February's monthly goal ...

... for One Monthly Goal was to at least start quilting the rainbow bears square dance.

Well I've started.

Using the walking foot I've nearly finished quilting wobbly lines in the negative space / wide sashings. Originally I was going to do straight lines, but there was a practical problem as the sashings are different widths, and I couldn't work out how to manage the transition from wide to narrower. This way the lines just wobble closer together. All this wobbling: the bears not only stepped in the paint pots, they partook of a wee dram too many as well!

This will carry over to my goal for March as I still have to quilt the bears' paws. That will be FMQ; probably also wobbly lines, although not deliberately!

I'm linking up to

 

Click on the button to see what other crafters have achieved this month.

Happy sewing

Marly.

More purple for my rainbow

This week I made two more paper-pieced blocks in purple for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela. The patterns for the blocks can be found at the blog "Sewn by Leila", along with an excellent foundation paper piecing tutorial.

This first one was going to be purple with yellow, but I got distracted while cutting and cut a third pair of yellow triangles. Not wanting to waste them the block became yellow with purple! I like the result.

 

As I didn't find this QAL until February and hadn't made any of these blocks in January, I also made a blue block.

Further this week my sewing endeavours have focussed on preparing  my "Rainbow Bears' Square Dance" for quilting. It's now layered so hopefully will be finished this month as that's my goal for the month.

I'm linking to

so pop in over there to see more purple goodies.

Happy sewing

Marly.

The colour purple

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month Angela has given the colour purple. I have made the Squared Away sampler block for February twice. It amazes me how wide the range of purple is. I'm planning to make 20 10" blocks which I think will make a good size for a lap quilt.

There was very little more purple sewing here this week; I've been piecing the backing (!!) for my 2016 scrappy rainbow and there are two or three purple pieces in it. That's come to a halt because I ran out of the fabric I'm using for the border of the backing. I miscalculated how wide it should be so soon I shall have a lot of royal blue to cut off. Meanwhile I don't have enough for the fourth side so I'm all set to visit the LQS this afternoon. No pictures yet; I'll post them when I've finished it.

I'm linking up to 

 as soon as the link comes online,

so pop in there to see more scrappy purple.

Happy sewing

Marly.

February is purple!

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge entails using scraps of a given colour for one month, and then moving on to another colour. Around the first of the month Angela gives a new colour. Last month it was blue, and this month we've moved on to purple.

The February block in the Squared Away sampler was just released this morning so this week I used purple in two block-of-the-week projects.

Firstly in the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild's sampler:

The final deadline for sharing progress on this project is tomorrow, and there are already finished quilts posted on Instagram #dutchmqgmaakteenblokjeperweek . Needless to say mine is not among them; I still have a few more blocks to make. I will, however, be able to show how the layout will be, even though it is incomplete.

Secondly, I used purple in my block in an open online project: "The Year of Scrappy Triangles" hosted by Leila. The project started in October, so I'm joining really late; this week saw the release of block 17, and I made block number 1!

Year of Scrappy Triangles block 1

The great thing about this is that all the triangles are foundation pieced. What! foundation-pieced!!! I dislike (to put it mildly) foundation piecing. I've had such bad experiences with foundation-piecing in the past (like using far too much fabric; wasting more than actually went into the piece) that I decided I needed regular practice. While surfing the Internet a couple of days ago I came across this project and read Leila's excellent tutorial, which I recognised as giving exactly the support I needed. This first block went together very smoothly with no nasty surprises. That is quite a boost!

I recommend this tutorial to anyone who finds foundation-piecing problematic and frustrating, and what better way to get the necessary practice than to make (at least) one FPP block a week?

I'm linking to 

Click on the button to visit Soscrappy 

and see more lovely scrappiness.

Happy sewing

Marly.

February OMG

My goal for February is to start the quilting of this one: my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt from 2016.

The bears' rainbow square dance.

This has been a top since February 24 2017. I would like to get it quilted this month, but it's a short month, so I'll settle for layering and starting quilting. If I get it completely finished that will be a bonus.

This is my One Monthly Goal for February; I'll be linking up when the link is open.

Click on the button above to see other wonderful goals for February.

Happy sewing

Marly