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! 

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Click on the buttons to see more scrap projects.

Stay safe and healthy,

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quite a blue catch!

My April table runner is as blue as the sea. Blue is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour this month, and the table runner is a response to the table scraps challenge.

My inspiration came from Nicholas Ball's "Shoal" quilt in his book "Inspiring Improv".  The fish were cut freehand from grey and white scraps together with blue scraps, and then more blue scraps were added to the fish blocks.

This measures 49"x13" (1.25m x 0.33m)

I have yet to quilt it. First I need to get backing fabric! Our lockdown is likely to finish next week; I know where I shall be going first! After 5 months of  shops being closed I'm tired of choosing fabric from a computer screen. I know how I'm going to quilt it, so that's one puzzle less.

I'm linking to:    

  

Click on the button above to see more table scraps.

Keep safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Dark blue Scrap Snap

This month's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is dark blue. No Beads blocks this month, I'm afraid, but here are my Scrap Snap quilt blocks.

These blocks work very well as Leaders and Enders, so as I needed more L&Es I cut dark green fabric and made May's blocks as well,

while I was sewing the blocks for the Sugaridoo Bernina QAL row 8 (this link is to the Dutch version of the blog, but if you click on the tab "taal" at the top right of the page you can go to the English and German versions of the post.) :

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Click on the buttons to join the parties!

Be safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

RSC colour for April is blue: pale and bright

Angela has chosen blue for April's blocks, and here are my blue beads:

Blue is not my favourite colour, by any means, but for some reason I have an enormous amount in my stash, mostly very dark.

I hope everyone is managing to keep their distance and stay safe. Here we are not being confined to our homes, but people not respecting the 1.5 m social distance rule in public are getting hefty fines. We are all strongly advised to stay in our own homes, only leaving them for grocery shopping and a walk or run in the neighbourhood for the sake of our health. Not difficult for me: I'm retired so make my own timetable anyway, and as you know my hobby doesn't require my going anywhere. At present there are no concerts, exhibitions or shows to visit anyway. I miss visiting friends and family, but in these trying times thank goodness for the Internet!

I'm linking up to:

 

Click on the button to see more blue scraps being put to good use.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Overlapping Octagons is finished!

Overlapping Octagons is copied from a photograph of a quilt made around 1950 and featured in the book "Unconventional and Unexpected, American quilts under the radar", by Roderick Kiracofe. Making a replica of a quilt in this book was a challenge issued by Sujata Shah about a year ago.
Unlike the original maker I used the sewing machine throughout, although I now think I would have been faster sewing all those y-seams by hand. I chose to use red to meet the criteria of another challenge; about the same time the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters issued the challenge: "Red is the new Neutral"

The Y-seams are not only at the four corners of the red squares but also at the X joins of the string sections.
In this photo the octagons are maybe easier to identify.

Originally I tried using hourglass blocks as cornerstones in the string sashing. That didn't work as the hourglass blocks became too visible as hourglasses and didn't blend into the octagons. The seams also became very bulky as five fabrics came together at one point, as opposed to just three now. In the original the fabric in the "sashing" continues into the "cornerstone" so I went with that, as you can see in the picture above.

I used fabric scraps throughout. I started with red and blue 19th century reproduction fabrics - the ones that have been hanging around the longest - but soon used up that lot (hooray!!) and moved on to the more recent fabrics. Just two colours - red and blue - became very boring, so quite early in the process I introduced small pieces of other colours among the blue strings.

fabrics: scraps from stash
measurements: 38" x 44"
pieced with Aurifil 50 wt light grey
quilted with Aurifil 40 wt dark blue, dark red and bright red

 Although this was intended as a small lap quilt my DH has claimed it for the wall above his desk! 

Finishing this quilt was my goal of the month this month, (and last, and the one before!) but now it really is bound, labelled and all the threads are buried!
It is also the first item on my Q4 list for the 2019 Finish A-Long, hosted by Sandra at Studio sew of course.

I'm linking to: 

              

Click on the buttons to see more scrappy quilts and goals achieved. 

Happy sewing

Marly.

One Monthly Goal November

My October goal was to finish my "Overlapping Octagons". Hmm!

A few minutes ago, on Thursday 31 October, just as the sun was setting,

 I finished the quilting

but not the whole quilt! I still have hundreds of threads to bury, before I can even think of straightening up and binding. I failed to reach my goal! Boo!

The Octagons therefore are featuring in One Monthly Goal, yet again!

I am linking this to:

Click on the buttons to see more fun handwork.

Happy sewing

Marly.

some pale blue bow ties

For August the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is pale and bright blue. I only had two pieces of pale blue large enough to make these two 6" blocks.

They look so washed out, and that isn't because it's raining so hard the whole world looks washed out from here, but because there isn't enough contrast between the pale blue and the neutral fabrics (and the weather doesn't help!). Maybe I'll only have two representatives of pale blue in my quilt.

I have some bright blue, but I used that in the "dark blue" month.

Are the two blocks on the right of the bottom row "dark blue" or "bright blue" ?

I also have these blues:
 

which I would have used in June, but find the print too big for these 6" blocks. They are bright in my opinion, but the print is still as large as it was in June!

And finally, still hot from the iron, my first 4.5" unfinished shoo fly block for the 2019 L&E challenge:

I'm linking up to: 

  

 Click on the buttons to see more scraps at work.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Summer Sampler and Clam up

My scrappy theme this year is bow tie blocks. I didn't get much sewing done at all in June as I was away for most of the month touring Eastern Europe, visiting cities that for most of my life were not accessible. I had some knitting with me as I've found knitting is very good at distracting the back-seat driver in me!

The last two weeks I caught up on my Rainbow Challenge blocks for June  (dark blue):

Even though I've never been to the United States some 4th July fabric has crept in there! I received it several years ago in a giveaway, and am gradually using it. I think that's it for blue this year, and I'll move on to pink this weekend.

I've also joined the Summer Sampler QAL  hosted by Lee Heinrich but couldn't start until I returned from my travels. Over the last two weeks I made four blocks

1. Spring Fever: Lynn Carson-Harris

2. Pixelations: Lee Heinrich

3. Curious Crossing: Krista Hennebury

5. Rope Twist: Amy Friend

but am still four blocks behind schedule.

Thursday I attended a workshop at QuiltersPalet quilt shop in The Hague to make a Clam-up pouch.
I didn't finish because my 35 year-old Bernina Nova refused to sew through two layers of foam plus the zip and four layers of quilting cotton! Not surprising really. My Bernina 404 managed with some difficulty, even when using the walking foot. Now I just have to finish some hand sewing on the inside.

Looks finished, but there's still a binding to sew down!

This was my first time putting in a rounded zip. Although I've made lots of pairs of trousers in the past, they have a much more gentle curve. This I found tricky, maybe due to the machine's difficulty in getting through so many layers of fabric, but I think to my inexperience.

I'm linking to 

 

 Click on the button to see more rainbow projects.

Happy sewing

Marly.

QAL: The Unconventional and the Unexpected

My Overlapping Octagons, inspired by a quilt in "The Unconventional and Unexpected ..." and part of the Quilt along hosted by Sujata Shah, is progressing, but nowhere near completion. Here are the units I've made so far, randomly placed on the design wall.

Overlapping Octagons: Try-out on the design wall with 4.5" red (the new neutral) centres.

I thought I would use as many of my 19th century reproduction fabrics as possible to make space in my sewing room. Unfortunately most of the "reds" look more like brown, so I shall be adding brighter reds to the mix.There was not much blue, and that has nearly all been used now.

I'm enoying using my scraps in this way; really satisfying!

For more information go to Basket full of Scraps where there are more posts relating to this QAL.

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Click on the button above to see more works in progress.

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Happy Sewing

Marly.

QAL: The Unconventional and Unexpected: Overlapping Octagons

I've decided to join in The Unconventional and Unexpected Quilt A-Long . The QAL is being hosted by Sujata Shah, whose work I have admired since I bought her book,  "Cultural Fusion Quilts". The inspiration for this QAL comes from the book "The Unconventional and Unexpected", by Roderrick Kiracofe. For more information check Sujata's posts on The Root Connection. I have chosen to start with the quilt "Overlapping Octagons".

I decided to join in after much deliberation. After all, "Do I really need another project?" "Yes", I answered myself, "You have to move on and this will be a new challenge."

My fabric choice is this:
 

blue and neutrals: a bulging bucket of blues and the right hand pile in the box. My supply of neutrals is very low, and in need of urgent replenishment.

with a few splashes of:

orange: starting with the scraps on the left.

Yesterday I started sewing blue strip scraps together along the short ends as leaders and enders in another project. These will be chopped and sewn together with others to make the string rectangles in the Overlapping Octagons. I shall be ordering more neutrals/ low volume during next week.

My plan is to cut the fabric freehand with the rotary cutter, although I shall be piecing the strips on phone book pages to keep them stable, as I can't manage to cut on the grain freehand, and would like to avoid wobbles and bubbles!

I'm already enjoying this project and look forward to sharing information and progress with others at Basket full of Scraps.

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Click on the button above to see more works in progress.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune Clue 5

Yes, 5! I have looked at 6, and I've even cut a few strings, while straightening edges for the clue 5 pieces. However Christmas week is always extra busy (and I know I'm not the only one) so I haven't got any further with this winter's Quiltville Mystery Quilt, "Good Fortune" than making some of last week's pieces. I also made some more of clue 2 as leaders and enders in clue 5. Perhaps that's an advantage of being behind!

15 pieces for clue 5; where's the one that got away?

As I was making these in pairs, one right- and one left-facing, I was very surprised to have one large blue triangle left over. Where did the other pair of triangles get to, I wonder! I'm not about to move the furniture to look for it now, so that's all of clue 5 for the moment.

As to clue 6, I'm happy that Bonnie gave the option to make the pieces from strings as I'm very low on neutral fabric, but I do have a bag dedicated to the off- cuts from straightening fabric before I start cutting for regular patchwork. I should be able to fill at least one telephone-book page from there, I hope before Friday.

I'm linking to:

So click on the button to see how other's have made clue 6 pieces.

I wish everyone all the best in 2019, especially

Happy sewing

Marly.