Carey Family

Quilting

RSC2023 January #2

by 4 Comments

SoScrappy

How’s this for some January blue sewing? I processed a ginormous pile of jeans a couple of years ago into bags of different sized strips so they were ready to make into quilt tops. And they sat in my studio closet until the great pack-up. I decided to bring them to the apartment because it seemed like relaxing sewing, plus an old project that could get finished up. These are strips being sewn end-to-end in a giant chain piecing stream.

I got top #1 made this week from those strips. It will be a donation quilt & since my quilting partner got a long-arm for her December birthday & needs practice quilts, I got some backing & batting & will let her do the quilting rather than send in the top & let other volunteers do the quilting. So wins all around! (Evening in the apt for photo shoot so the colors are muted-there’s much more blue like in the first shot!)

This is what’s left after making the first top. How many quilts do you think I can make from these strips???

Have a great week, fellow scrappy sewers!

RSC2023 January #1

by 3 Comments

SoScrappy

I mentioned in December that we are selling our home & moving to a tiny apartment while we sell & buy. I don’t know how long this will take as the hubby is still finishing up some renovations, so it looks like listing will be done by end of January. As I was contemplating how I’m going to do RSC this year with all my scraps packed up, Angela said in her post to make it work for you. So I will! I went through all the projects I brought to the apt & made a list so I would know what I have because I’m only going to sew these projects while I’m here.

The list!

I didn’t take a photo of Songbook before taking it to the quilter last week, but that was my first apartment finish. The kit was a Mother’s Day gift in 2021 from my hubby, but because of supply chain issues, it didn’t arrive until the fall. I was heavy into finishing Christmas gifts & let it lapse. I started sewing the stars in July 2022 just before surgery & the Great Fall stopped all sewing for months. So in November when I could sew again, I started slowly working on it as therapy from the stress of packing & got the blocks done & sewed together before the move. My hubby gave me a coupon for Christmas that said I could go get it quilted, so I got the borders on after Christmas & got it to the quilter! (We have a moratorium on getting things quilted during this period, but he was sweet. This quilt is for me to keep, so he decided to just do it.) I also made the binding & that’s blue for the month!

I’ve been doing this relaxing string piecing for Bonnie Hunter’s Cherry Crunch & have all 448 little blocks made. They get red corners so I’m going to put them away for the red month. Then I can play along with y’all.

My “blue” project for January is to finish the Quilts for Kids kits I checked out before the accident. I’ve had them for months now & feel guilty, so they are my priority. I got #1 done previously, but I finished #2 this week. #3 has the blocks in progress.

I finished the last of the Sweet Kisses blocks (in green), then started putting together the top for this RSC2022 project that I brought with me. I don’t love sewing big rows together, so I’ll probably do a row here & there until it’s done. But I adore it so far.

RSC2022-I’m back!

by 10 Comments

IMAGE NAME

Hello virtual quilty friends! In case you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen any posts from me since July, it’s because my life has taken a detour. When last I posted, I had done my first carpal tunnel surgery, had tried sewing a couple days, then was having my second surgery in August. The day I was going to have those stitches removed, I had a catastrophic fall that fractured or sprained all four of my limbs! I was bedridden for months, couldn’t dress or feed myself, & definitely wasn’t sewing. So all my rainbow scrappy plans for 2022 are out the window! A week into my recovery, my husband decided we weren’t going to wait the 5 years until his retirement to move out of our multi-level home that has been getting more difficult for me to navigate with my arthritis. So he started packing us up, donating & throwing stuff out, & moving stuff to storage units. Yes, it’s been a journey. I’m finally back on my feet, walking with a cane, & doing some sewing. Yippee! Next week we are moving to a tiny one-bedroom apartment while we sell this house & buy a new home. I am taking my sewing machine to the apartment (of course), but with very little room, I’m not taking giant boxes of scraps to make scrappy rainbow quilts. I kept out 2 of my 2022 projects that had the pieces already cut and all the rest are kits that I can just cut & sew. So that will be my quilting journey until we move into a home & unpack my studio. I’ll follow along with you & post what I’m doing, but it might not be the same colors as you!

I cut out all the pieces for Sweet Kisses in January & have just been sewing the correct color blocks each month. I looked in the box & there were orange & green left, so here are the orange blocks I managed to sew together! I also worked on the blocks for my Songbook quilt, so that will be a flimsy soon. I had picked up 3 zipper block kits for Quilts for Kids before surgery, so I’m slowly sewing those together & will finish those in the apartment.

My current status for the six five RSC2022 projects:

  • 4 red, aqua, & yellow, 5 pink, 6 green, 10 blue blocks from the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks (on hold)
  • 1 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green, & blue twinkling friendship block inspired by Deb A. (on hold)
  • 3 red, 2 blue, 2 pink, 2 green, & 2 purple Shine blocks from the free pattern by Melissa Corry (on hold)
  • 14 red, 16 aqua, 4 yellow, 14 pink, 6 dark green, 14 blue, 12 purple, 16 orange blocks for Sweet Kisses by Gigi’s Thimble (need green)
  • 7 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green & blue blocks, plus matching border string blocks for Catching Rainbows by Bonnie Hunter (on hold)

RSC2022-some July purple

by 2 Comments

IMAGE NAME

July has not been a great month for sewing, which is why I haven’t posted in a while. The first week was a bust because of family commitments, then the second week was trying to get some things done before my carpal tunnel surgery. That surgery has blown the rest of the month. During that second week I was able to make a little progress. I finished the pink pixellated heart & got it to the quilter as it’s a Christmas gift & the year is half over. I also got the Festival of Trees auction quilt theme & pattern finalized with my partners, so purchased all the fabric to be ready for when I can use a rotary cutter again.

My virtual quilt partner & I finished the Cookie Cutter tops & I need to piece the back & get it to the quilter. Our other partner is back from the humanitarian service mission she & her husband have been on for the last year, so we cut out a diamond quilt called Cascade before my surgery. I managed to do some chain piecing on the triangles & sides with them this week so we are going on that project. I’m using a fat quarter pack of fabric a friend brought back from Hawaii for my birthday several years ago. I’ve hoarded it for the perfect project & this is it!

I finished the binding for this RSC2021 project of my own design. Plus is made from all 2.5″ squares & is a Christmas gift for a nephew & his new wife. I love how it turned out & have ideas for another one with variations. Maybe a project for RSC2023??

I also made 4 Disappearing 4-Patch Covered in Love blocks for the July/August drive in case I don’t get any more made with my hands out of commission. They are for Project Linus in Uvalde, Texas this time.

Here’s my purple for this month: the Sweet Kisses & the Shine blocks. They were all cut out at the beginning of the year, so I was able to just sew them up. I’m hoping to get caught up next month before I have the procedure on the other hand, but I have to do the Festival quilt plus finish one more Christmas gift, so I may be finishing up my scrap colors in December! That’s life. 🙂

My current status for the six five RSC2022 projects:

  • 4 red, aqua, & yellow, 5 pink, 6 green, 10 blue blocks from the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks (need purple)
  • 1 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green, & blue twinkling friendship block inspired by Deb A. (need purple)
  • 3 red, 2 blue, 2 pink, 2 green, & 2 purple Shine blocks from the free pattern by Melissa Corry (on track)
  • 14 red, 16 aqua, 4 yellow, 14 pink, 6 dark green, 14 blue, 12 purple blocks for Sweet Kisses by Gigi’s Thimble (on track)
  • 7 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green & blue blocks, plus matching border string blocks for Catching Rainbows by Bonnie Hunter (need purple)

RSC2022-blue June

by 3 Comments

IMAGE NAME

I finished this L&E project that was cut out in early 2021. It sat by my machine & slowly the squares & rectangles became flying geese, then they got sewed together, then they got borders. By the beginning of 2022, I had them laid out on the design wall & sewed them together. The flimsy hung around awhile, then went to the quilter, came home, got binding, & finally some hand-sewing to finish it off. And now “Flying Home” is ready to be gifted at a future date. The pattern is the free Jelly Belly Bars from FQS, but with the flying geese variation from Elm Street Quilts.

My blue Sweet Kisses blocks, plus a blue block for the May/June block drive at Covered in Love. Also a red/yellow still on the wall, made last month.

Catching Rainbows with string border blocks; another twinkling friendship star in the lower right; 10 blue blocks for the Tula Pink sampler. I like the contrast I got in these, which is better in person.

I recently picked up three kits of these zipper blocks to sew for Quilts for Kids. Here is the first flimsy done.

Because I work so many projects at once, there is a lot of sewing going on with projects in various stages. In the works: a monochrome gray called Ellipsis, Guiding Stars kit with Songbird fabric, chandelier blocks as LE project, September Sky by Bonnie Hunter, Rocky Road to Grayson by Bonnie Hunter, and a pink pixellated heart. I float back & forth on what I want to work on, then get to the point where I just want to finish something, then off I go to get ‘er done. Crazy, I know!

Currently waiting for binding: On the Move, the dark gray plus quilt, woodland critters row quilt

Currently at the quilter: the Lone Star from plains&pines, and the Rockabilly Swing (snail trail) from Bonnie Hunter

My current status for the six five RSC2022 projects:

  • 4 red, aqua, & yellow, 5 pink, 6 green, 10 blue blocks from the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks (on track)
  • 1 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green, & blue twinkling friendship block inspired by Deb A. (on track)
  • 3 red, 2 blue, 2 pink, 2 green Shine blocks from the free pattern by Melissa Corry (on track)
  • 14 red, 16 aqua, 4 yellow, 14 pink, 6 dark green, 14 blue blocks for Sweet Kisses by Gigi’s Thimble (on track)
  • 7 red, aqua, yellow, pink, green & blue blocks, plus matching border string blocks for Catching Rainbows by Bonnie Hunter (on track)