Week 25: one yellow, one green, and some Celtic sunshine.

No, I haven't been to the lands of the Celts this week. Not in person anyway, just in my memory. More later.

In June the colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is yellow, and this week I've made one yellow block:

Bright Hopes

Aren't those dancing elephants sweet? It was a block in a charm pack and I think the chance of my making a baby quilt any time soon is extremely remote, so no problem cutting it in half. So as the elephants were dancing I gave them some music to dance to! It's a catchy tune, too, although I don't think I'd heard it before. It's definitely not "Nellie the elephant"!

And one green block:

Carrie Nation

which I had somehow missed when Angela posted the pattern. Actually I found a lot more patterns for green blocks I'd missed. My reading is slipping!

Not much rainbow sewing this week because having corrected and added the borders at the beginning of this week, I've been quilting this:

Celtic Solstice - nearly finished piecing

On the subject of Celtic Solstice: this was the reason for my starting to blog last December. I'd forgotten; so much happens in six months in Blogland. But yesterday I saw Val's anniversary post where she asks people to link their first blog posts. You can see mine here, although in December there was just the message and the photos. I still had a lot to discover (and still have). Go to Val's Quilting Studio, have a look there and join in the linky party. It's interesting to see how people's styles have changed since they first blogged. Anyway I started blogging so I could join the link up for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, about six months after discovering that there were quilters with blogs! And since then I've spent too much time reading blogs, so that quilt still isn't finished!

I'm linking up to:

so head over there too, and see what's going on!

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Yellow in June - week 24; Celtic Solstice (no yellow)

The RSC colour for June is yellow. I managed to make 4 blocks this week.

(clockwise from top left:)
Lovers Knot; Mock LeMoyne Star; Wacky Pinwheel; Alamo Star

For the Alamo Star I got to use the Tri Recs rulers I had bought to make the other project I was working on this week: Celtic Solstice, which was Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt last December. This quilt has three borders, the middle of which is pieced with the same triangle in square units as in the Alamo Star.

Wednesday I went shopping for wadding and fabric for the plain borders in the morning and got the inner border cut and attached and the middle border pieces assembled in the afternoon and evening.  Funny (ha ha!! NOT) thing: why are all the middle border pieces 3" shorter than the inner border? As I've only made one quilt with three borders, and for that didn't have a pattern, I thought there was maybe some quilting secret plan (like nesting seams) that called for a shorter border. Mind you 3" is rather a lot to ease in to fit. I needed the whole of Thursday to get them all on: all 3" short and NO pleats in the inner border (a few gathers but once quilted they will hopefully disappear, I thought.)





Friday morning I got the two side pieces of the outer border on: doesn't look too bad, does it?
(that's because I smoothed it for the photo)







But all is not well. Never mind a Celtic Solstice, this looks like an Atlantic Gale.

It will seriously NOT LIE FLAT, and not just the inner border: the whole thing.

Of course not, I can hear you saying across the miles, stupid. Only at this point did it cross my mind that there might, just might, be a mistake in the pattern? Wading through all Bonnie Hunter's posts for January, and she does write a lot, I finally found a post where she gave the correct number of pieces for the second border: 22 units for the sides and 24 for the top and bottom. I was away from my computer in the first two weeks of January so missed it. Of course, everyone else deduced for themselves that there was a mistake, especially when there were 4 units left over! Just me, 6 months later, following a print out of the original 1 January post, tried to fit 62" onto 65"! Only one thing for it:

 seam ripper! 

To date I've undone about one quarter, better get back to the frog song!

I'm linking up to 

so hop over there to see what other quilters have made this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

May Green Final

The RSC colour for May was green.
I made two more green blocks last Saturday, after I posted . I don't remember which they were, but here are all my green blocks:

and the one yellow block I got done this week.

For the rest I had a lot of hand sewing to do this week.

Linking up to:

so click on the button to pop over there to see what else has been going on.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Jigsaw Quilt finished!

I joined the Finish Along at The Littlest Thistle for the second quarter in 2014 and my list of projected finishes is here. This is my second finish.

In this quilt I finally beat the HST. Half Square Triangles had to be accurate; no fudging possible!

Jigsaw Quilt:

Pattern: Jigsaw Quilt by Pam and Nicky Lintott from "Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts"

Top fabric: : Bella Solid Sand and "Metropolitan Fair" by Barbara Brackman, both from Moda

Backing fabric: : "Prairie Rose" by Sue Daley Designs for Riley Blake Designs

The block is simple: one large and five small HSTs, made from 2.5" strips so each small HST measures 2 by 2"

Before washing

In the photo below the block construction shows up more clearly. The large print triangles were cut from two strip-pieced jelly roll strips of the same colour; the solid triangles from a 4.5" strip. I cut all the triangles, large and small, using my Omnigrid 96 ruler from paired strips - one solid, one print - lying right sides together.

Before washing: quilting detail
(bindweed!)

I got rather carried away and made one block too many! Now I have a themed label.

I stitched the information on the label by machine having reinforced the back of that piece with fusible Vlieseline H180. I stitched the label on after quilting and together with the binding, but I think next time I make such a large label I'll appliqué it before quilting. Such a large overall quilting design wouldn't make the label illegible; it would hold it in place better.

After washing: label

This is my second finish for the second quarter:

As far as the Finish Along goes, I'm behind schedule. It's time to move on to putting the borders onto Celtic Solstice and getting the quilting done. 

I'm linking up to:

so hop over there to see what other people have finished this week.

This is my second finish in Q2 of Finish Along.

At the end of the second quarter I'm linking my finishes to Katy at the Littlest Thistle. Click on the logo above to view other participants' finishes.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

May Green

May has been green month in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Although strictly speaking there are still a few May hours left, they won't be sewing hours here! I have grandchildren coming to stay in a few hours so the spare bedroom has reverted to just that and my sewing corner has been packed away!

Before I put everything away, though, I took a photo of my May blocks.

All green in May

The Chinese coins block is still waiting for the side pieces. I haven't made all the blocks but I'll be going back to green to pick up the remaining blocks soon.

Exit green!
(He had just come out of the grass,
and wasn't yet completely camouflaged.)

In the meantime we're going yellow!

I'm linking up with:

So click on the button to go over there 

and see what others have made this month.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

WIP Wednesday - Jigsaw Quilt

This quilt has been on the go for a couple of months, and I've been plucking up courage to quilt it. Finally I took my courage in both hands, fitted the BSR to the Bernina 440, put on my quilting gloves and covered the quilt in bindweed. Unfortunately it's too dark now to take a photo close up. Even though there is another couple of hours before sunset, it's dark and dreary; it's been raining all day and is still completely overcast. That's also the reason it's a bit out of focus top right: I obviously can't hold the camera steady for 2.5 seconds - it seemed like forever.

Jigsaw Quilt
pattern: Pam & Nikki Lintott
fabric: Metropolitan Fair by Barbara Brackman for Moda.

Well the motif is leaves on a vine, but the leaves look like bindweed. (When I had a garden bindweed was the bane of my life. I seemed to be forever digging it out.) I was hoping to do dot to dot quilting on this one, but my results are too erratic at the moment. I need more practice.

I'm now heading off to the sewing corner to quilt in the ditch along the border and add tram rail quilting along the border - with the walking foot. Hopefully I'll be ready to put the binding on tomorrow and get a Friday finish.

I'm linking up to 

    

so pop over there and see what others are working on this week.

Happy sewing

Marly.

More Happy Mail, and it's not even my birthday!

Hooray! I won a bundle of fat quarters from Northcott in the Quiltmaker blog hop giveaway.  They are such beautiful shades of blue, green and aqua, with a one brown low volume print. The theme is marine with some large prints, like the one on the top, some medium prints, water plants, and a lot of very useful low volume prints. Wonderful.

What do you think of my background fabric? No, I'm not going to lay the wadding out every time I take a photo; I just happened to be layering a quilt when FedEx came!

I understand that the Quiltmaker 100 blocks magazine is also on its way.  Maybe I'll find inspiration for an aquatic quilt.

I'm linking up to:

Happy Sewing

Marly.