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: 

 

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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

      

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Stay safe and healthy,

Happy sewing

Marly.

One monthly goal in August: Fireworks

My goal this month is not a quilty one, but knitting. I aim to finish my Fireworks sweater, which I started on 1 July. This pattern is by Marie Greene of Olive Knits, and has been the subject of her summer 4-day (!) KAL  this year. 

This project is a learning experience, and during the first week of July I did a fair amount of backward knitting in the process of learning new techniques. Once I had mastered the stitch sequence  I was able to move on more quickly.

After 10 days

 

But then I had a forced two week break while waiting for the rest of my wool order to arrive so the self-imposed deadline of 31 July was out of the question. 

In the last week I've got to this (plus 10 cm.):

Let's hope I will have finished the rest of the body and the sleeves by the end of August.

I'm linking to

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

Happy crafting

Marly.

Purple table scraps

The Joyful Quilter has a challenge, linked to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, to use scraps to make something for a table in the colour of the month. This month's colour is purple. I'm pairing purple with yellow, its complementary colour.

Not much purple in the purple scrap bowl. I planned on making a placemat, but maybe I'll have to settle for a mug rug.

I had more purple pieces than I thought. I started with the scrap bag, where most of the pieces were crumbs, and not nearly enough. My drawers of strips, sorted by width, proved to contain enough purple.

Following a tutorial on fine line piecing published last month by Debbie Jeske I set out to join the crumbs and other scraps. I cut the yellow strips at 0.5", although I had started with wider. I found that half an inch was wide enough if I sewed a scant quarter inch seam

Adding  a yellow strip with a scant quarter inch seam 

 

chain piecing the yellow strip

and the seam to join the second fabric one eighth of an inch from the first. This felt strange at first, like working back to front. The second fabric is hidden under the first, whereas I would normally position it on top.

Which all resulted in this:

 

fine line pieced, quilted, labelled and bound: one placemat.

I'm linking this to:

                 

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Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

"Good Fortune" bag

My one monthly goal for May was to look out my pieces of "Good Fortune", Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt of a few years ago. I looked them out and decided to make a bag using eight of the blocks. I wrote about that process here. Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish it in May.

Now, however, I've finished sewing it together and adding the carrying straps.

The aim was to make it large enough to carry a project and tools to a bee or workshop.

It's even big enough for a 12"x17" cutting mat:

Measurements: 18"x18"x 5"

Materials: 

• left over scrap blocks
• recycled jeans
• wadding scraps
• canvas: NEW!
• thread: all new
• piecing Mettler 50 wt
• quilting Aurifil 40 wt

I'm so happy to have made something new almost completely from scraps! It's going to be useful too, once we get back to normal group activities. 

I'm linking this to:

 

Click on the button to see more of this week's finishes.

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

My Own Path

For the last month or so I've been working on "My Own Path", in the Quilt Along, "Follow Your Own Path", designed and organised by Sandra Walker of  @mmmquilts.

photo indoors with overcast skies and drizzle

Adding the binding, with a glimpse of the backing fabric: a purchased remnant of  unknown origin:

My version is smaller than the original, as I halved all the measurements of the baby quilt. This has resulted in a quilt of 20" by 18" with the same number of blocks as the original. 

Background fabric: Contempo's "color weave" in light grey.

arrows: from scraps

shadow arrows: Contempo's "color weave" in medium grey.

Two days ago, outside, in bright sunlight

Making this during the sixth month of our second Covid lockdown, inspired the layout: it could only get better: the only way from here was up! [That turned out to be true; most of the restrictions have now been lifted, and more will be from next weekend.]

The ghost arrows in the quilting represent my moments of indecision, and ideas not followed through; the points of potential deviation from my path.

I really enjoyed this deviation from my plan for this year. Thank you Sandra!

I'm linking this to:

           

                

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Keep safe and healthy

Happy Sewing

Marly.

One Monthly Goal for June

June's goal for Patty's challenge at Elm Street Quilts is to finish this small version of "Follow your own path", the Quilt Along held recently at mmmquilts. 

All it needs is the quilting.

I started free motion quilting it with the stitch regulator on Friday, but the result was DREADFUL! (Sorry, no photo) It absolutely did not enhance the piecing. Yesterday morning I spent some time unpicking three lines of quilting. Maybe you can see a trace of them in the fourth row, between the yellow and green arrows. Unpicking quilting is normally something I just don't do. Unless the tension is so off that I have loops on the back (happened once!) I leave it be; the chances are that I'm the only one who'd notice. but now: regulated nothing! Some of the stitches were more than a quarter of an inch long, and others less than one sixteenth. 

I haven't used the stitch regulator for some time as I've been following Lori Kennedy's online course in FMQ, and chose to do the course using my darning foot. Now, with the darning foot my stitches are not always the same length either, but are much better than this was, and I feel more in control of the machine.

So my goal is to get this labelled, quilted an bound before the end of the month. Let's hope a trip to the dealer for a machine service doesn't throw a spanner in the works!

I'm linking this to:

Click on the button for links to more June goals.

Stay safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.