OMG November is finished!

My November goal was to quilt the orange table runner I made in September for the Rainbow Scrap / Table Scraps Challenge. The orange squares have been made not only from scraps, but from crumbs!

Here it is, not only quilted, but bound too!

Crumby Orange Table Runner

I quilted the main part and the outside border with randomly spaced parallel straight lines, mostly in navy but also a few orange for some variation. The navy thread is exactly the same shade as the navy fabric; is that difficult to see when quilting! The shark's teeth (arrows) which I cut freehand I quilted free motion. As someone in an earlier post suggested they looked like flames, I stitched a flame-like motif on them.

A couple more photos because I took so many!

I'm linking to:

     

 

 

Click on the buttons to see more finishes and works-in-progress.

 

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

OMG for November

My one monthly goal for November is to quilt this table runner that I made in September.

I'll be using orange and navy blue thread, but haven't decided on a quilting design yet.

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Unfortunately it's been rather quiet in my sewing room during October. I didn't reach my goal to quilt the bead quilt, which had also been my goal for September (sigh!) I did make progress, sewing round the coloured squares in the ditch, and then quilted between the lines of squares with freehand wavy lines. 

 

All was going well (I'd finished half of them) and I thought I would get them all done last week, but continued too long on Monday, strained a tendon in my left thumb, and had to sit and nurse it for the rest of the week! More haste, less speed! I also thought it would be a good plan to quilt the "beads" by hand - a mammoth task - but will make a good handwork project for the winter evenings, I hope. In any case this won't be finished any time soon!

I'm linking to :

Click on the button to see more handwork goals for this month.

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Progress on my One Monthly Goal

My One Monthly Goal for October is to quilt my Rainbow Beads Curtain quilt, which was my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project in 2020.

This was also my goal for September, but I didn't get further than layering and pinning.

Now I'm quilting in the ditch around the "beads" with the walking foot and have finished two of the nine columns. 

I can only do one column a day as there is a lot of fabric to manoeuvre through the throat every time I change direction, and I'm trying to go easy on my shoulders. It's slow, but its progress!

I'm linking this weekend to:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation on Thursday,

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More on Friday,

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at Soscrappy on Saturday,

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday.

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt on Monday

Stay healthy and safe.

Happy sewing

Marly

October is the lime green month

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) Angela gives a different colour each month, and quilters around the world make blocks, or entire projects featuring that colour. 

 

 This is the last colour this year as November and December are for putting the project together, or doing last minute Christmas sewing, in my case!

Joy has a table scraps challenge this year, and I'm combining the two challenges.

There isn't much lime green among my green scraps.

 

 But.... look what I found lurking in its recesses!

It looks a bit yellow here, but really it's green!

On a different subject: last week I mentioned in my post that the quilt I'm now quilting kept slipping off the table while I was trying to layer it. I had a couple of useful tips in the comments: 

Deb A said...

Great table topper! Are you using the roll on boards method to pin the quilt on a table? It works really well.

Vireya said... 

Your bead quilt looks fantastic! The floor is too hard for layering. I have some giant clips (about 5cm across) that I use to keep the quilt on the table for pinning. You can see them in action on this blog post: https://weednstitch.blogspot.com/2019/01/flowers-and-pins.html

When I asked Deb about the "roll on boards" she sent this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA  Brilliant!

 

A lot of green outside today, as we move quite suddenly from Summer to Autumn.

There's even some lime green here too, thanks to the town's gardens department!

I'm linking this weekend to:

 

   Click on the buttons to see more works in progress.

 

Stay healthy and safe.

Happy sewing

Marly.

One monthly goal for October

In October I aim to finish my Bead Curtain Quilt that I was layering at the end of September. Although it had been my goal for September I just did not have enough handwork time to get it quilted.

October is set to be a less hectic month than September was, so here's hoping for more progress.

I'm linking to

Click on the button to see more aspirations for October.

Stay safe, stay healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

My one monthly goal for September

 wasn't met! 😒 I wanted to quilt my beads quilt this month, but I'm still pinning it!

At the beginning of this month I wrote that I had reservations about finishing it. A difficult situation occurred in my extended family about four months ago, and I have had lengthy phone calls with my brother in the UK since (thank goodness for Skype). I thought I might have to go to the UK myself this month, but as my little part of the World was coloured dark red on the WHO Covid new infections chart, travelling was out of the question. I got some handwork done, but while handwork is my relaxation I found it difficult to settle to it.

I'm confident that this quilt will be finished in October, now the family situation in the UK has been resolved, not happily, but we are moving on. 

I don't think this qualifies as a September goal achieved, but I wanted to share my progress.

I'm linking to 

         

 Click on the buttons to see lots of goals achieved this month

 and works in progress.

Keep safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Crumby orange table runner

The RSC colour is orange this month. I emptied my orange scrap bag and made these eight 4.5" crumb blocks. Together with improv triangles from 3.5" orange strips and Bella solid yardage in navy blue they've become a table runner.

Measurements: 38"x 17.5" (0.97m x 0.45m)

Thank you to those who responded last week about the orientation of the triangles. I tried both directions but found them rather threatening pointing outwards; pointing inwards they resemble shark's teeth about to devour the crumb blocks, which is fine by me! 

Quilting will have to wait; at present I'm layering a large lap quilt.

I used to layer quilts on the living room floor, but nowadays I can get down on the floor OK, but getting up when I've finished ...!! I'm trying to layer on the table, but this lot keeps slipping off!

I'm linking this weekend to:

      

 Click on the buttons to see more (orange) scrappiness 

and this week's progress. 

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Orange progress

This month's RSC colour is orange and my orange table runner for the Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter is progressing with stops and starts.

5" crumb squares set in Bella solids navy blue with improv triangle borders to make up the length. There will be a 2.5" navy border beyond the triangles. Do you think it looks better with the orange triangles pointing towards the squares (as on the left) or away from them (as on the right)?

I find sewing crumbs a time consuming occupation, but the orange scrap bag is now empty 😊  of crumbs. For the triangles I dipped into the drawer of 3.5" strips, although I don't really consider strips as scraps, rather pre-prepared pieces.

 I'm linking to:

Click the button to see more orange scraps in use.

Keep healthy and safe.

Happy sewing

Marly

Making orange fabric

This month's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at Soscrappy is orange. Earlier this week I emptied my orange scrap bag and made some 5" squares.

Now I'm making more:

Work in progress. Note the orange scrap bag; made of orange scraps, for orange scraps.

They will become part of a table runner, for the Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter.

 I'm linking to

 

Click on the button to see more orange scraps in use.

 Stay safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

September goal

 I needed a week to decide what would be my goal this month. A lot has happened in the last week, and not in my studio! Now I have a goal; I hope I can reach it this month, but have reservations.

Anyway, other commitments aside, I shall be quilting my beads lap quilt. I finished the top in January, and it has been hanging on the side of my bookcase ever since.

 

This was one of my two RSC projects last year. It's now time to layer and quilt it, ready to use when the colder weather comes in a couple of months. (Making a top of the other project's blocks may well be nest month's goal)

The trouble with planning to have a year of finishing UFOs is that it isn't interesting. To me a finished top is finished! The end! My hands are itching to cut and sew - just cut and sew! Instead I committed in January to finishing a UFO each month. Ha! That didn't last long, but now wish me luck as I pick that task up again.

I'm linking up to

Click on the button to see more of this month's aspirations.

Keep safe and healthy

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Fireworks sweater: August finish

My goal for August was to finish my Fireworks sweater, the subject of this year's four day knit-along at Olive Knits. Four days was way too optimistic for me, and I knew that at the beginning, but that's never a reason not to start. Having started on 1 July, and finished on 30 August, this sweater has taken two months, minus one day. That's probably the shortest time I've spent on a sweater ever, and the fireworks stitch isn't the easiest (that's it on the yoke and also on the sleeves and on each side). I made it with 100% merino double knitting wool.

Fireworks pattern by Marie Greene of Olive Knits

Not sewing but knitting this month. I did manage some secret sewing for a bee project, and some for the Dutch MQG's contribution to the MQG Community Outreach project.

I'm linking this post to

 

Click on the button to see more goals achieved this month - mostly quilting goals.

 Stay safe and healthy.

Happy sewing (and knitting, crochet and whatever!)

Marly.

Aqua for RSC in August - table runner for Table Scraps challenge

 Each month Angela names a colour and lots of quilters select scraps in that colour to make something. Joy has asked us to make a table topper of some sort, using Angela's prompt.

This is a bit of a cheat table runner; two orphan blocks from an abandoned RSC project in 2017. Being an RSC project the idea was to use scraps, but because I had to cut into fat quarters to make them I thought they didn't qualify. Moreover each colour would need it's own pair of fat quarters, so I made something else instead - I don't remember what. I thought that this block was "Jacob's Ladder" but I've since found a slightly different "Jacob's Ladder"; perhaps you can identify this one for me.

Orphan blocks are a sort of scraps, though, aren't they? They are superfluous to requirements! So here is my aqua table runner:

 

Quilted with Aurifil 50 wt., colour 2309, pale cream. Quilted in the ditch along the sides of the "ladders" and between the contrasting squares, and I echo-quilted the arrow shapes in the background. All with the walking foot.

And here is the table runner in use:

A short runner to fit a small trolley.

I'm linking to: 

 

 Click on the buttons to see more aqua projects.

Keep safe and healthy.

Have a good weekend.

Happy sewing

Marly.

More blue scraps

This July the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour is BLUE once again. So the blue scrap bucket has come out again, and I'm going for a blue placemat with pale pink veins.

Progress has been slow, as I've been knitting this month. There, too, I've experienced setbacks.

Finally, though, on 31 July, a blue placemat! 

I'm linking to

      

Click on the buttons to see more scrap projects.

Stay safe and healthy,

Happy sewing

Marly.