that and so much more to be thankful for and to celebrate this life with, and I still have a LOT of blue scraps. To see what others are doing to celebrate with the colour blue, head over to socrappy.

love and warm hugs
Kathy

It's a 16 Patch Throwdown.

I have had so much fun this week. Simple things...take a pile of blue scraps and divide it up into blue and 'not really blue". From these I have made more slabs, 17 in total. I will need 36 slabs to make a decent sized quilt for one of my little boys.

and more 16 patch/Sawtooth blocks.

I have also used the scraps from cleaning up the table after my Grand Illusion finish and have 'sewed-ahead'. Will show those blocks when the time and colours are right. But they are finished blocks in the bin and ready for their great reveal when that month comes.

I have a cutting plan for the alternate blocks with the Sawtooth Stars and have started to cache my 2.5" colour squares into the RSC15 bin.

It doesn't matter how many times I count my "Farm Girl At Heart" Blocks I come up with a different number. 1, 2, skip a few, 3, 4.... Ah well, how about sewing up a few more with some blue scraps. I started the one on the left with 1 3/4" squares...nope...ended up with a 7" unfinished block. Okay do it again with 1 1/2" squares...nope, this one is a perfect 5 1/2" square. When really all I want is a 6 1/2" unfinished square. These two will go into the orphan block bag!! Can anyone out there provide the math?

Next up for the Grand Illusion is to have it quilted in time for Christmas gift presentation 2015, until then it can go on the shelf for a few months.

See what else is happening with the colour Blue at SoScrappy.
Happiest in the studio
Love and Hugs
Kathy

I See Slabs of Blue

Opening a scrap bin is a bit like opening a present. Peeling back the layers to see what shall be revealed. That is what it has felt like for me this week and I have taken a good hard look at my scraps, some that were gifted by Wanda.

First off I made a couple of wonderful 16 patch, only put the Sawtooth Star around one so far. And I made the card trick, the tricky part was it gobbled up my points on one side!

I have the centre of my Grand Illusions quilt done and will continue on with the borders this weekend. Looking for a finish before I go back to work on Monday.

Also in the bag of blues were a lot of strips, in varying shades of blue: torquoise, baby blues, and dark blues. With these I created Slab Blocks, so named by Cheryl Arkison of Calgary and co-author of Sunday Morning Quilts. She advises us to use up the strips to make a 12 inch monochromatic block, with one slice of white. However, since I was on a roll and since I have a 15 inch square ruler...that is what mine have grown to be.

As I press and trim up and get close to the 15 inch size, I mark with a pin the side that still requires an additions...gets a bit confusing as they start to all come to the magic size, and this helps eliminate having to un-sew a side.

Also while I am going through the stacks, shelves and bags I am trimming off selvedges, because I love to crochet scatter rugs. Durable, colourful and keeping one more thing out of the landfill.


To stay caught up on other RSC15 Blue Scrappiness click here.
Love and hugs
Kathy

Of Sprouts and Slabs

I have been creating using blue green scraps and bits to create these beautiful Sprouts. There will be another month to use pale blues. I need more neutral backgrounds to fall in the bin.

I will definitely need to make more yellow ones.

I have been on a mission and building slab blocks (design shared by Cheryl Arkison) that are being used in a "Quilting for Calgary" quilt that my U of A work place bee group (MM's stands for Material Management) have all contributed to.  So this explains where some of my yellow and blue-green scraps have gone.

Speaking of the very generous, Matt and Bradie of Sparrow Studioz, have opened their studio for the next two Sundays (already had 3) to anyone able to help with finishing the dozens and dozens of flimsies that are arriving daily at the Studioz (for quilting & binding). I got my very first try on a LA at Kim Caskey's machine helping with the pile. What a great deal of fun that was and could become quite addicting.  Thanks to Kim for guiding me through the process and advancing the machine at the end of each row. This quilt will be donated to the "Quilting for Calgary" and given to a victim of the horrific Alberta June Monsoons.

Our quilt in now quilted and ready for binding. AND yes, now that I see it hanging there I see I should have moved those two orange blocks so they were adjoining.