March OMG and RSC-Yellow/Gold Goals Met!

Can I say that March has been a complete bust if there are still a few days left in the month?  Considering what I have left to do it's pretty clear I'm not going to meet my OMG (One Monthly Goal).  Sigh......

The quilt I cut out for Natalie, then put in time out, then decided to make for my March OMG is, umm, not working out so far.  I made 436 of these .....

..... and laid them out in stacks by color ..... 

..... so I could come up with a balanced design.

I tried multiple layouts.  I hated them ALL!  It seems not every pattern works when you try to make it scrappy.  Definitely not the "Doubletime Duet" pattern.

Now I'm in the process of cutting all the strips in half and sewing them together so I end up with 436 of these -

I only have about 400 left to make.  I'm fairly certain I won't be finished by the 31st.  

The good news is I have my yellow/gold blocks for March's Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC2022) finished.  I even found more of the Paddington Bear fabric on Etsy, so I'll have enough to finish all the Star blocks!

Did you notice that I have a new cutting board?   The perfect purchase when you have a 60% off coupon from JoAnn's.  Also the perfect purchase when your old cutting board looks like this -

I think I got my money's worth from that one!

Linking up with "One Monthly Goal!", RSC-2022, and "Oh Scrap!"

Sailboats for Captain Ivan

Now that it's been gifted I can tell you all about the baby quilt I've been working on.  My newest great-nephew, Ivan, turned three months old last week, so his quilt got to him in plenty of time.  Almost record time for me, lately!   His mommy chose a nautical theme for his nursery, so I wanted to do a traditional Sailboat Block quilt.  

Do you know how many variations of Sailboat quilts there are?  A lot!  After looking at ideas I sketched one on my handy-dandy graph paper and based the whole thing on 2.5" squares.  After I had cut out 306 squares, I realized I could have saved a lot of time by cutting out rectangles for some parts of the blocks.

That's not even a "I can't handle the dreaded math" issue; it's more of a "I wasn't really thinking" issue!  

Something else I didn't think through was the fact that when you make HSTs (Half Square Triangles) from striped fabric half will be vertical and half horizontal.  Like this.

I wanted all my sails to go in the same direction.  The way the wind blows, right?  I mean, these are things you really have to think about when making important design decisions.  That's why I ended up having to add 60 horizontally striped HSTs to my orphan blocks collection.

Is this the cutest low volume background print?  Perfect for this quilt!

Great-nephews/nieces always get hand quilting from their Aunt Sandy.  I have to admit all those squares made it easier to decide on echo quilting for the quilting design.

Oops, I didn't get a photo of the "label" after I washed it.  Please ignore the pencil marks!

 

Another happy quilt for another happy baby.  "Captain Ivan" loves his quilt.

March's "One Monthly Goal" and Stash/Sewing Reports

It's already time to set March goals?  How can that be?!!  

I only have two nieces left from my (long!) list of nieces and nephews who need new quilts from Aunt Sandy.  This one is kinda-sorta a UFO.  But not really.  Here's the thing.  I cut out and started working on a quilt for Natalie then put it in time out, and it ended up on the UFO list.  When I took it out last week to see if I wanted it to be my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for March, I decided I don't even really like it!  So I cut out a whole new quilt.  Still batiks (THAT supply is getting low!), and still contemporary.  For this one I'm using the "Doubletime Duet" pattern from Terry Atkinson's Allegro pattern book.

Except for saying that completing this top is my February goal, I don't have much more to say about that unless you want to see my sewing area at our hotel in Clearwater.  Hey. It works!

My February stash report is much better than last month's!

FEBRUARY

Fabric Added in February - 3.4 yards

Fabric Used in February - 35.1 yards

Fabric Added Year to Date - 14.3

   Fabric Used Year to Date - 48.6

   Net used in 2022 - 34.3 yards

   Days I sewed in February - 28/28

   Days I sewed this year - 59/59

   Percentage - 100%

See you soon.  I'm headed to the beach!

Linking up with One Monthly Goal

February OMG and RSC-Aqua/Teal Goals Met!

Was February even shorter than usual this year?  I think it was.  It went by really fast!  Even so it was a good month, quilting-wise.  

First of all, I accomplished my OMG (One Monthly Goal) hosted by Elm Street Quilts.  And then some!  My goal was to finish piecing the "Lazy Eyes" quilt top.  It was a LOT of boring piecing .....

..... sewing the same seams over and over (and over) again.

 

I wasn't sure I was in love with it once the blocks were up on the design wall.  Is it me, or does it look like it's covered with Post-It notes?  Oh well, quilting designs cover a multitude of sins .....

..... and it's a finished top, which was the goal.  I even made the binding .....

..... and sent it off to my quilter.   AND I did all that by the 19th!  Not to brag or anything.  Alright, I kind of am.

The RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) color for February was aqua/teal.  I threw some turquoises into the mix. Aqua is a shade of blue, and turquoise is a shade of green, and as everyone knows teal is green, so.... there's that.  (Insert grin here!  What's blue and what's green is an ongoing argument at my house.)  I got my Windmill and Sawtooth Stars made and cut up some of my aqua/turquoise/teal scraps.  ( I will not give up on that teal being green thing.)

Meeting goals is one of my favorite things to do.  What to do for March?  I'll let you know soon.

Linking up with "RSC-2022" , "One Monthly Goal" , and Oh Scrap!

"Chain Link" - Noah's Quilt

Last winter I participated in another sew-along with my online quilty friends.  This time we used the "Chain Link" pattern by Generations Quilt patterns.   You can find a free tutorial here.  

I pulled a bright green and a bright yellow from my stash and a dark gray for the background.

I cut out the whole quilt, but after I made just one block I realized I did not like that gray.   Back to the stash!

I found just the right thing.  Dark green on an even darker green.  Perfect!

This quilt was for our grandson, Noah.  It was a "Happy Graduation from Trade School" present.  We are so very proud of him.  I would go so far as to say he is probably the best welder in the world!  Well, I am a proud Gramma, after all. 

I barely took any pics of the process, but photos of the finished quilt are better anyway.

Oops.  Ignore the red ribbon in that photo.  The hummingbird swing got in the way  Too bad it wasn't occupied!

Of course, the very best photos are the ones with Noah in them!

He loves the quilt, and we love him, and you gotta love that smile!

A Quilting Life Block of the Month (Jan's Quilt)

If you need more projects to work on or you're looking for a quilty podcast to listen to, check out Sherri's blog, A Quilting Life.  Just after the Covid isolation began my quilty friend Denise used that blog to entice me into doing a Mystery Block of the Month as a sew-along with her.  It turns out this Mystery BOM is an annual thing.  Now she's talked me and three other neighbors into making the 2022 mystery quilt.  More about that later.  

The 2020 quilt was designed using all half-square-triangles.  I decided to use bright batiks ..... 

..... with Kona white for the background .....

..... and a nice black and white stripe to give it some interest and make it my own.  I took the blogger's advice and made up all the HSTs I would need for the year.  

I decided to use the option to make eight inch blocks so I could set them on point and have a throw sized quilt instead of a full.

Putting one striped HST in each block was a good decision.  It's such a fun look.

After I finished putting the top together I felt like it needed a border.  I think the border really made the quilt, and to top it all off the quilting by my friend Shirley Jackson was gorgeous.  As always.

A green binding to match the cornerstones really made for a nice finish.

I sent this one to my sister-in-law Jan.  I hadn't made a quilt for her since her wedding.  Don't ask me how long ago that was!

This quilt is one of my favorites.  It's funny.  All the quilts I make are my favorites!

Linking up with So Scrappy.