On The Road Again {Scrappy Sewing Progress}

When I last posted about my new scrappy project, my block units looked like this:

And now I have blocks that look like this!

{block pics}

I currently have 22 star blocks and 22 chain blocks. I still have six sets of finished flying geese units for another six star blocks, and then I'll make another batch of six chain blocks. Since I last posted about this project, I did cut up some additional 2.5" squares for my four patches and the corners of the chain blocks to add some additional color variety. 

That would put me at 56 total blocks, able to be alternated in a 7x8 grid, for a quilt (pre-borders) that would be approximately 56" x 64", which would be a nice sized throw. But, I think if I can find another blue/aqua fabric or two to cut into more flying geese units, I'd like to see the quilt grow closer to twin sized, since I still have a lot of this fabric line left. I might skip the green fabrics all together just for the sake of contrast, but that's still to be determined.

What are you sewing this week?

What I've Been Sewing Lately {WIP Wednesday}

Despite the fact that I have been working from home for four months as of tomorrow, that has not translated at all into extra sewing time. It's mostly translated into sleeping more and loading and unloading the dishwasher more. And we may or may not have made it through the entire Marvel movie series in that time. 

The goals in my sewing room have been two-fold since the beginning of the year: finish up WIPs and clear out scraps. The finishing up WIPs part has been wholly unsuccessful. The clearing out scraps part has actually gone relatively well. I haven't made any lately, but early on in quarantine, I made oodles of my Rainbow Snippet blocks. 

I haven't really posted about it but I have actually been making masks. I've made four "batches" -- the first batch was for us, a few of my husband's coworkers, and some friends, the second was a batch for our church when they reopened for socially distanced services, and the third and fourth batches have been for my work. I've used the Sarah Maker tutorial with ties for all of them, but usually I make my ties slightly shorter.

This has been a great medium-to-large scrap buster. I've pulled the majority of my fabrics from my "larger cuts" scrap bin and just tried to maximize what I can get out of the scraps.

I also started a new scrappy project using some Island Batik fabrics and my Accuquilt cutter. I still had most of the scraps left from my Hip to Be Square quilts from the Little Sir, Little Miss line (other than the pink and purples I pulled out to make my Hattie's Choice quilt a few months ago) and combined that with the black solid Island Batik fabric I had on hand for the background. The inspiration for my quilt is this pattern that is featured in the Accuquilt book that came with my starter set last year:

I'm not sure if I will do the borders as the pattern shows, but for now, I cut all of my blue and teal scraps into pieces and parts for flying geese for the star points and the rest of the colors (other than the green, which I am reserving for now) into squares for the four patches. The other change is that the pattern is actually for the 6" Qube set and I have an 8" Qube set so I am not really going off yardage, I'm just starting with this general idea for a a two block quilt.

I have all but four of my flying geese sets complete (at least of what I have cut thus far):

I've also made quite a few four patches that will become the centers of my star blocks:

The four patches will also be part of the secondary block for this quilt, which I have seen called by many names, including a "Frayed Four Patch". To me it's kind of like a mini Irish Chain block or a really small Courthouse Steps block. Some of my small squares will be used for the corners of these blocks so I can't just mindlessly turn all of them into four patches! I also realized that I need to cut some black small squares for the corners of my star blocks, so that will be my next task.

Now that I am finally in a better mind for sewing, it figures that I am going back to work on site (part time) starting next week! I still need to decide on my project for this month's Island Batik assignment, but I have a few good ideas! I'll be using the same fabrics that I used for my May project (I think) to make a wall hanging (I think).

Rainbow Snippet Blocks {Scrap Busting Tutorial}

Today I am making good on the promise I made last week to share an easy tutorial on how I make my Rainbow Snippet Blocks. These are relatively free-wheeling, choose-your-own-adventure type blocks that can be adapted to any sized finished block.

What you need:

Scraps -- Separated into "strings" and "snippets" (see notes below)
Paper foundation -- I have an old phone book

What are my definitions of "strings" and "snippets"?

For me (and for making these blocks), a "string" is any scrap at least an inch wide and at least 7" long. Since I am trimming my blocks down to 6.5" unfinished, I like to have a little overhang on each side of the block. A "snippet" is anything smaller than 7" -- ie, too short to use as a complete string on its own -- however, the bulk of my snippets are smaller than 3" on both sides.

I'm working with a kind of small local phone book, so my block size was determined by the size of the paper.

To start, you'll sew together your snippets into a row at least 7" long. I have found that for a 6.5." block, I use between 3-5 snippets per pieced snippet row, so I usually start sewing pairs together, and then gauging how many additional snippets are necessary to reach a 7" length. I make two snippet rows per block, so I often start with 8 snippet pieces, sew those into two rows of 4 snippets each, and then see if either row needs an extra piece.

Once sewn and pressed, I trim the edges straight -- as perpendicular as possible to the snippet seams, but not overly worried about a little wonky piecing in the blocks. (Note: if you want wonk, go for it!) I simply trim the row as wide as I can based on 1/8th inch measurements.

My blocks typically have 5 rows -- two snippet rows and three string rows. For the first seam, I align one of my snippet rows on my paper and layer a string scrap on top, right sides together. I sew these together -- snippet row, string scrap, and paper -- using a quarter inch seam and press towards the string scrap. I repeat this process until I have alternating string and snippet rows.

Here are the strips atop my foundation with the first snippet/snip pair sewn to the foundation:

Here's my finished sewn piece prior to trimming:

An aside: "What if my block doesn't end up being long enough?!?"

I've had this happen once or twice. I just add another string scrap to one end. Or use two string scraps in the middle of a block if I have particularly skinny strings.

Once your sewing is finished, use your rulers to trim the block to 6.5" square (or the size of your choosing). Again, I try to keep the seams relatively parallel across the block, but if you'd like your blocks to be more wonky, you can trim the block askew in addition to using wonky strips.

Until I use the blocks, I will leave the paper on. Before sewing blocks together, I will remove the phone book paper.

I hope that this tutorial is helpful to you! This has helped me use up a lot of scraps in the last month and hopefully I will have enough blocks for a quilt before too long!

Happy Dance {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

Today I am doing a happy dance -- I have finally finished the last six blocks for my Frolic mystery quilt top!

As I have mentioned in some of my recent posts, working from home has not been a boon for sewing time for me. I still am working full time -- just at my kitchen table. I have managed to sneak in sewing time here and there (and quite a bit this past weekend!) and the first thing on the list was to finish up these six blocks.

As I mentioned in my last post, I did have to make about 20 additional four patch units to finish up these blocks, which was quick and easy because I still had a couple strips in those colors that I didn't use when I did the cutting for the step originally.

Now comes the big, large, huge undertaking of the pieced sashings and putting the rows together. I know I will need to make more sashing parts along the way, but I might modify the original directions so that I can strip piece them.

Happy Wednesday! I hope the sun is shining where ever you might be!

Measurable Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

I think, perhaps, that I am starting to see the end of the tunnel with my Frolic mystery quilt!

Since last I posted, I have finished these five dark teal blocks:

This means I am officially more than halfway through my planned number of dark teal blocks AND 85% of the way done with ALL of the full blocks for this quilt.

I still have a LOT do to do as far as the pieced sashings go, as well as deciding how I am going to modify my setting triangles (since I am NOT making partial blocks) and potentially figuring out how to use the piles of half-square triangles that I made in the course of the clues that were intended for the pieced border that I am not enamored with.

My thought is to try to use some of the pieced triangles for my setting triangles or to only use some of them in the pieced border.

In the meantime, I am back to making units for my next set of dark teal blocks:

In this pile, I have all of my half-square triangles, flying geese, and additional strip sets for my coral and navy four patches sewn. These will all be pressed and trimmed in my moments of "free time" throughout the week.

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and were able to get outside a bit -- we are spoiled living within walking distance of a national park, so we have plenty of places to socially distance ourselves in nature.

Don't forget that our PDF patterns are 20% off for ten more days! We also still have a limited stock of Kona remaining in our Etsy shop -- we have already sold out of some colors, but we still have 7 neutral colors in stock. We also have a limited selection of batiks and tonals.

Frolic Friday {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

Just a quick post with a teeny tiny update on my Frolic mystery quilt.

Since last I posted, I finished two blocks. For these dark teal blocks, I have been doing them in smaller batches broken up by which fabric they feature for the aqua secondary background. These two blocks used some leftover Bonnie and Camille April Showers fabric.

I also have all of the block parts ready to go for the next five blocks.

These should zip together relatively quickly when and if I find time at my sewing machine this week or weekend.

I hope that you are all making the most of your mandatory staycations! I really thought I would have more time given that I don't have my daily work commute, but really, I am just sleeping more.

A Slow Pace {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

A happy Friday to all -- catching up today with a late afternoon post!

Maybe my plans to enlarge my Frolic quilt were misguided because this is continuing to be a long, slow process of making blocks! The last time I posted about my Frolic progress was exactly a month ago! Then I had just finished up my navy blocks and I had started working on my dark teal blocks.

As of now, I have only three dark teal blocks complete, however, I have pieces and parts sewn and ready to go for an additional 6 or 8 blocks.

I hope that everyone is safe sewing and working from home! I am now working from home full time (with occasional days in the office) so as much as I might like to be on the "Quarantine and Quilt" schedule, I still have to work to pay the bills!

At A Snail's Pace {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

I am still slowly (so slowly) but surely making little bits of progress on my Frolic mystery quilt.

Last year I finished the top of my Good Fortune quilt top on (or about) February 13th. Now, I did do a half-ished sized quilt last year and I am doing the full quilt this year in addition to this being a much more complicated quilt and not feeling my normal motivation in December and January.

However, I have completed all of my navy blocks!

This includes the stray block that I shared last time in the lower right hand corner. And once again I found a block that I need to fix -- can you find it? It should be very easy to fix.

So, if I wanted to make the quilt as directed, I would stop here and then use the rest of my sets to make the half and quarter blocks. But because I'm a certified overachiever and over-complicater of projects, I am going to make 16 more full blocks out of the block sets that I have left. I don't plan to make half blocks for my setting triangles at all.

I will be stepping back to make more units for blocks -- flying geese and half square triangles -- with my dark teal fabrics. My plan is to work on units and blocks in small batches so I don't get overwhelmed with a lot of trimming at once (which happened a lot in this mystery quilt!).

The parts for the "ring" of dark teal are done, and the parts for the "star" in coral and dark teal will be what I am making next. All of the dark teal blocks will have the same yellow dot fabric used throughout.

Happy Wednesday -- what works in progress are you working on today?

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Stitching Shenanigans {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

After posting my last Frolic update, the first thing that I did was to fix the block that had the mistake. It took prepping that blog post to realize there was even a corner unit twisted around -- oops!

After a fairly productive few days of sewing, I am now up to a total of 17 blocks. I snapped a pic of the first 16 together before I finished number 17.

I have less than 10 navy blue blocks to go. I have sewn up all of the side flying geese pairs...

... except that I need to press the remaining pairs.

I still have quite a few corner units to sew as well. This will be my first task this weekend.

Once I use up all of these units, that means I have reached the end of the navy blue set of Frolic blocks. If I was going with the original quilt plan, I would be switching over to making the half and quarter blocks, however, I am going to make an additional set of full blocks and skip the half and quarter blocks. I have to switch gears and get back into unit making but I will be taking a break to work on my February Island Batik Ambassador project.

Happy Friday! What are you working on this weekend?

Block Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

I am so excited today to show some real, tangible progress on my blocks for Frolic!

To refresh, I am planning to make all of the block sets into full blocks to make a bigger quilt and not make the half blocks. I have all of the units made for over half of the full blocks (these are featuring my navy fabrics) but I will need to go back and make flying geese and HSTs for my dark teal fabric blocks.

I now have 9 blocks completed! And of course, now that I am posting this picture, I am realizing that one of my corner units is turned 180 degrees -- oops! I will have some time with the seam ripper tonight!

I have been making my block parts in batches before making my blocks -- sewing together the flying geese as well as sewing together the four patch corner units for a set of blocks.

I've been using the coral and navy pinhweels as my leaders-and-enders. Since these are the same for all of my navy blocks, this seemed like the best choice.

I have only been making one block at a time to make sure that I am keeping all of my parts straight. This is slightly slower than working on multiple blocks at a time, but I haven't had to rip anything out yet (knock on wood).

I also realize that my plan to enlarge my quilt will require a LOT more sashings. I will have to do some math and figure out if I have enough coral fabric to cover a slightly larger quilt. I should have enough, but I want to make sure before I go boldly into this plan.

Happy Friday! Today I am teaching a class on foundation paper piecing! I am so excited!

Clue #7, #8 Progress and a Test Block {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

The good thing about being behind on Frolic is that I can see how other people's quilts are coming together! I have been enjoying seeing all of the blocks people are putting together on Instagram and I am very jealous of those who have had the time/patience/ability to get their quilt tops finished!

The bad thing about being behind is that it seems like somewhat of an insurmountable task! I'm making some progress, most certainly. I've found that it is kind of hard to get to a stopping point with this project because I just want to keep going with the units.

I have *technically* finished all of the units for Clue #8 per the directions but haven't sorted my units into block groupings. I made all of the aqua/blue/coral flying geese and trimmed them.

I also managed to finish up the coral/navy HSTs which will be used to make the pinwheel centers of the blocks. I haven't gotten many trimmed.

I have trimmed a few HSTs though -- because I put together a test block!

First and foremost, WOW! As complicated as the directions seemed to be at times, I have found everything is coming together quite nicely! I have a tentative plan on modifying my quilt to be slightly larger, but for now, I am going to make all of my full blocks using the navy fabrics before moving onto my dark teal blocks. I will need to go back and make the dark teal/coral/aqua flying geese and dark teal/coral HSTs, but for now, I need a mental break from making units.

I also have quite a bit of cutting to do, particularly of my background fabric, to be able to put together blocks and sashing. I wish there was more strip piecing I could do going forward, but it will be a one-block-at-a-time thing to finish this quilt.

Please pop back in on Thursday as I will be sharing all of the goodies in my newest Island Batik Amabassador box!

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Clue #4, #7, #8 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

After a long delay, I have finally finished Clue #4 for my Frolic mystery quilt! While the final reveal came out today, I am not as behind as I thought I might be.

To finish up Clue #4, I made all of the necessary sets of HSTs in navy, dark teal, and aqua.

I split up my aquas so that I used half of the different prints to make the aqua/navy HSTs and the other half of the prints to make the aqua/dark teal HSTs.

The left and center aquas are from my Pineapple Log Cabin quilt, the gingham check is a fat quarter I pulled out of a bundle, and the dot is from my April Showers quilt.

The umbrella print and raindrop print are from my April Showers quilt, the pearl chain dot is my Pineapple Log Cabin quilt, and the bubble dot print is a fat quarter of unknown origin.

(The beautiful print I used as my background is actually the back of one of my Wanderlust placemats.)

I also finished up the cutting for Clue #7.

But I decided that I needed a break from HSTs (which is what I would be making in Clue #7) and I decided that I wanted to skip to making more flying geese in Clue #8 instead! I am part of the way through sewing the blue triangles to one side of the units.

Some of my predictions about the quilt were very wrong, and some were right! I definitely like the blocks and the setting, but I am not necessarily in love with the pieced borders. I am going to think about actually making the center of my quilt LARGER and eliminating the pieced borders. I have lots of options, and I really love the main block of the quilt!

If you are Frolic-ing, what do you think of the reveal? Is it what you predicted? I predicted a quilt on point however I did not think we would have sashing.

Have a lovely weekend!

Clue #4, #6, #7 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

Slowly but surely I am making tiny bits of progress on my Frolic mystery quilt. I was able to dig deep in my stash to find two fat quarters to finish the cutting for Clue #4!

Yay for not having to go to the store and buy more fabric! I started drawing lines on the back of the small squares to pair each with a navy or dark teal small square to make the half-square triangles for Clue #4 and this will be the next thing I sew. Most of my aqua fabrics are left over from my April Shower Medallion quilt and my Pineapple Log Cabin quilt. 

For Clue #6, I am making part of my flying geese using my navy fabric and part using my dark teal fabrics. I started off making the navy fabric geese with yellow scraps for the background triangles and had shown some of the sewn but untrimmed geese in my last Frolic post. 

I have really, really used up my yellow scraps -- so much so that the yellow batik in the upper right hand corner was a fat quarter hanging around in my stash from long, long ago that I originally didn't think I would end up using for this quilt. Some of these fabrics were also used in my On Ringo Lake quilt, too. 

For the dark teal set of geese, I am using a single yellow print fabric -- something I had bought on clearance years and years ago, which I think looks really lovely with the coral dot print. I used three of my dark teal prints for these flying geese.

Making and trimming these geese went much faster than the batch that I made with the navy and scrappy yellow fabrics!

Now I am officially *done* with Clue #6! I also started the cutting for Clue #7:

I still have a pile of coral squares to cut for this step, that will be paired with the navy or dark teal to make half-square triangles and pinwheels or used to make more flying geese in Clue #8.

While a lot of people are itching for another clue to be released, I am happy that we haven't had any additional bonus clues! If I could get through finally finishing Clue #4 and making a dent in Clue #7 before Friday, I would be really, really proud of myself.

Are you Frolicking? How is your progress? I applaud those of you that decided to do half sized quilts this time around because sometimes I am regretting going full-scale for this one!

Sharing at What I Made Monday and Oh Scrap!

Clues #4, #5, & #6 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

While I am going to talk about three clues today, I'm actually only done with one out of the three!

When we got home after Christmas, I had some time to do the cutting for both Clue #4 and Clue #5.

For Clue #4, our assignment was to cut pieces and parts for HSTs and for triangle parts to be used later. I had plenty of my navy fabric and my dark teal fabrics for my required number of sets, however I only had enough aqua fabrics for about 75% of the required number of sets. I will need to either dig deeper into my stash or buy about a 1/3 of a yard of fabric. I decided to hold off on sewing my HSTs using these units until I have more aqua.

Clue #5 was a complete diversion from Clue #4, which was very helpful for me! We made more HSTs, this time using background and raspberry, so mine are white-on-white and my coral dot. There was lots of trimming for this clue too but it was good to just have a completely completed clue.

Clue #6 was our bonus clue that came out on New Year's Eve, and is a highly complicated clue that uses some of the units we cut for Clue #4 to make flying geese. For my quilt, I will be using the dark blue and dark teal fabrics combined with yellow to make my flying geese. I prefer to use the fast flying geese method, but this time around I am using a regular piecing method. So far, I have 8 sets sewn (but not trimmed), so I am about 20% of the way done sewing these units. 

Clue #7 came out on Friday and I haven't touched it yet. I should easily be able to start it because I will use my coral, navy, and dark teal fabrics, however, I would like to get all of my flying geese sets sewn and trimmed first. I will still need to go back and finish Clue #4 once I find or buy more aqua fabric.

Happy Monday!

Sharing at BOMs Away!

Scrapping Around {Jingle Bell Square}

In the month of December, I was using my Jingle Bell Square blocks and block parts as leaders-and-enders for my Frolic unit sewing and my "I only have 15 minutes to sew" project. Now that it is the new year, I decided to pack up this project temporarily to clean up my sewing space slightly.

Since I last posted about this project in mid-November, I picked up a few Christmas-y fat quarters and fat eights at the quilt shop and made seven blocks between then and January 1st.

I made four green and three red blocks this round -- which means I have only six green and four red blocks left to go for this project. I didn't run out of background fabrics -- I have about a fat quarter and a fat eighth left currently -- but I was just ready for a break from this project. 

The goal originally was to get this entire quilt top done in time for the Christmas that just passed -- so maybe I will have a Christmas quilt for my bed next year. 

Happy Friday! 

Clue #3 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

When I did the cutting for Clue #2, I did the cutting for Clue #3 as well. Thanks to weekend movie watching, I had all of the diagonals drawn on my background fabric squares in short order.

This is the first unit where I actually used my scrappy fabrics! Rather than mixing both my teal and my dark blue fabrics for this unit, I used only the scrappy dark teal fabrics.

I used seven different dark teal fabrics, a few of which were leftover from the Cotton + Steel half-yards I used for my Pineapple Quilt. There are actually two different zig zag prints but they are very similar! I bought these on clearance years and years ago and used one of them in my Summer on the Coast quilt. The teal and gold arch print came from a traveling quilt goodie box and the dandelion print fabric was used in my Odori quilt.

Like the first two clues, I did make a few extra units for this step, just in case. Unlike the other clues which were strip piecing and sub-cutting, this one took a little bit more time (or a lot more time!) because I needed to trim all of my units. I did make a lot of pretty trash.

At this point, I am terribly behind! I didn't get these HSTs trimmed until this week Monday due to holiday prep and travel. I brought my fabrics for Clue #4 with me to prep and cut but have had too many holiday activities to squeeze that in. Clue #5 actually comes out today and I will be lucky to finish both of these clues by New Year's Day at this point.

Maybe one year, eventually, we won't have to travel for Christmas and I can just stay home and sew. That would be a real Christmas miracle!

Clue #2 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

Mystery quilt season is in full swing and I am *already* behind!

Clue #2 came out on December 6th. Things have been busy outside of my sewing room so I didn't even get my strips cut for my units until this weekend and I did all of the cutting for Clue #2 and Clue #3 at the same time.

This was another clue for me using my non-scrappy fabrics. It was very quick to zip together my strip sets.

It was also quick to sub-cut all of these units two at a time. I cut a couple more units than are required and I still had a bit of one strip set left just in case.

I also managed to cut all of my squares for making half square triangles in Clue #3.

In an ideal world, I would be able to finish Clue #3 this week and somehow do all of Clue #4 before we leave for our holiday road trip next week, but I know that would be a little bit of a stretch!

Today's post is coming to you a little late courtesy of the first real snow of the season!

Clue #1 Progress {Frolic Mystery Quilt}

The long wait was over on Friday morning -- the first clue of Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt was released! At the beginning of November, I shared my fabric choices:

Unlike many lucky people, I had to work on Black Friday, so I spent the day chomping at the bit to get home and start on Clue #1.

For Clue #1, we were tasked with making a pile of four patches using our blues and raspberry fabrics. My coral dot print replaces the raspberry scraps and instead of using both my dark blue and dark teal, I just used the dark blue fabric for these units.

I also did my cutting with my Accuquilt cutter -- my mom got me a couple additional dies for my birthday over the summer and the one was the exact size needed for these units!

This is the first time I am attempting to do the full number of units for each clue -- my first two mysteries, I did half as many units for each clue. Doing the full number of units this time was not unbearable, but I will admit my sewing went very quickly because I wasn't going full-scrappy for this clue.

While I was pressing my units and spinning seams, I had things set out on a side table in my living room with one of my nativity sets.

Clue #2 will be out today -- and we'll see what that will be. My plan for tonight is to press the fabrics used in Clue #2 and start some of the cutting while watching a Hallmark movie or two.

Are you participating in the Frolic mystery this year? What other holiday sewing are you working on this month?