Forest {RSC May 2016}

Last week when I pulled my greens, I was surprised that I didn't have more scraps. This week, when going through some of my projects, I found the reason why:

A pile of greens BIGGER than what I had in my scrap box was hanging out in a bag of fabrics that I had brought home from my mom's house at least a year ago. Some of these are really large hunks and chunks from backings. Needless to say any dent that I make in my greens will be outweighed by this discovery. Oops.

I decided to go ahead and finish up all of my green blocks for this month and then start thinking if there are any other projects that I can do with primarily greens (time to dig through the abandoned project box!) over the rest of the month.

# 50 - Honey's Choice, #51 - Hovering Birds, #52 - Hovering Hawks

#53 - Jackknife, #54 - Kitchen Woodbox, #55 - Linoleum

Since Hovering Birds and Hovering Hawks are such similar blocks, I did my best to color them very differently to keep them from looking too similar. I think my favorite out of this set is Honey's Choice. 

Despite the wide range of greens, I think these will blend well together once I finally get all of these blocks completed and finish the quilt. 

I've already started thinking about how I am going to put this quilt together and what colors to potentially use for sashings. My initial thought is to use white or off white solid since I haven't used any solid other than a little bit of grey solid last month. My other thought was to put a thin border around each block in a solid color -- for these green blocks I would use various solid greens -- and then put all of the blocks together. 

How do you think I should put everything together? Any FW veterans out there with tips to share?

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Fabric Tuesday!

May is for Makers {Week 2: Mulholland Drive by Sassafrass Lane Designs}

It's week 2 of May is for Makers!

This week I decided to pick something that has been on my Pinterest Quilt Inspiration board for what seems like forever.

May is for Makers is a great way to shorten those wishlists! 

This quilt is another effort to push my skills and make something more difficult (it is rated as "advanced" on Craftsy) and this one incorporates some paper piecing which I love! I will have to get my equilateral triangle ruler back from my sister before I start this one, but I don't think she'll mind because she actually bought me the fabric that I plan to use for this quilt! Enter Jungle Avenue:

I have a fat quarter bundle of the fabric as well as some additional yardage of the black floral print. It's not quite enough fabric for the throw size version, but I have lots of fabrics that I can pull from my stash to mix in. 

What have you bought this month to support makers?

Mint {RSC May 2016}

It's a new month and that means a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month our color is green with brown accents.

I pulled out my green pile of scraps and this is what I came up with:

To me this doesn't seem like quite as much green as I thought that I had but hopefully I can get through a lot of these scraps.

Here are my first five blocks for this month:

#45 - Grape Basket, #46 - Hill and Valley, #47 - Homemaker

#48 - Homeward Bound, #49 - Honeycomb

The Homemaker block had lots and lots of y-seams, despite being paper pieced. It did come together well, but it took a double dose of patience this week. The rest of the blocks were relatively simple -- I did eliminate some unnecessary piecing in both the Homeward bound and in the Honeycomb block.

What are your scrappy projects this weekend? Or are you starting something new?

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday, Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, and Fabric Tuesday!

Summer on the Coast -- Month #2 -- Unit B

Welcome to our second month of the Summer on the Coast QAL!

This month we are making slightly more complicated blocks -- triangle in a square blocks! 

Update 1/2/19: Right now our free patterns are not available because of the changes to Craftsy. We are in the process of moving our free patterns to Payhip and will send an update once that is complete.

Here's how many units you will need for each size and approximate fabric needed for each part of the block:

Baby: 34 units (7/8 yard for large triangles, 1 yard for small triangles)
Throw: 48 units (1 yard for large triangles, 1 1/8 yard for small triangles)
Twin: 98 units (2 yards for large triangles, 2 1/4 yards for small triangles)

If you want to pre-cut your pieces to help reduce some trim-off waste, my recommendations for cutting is as follows:

Center triangles: cut 7 inch wide strips across your WOF. See below on how to cut your first angle -- you should be able to get 10 triangles per WOF.
Side triangles: cut 7.5 inch by 4.5 inch rectangles -- you will need to cut half of your rectangles from upper right to lower left and cut the other half of your rectangles from upper left to lower right. You will need one of each type of small triangle (left handed, right handed) for each unit.

Note: pre-cutting is NOT necessary if you feel confident in your paper piecing skills! 

To start, fold your triangle-square units along one of the triangle lines.use that fold to trim the same angle across your 7 inch fabric strip. I cut my strip 1/4 inch away from the edge of the paper. This will make it easier to line up your small triangles.

As noted above, you will need to cut both "left handed" and "right handed" half-rectangle triangles. If you layer two rectangles wrong sides together and cut diagonally once, you will have both two sets of triangles.

If desired, pin your fabric strip to the foundation. Line up your first triangle to the pre-cut edge and sew on the line. Press your triangle away from the background strip.

Fold along the opposite triangle line and cut off the excess background fabric strip - don't forget to leave a 1/4 beyond the fold for your seam allowance!

Place your second small triangle along the second angled edge and sew on the foundation line. Press your block.

Make sure that your triangles cover the entirety of the block as indicated by the dashed lines around the block. You may need to increase the size of your half-rectangle triangles if you have trouble with lining up the triangles correctly. When you've made sure that your pieces are lined up, you can trim your block along the dotted lines for a 6.5 inch block (6 inch finished).

Share your finished blocks in the HBD Designs Flickr group!

Sharing at Fabric Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social!

May is for Makers {Week 1: Marigold Quilt by Pen + Paper}

If you haven't seen others post about it, Lindsey at LR Stitched is hosting/promoting May is for Makers.

Each week, we are going to buy a pattern from someone -- 5 weeks in May, 5 patterns from 5 designers that get a little boost of support!

Each Monday, I am going to share the pattern that I bought. I will chose each pattern on my own, none of these will be sponsored posts from the designers and I am going to make a concerted effort to pick a pattern from someone that I am not already "quiltfriends" with.

This week, I bought the Marigold Quilt Pattern from Pen + Paper Patterns.

Why I bought this pattern: 

To be perfectly honest, for the last year or so, I have felt relatively unchallenged in my quilt projects. I haven't worked with curves in any serious fashion since I finished my New York Beauty Quilt three years ago. So part of my choices for May is for Makers will be focused on challenging myself with some more difficult quilt patterns.

I think this quilt is just adorable (obviously!) and I definitely see this pattern as a little out of the box for me. I am thinking that I will make this quilt from some of my Bungalow stash.

Another cool thing about this pattern is that you can buy all of the necessary templates (if you don't want to make them yourself) from this Etsy Shop. I am not sure if I would buy templates just for one pattern, but I like that it is available as an option.

Are you joining #mayisformakers? What do you look for when pattern shopping?

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Month #2 of the Summer on the Coast QAL!