Moving into Sweetheart Month

                                     My goals for this month are definitely 

going to be of the finishing up variety.

Two RSC Stars to finish borders

    Assemble blue log cabin

Sash old log cabins

Find projects for trip

Stitch up a pink wonky log cabin

This should keep me busy all month!

I don't do a lot of hand stitching so

I am a little lost on projects for my upcoming holiday. 

Not sure if I want to tote a machine along either. 

Let's see what I come up with!

I have lots of blocks to work with.

The RSC tops have been patiently waiting for borders 

and lovely to look at on the design wall. 

Chasing any squirrels that come up should 

fill up the rest of the month!  

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

OMG

Midweek Makers

Wait Loss Wednesday

Needle and Thread Thursday

Put Your Foot Down 

Table scraps and Leftovers

 Well, I've gone down the rabbit hole

 but have emerged successful!

I so love the table scraps challenge but I am 

wondering what to do so often I

only end up in the fan club and never at the party!

 After darting down the journey of 

looking at everyone's current posts, and many old ones, 

I have found my sew jo!!

This year two of my RSC projects 

will be the table scraps offering .  

Grace and Peace lead me on to woodberry_way , 

so I will be doing some more 

"Not quite postage stamp"  blocks to clean off my

 table each month. I've done a few but as we  always 

ask ourselves,  " So many scraps, do I have enough thread?"

I sorted out some of my  2 1/2" box and there are not a lot 

of blue squares in there. A great opportunity to cut 

up the remaining blues on the table. 

Here is the first NQ postage stamp bit. 

I am using a 5 x 5 pieced blocks since

it fits on my design boards!  

Here is what I finished the night and the month with!

These 2 " finished square block sets should be 

beautiful in a rainbow of colors. 

 

I have also included a "stringing along" quilt 

my RSC group this year. It is made from 12 1/2" pieces, 

3 1/2 in wide sashed with a bit of white.  It so happens that 

I have a 3 1/2" ruler in the stable so these trimmed up easily.

This will use up all the cut offs from my other projects.

  I'm excited to be starting on the rainbow road and 

finishing up my table scraps at the same time!

Linking up with :

Table scraps Challenge

To Do Tuesday

Off the Wall Friday

Finished or Not Friday

RSC 2023

Blocky January

 What a month! 

 Lots of stitching, some sorting and lots of fun!  

First off, many blue wonky log cabin blocks of are now 

waiting in the wings for assembly. Yes this is a squirrel.

My focus was on using up scraps and 

this project certainly did  chew into the blue pile!

 Another sew day is coming up so I can whiz thru these 

block piles and feel oh so productive! 

I even pre-count and 

use  lovely clips to keep them in groups of ten.

There is a nice stack of  multi colored wonky logs waiting to

be added to the tops I finished earlier this month. 

Twin size will  work well for our local hospital hostel. 

The Elusive logs blocks have all the centers 

made up.  It has this working name since the 

only picture I have is a page from a 2002 QNM

with no designers name.  I will have to investigate!

Move over Agatha!

Since it is almost month end, I have tallied up my 

goals achieved this month!  I got some sorting done, 

pop over here to see my scissor cuts, and 

cleared out some scraps for others to enjoy.  

The metric for those moving out is .5 kilos per 

large bag of bits.  So far this year I've moved out

3 kilos of the treasures!  Subtract that from the 11 

drawers of color sorted, pressed scraps, 8 bags of 

sorted by color scraps and six bins and that makes...

oh, never mind.  Just a lot of quilt seeds left in the sewing stash!

Stash wise, nothing in and nothing out! 

2023 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:           0.0 M

Used year to date:     0.0 M

Added last week:          0.0 M

Added year to date:      0. M

Net added in 2023      0.0 yards

I am expecting a few boxes of legacy fabrics 

next week so that will change my count.  

RSC projects got a work out too, with 4 out of

8 on the list worked on this month.  There 

are still a few days left so a few more may get done up!

The garlic knot and weave are on the list for the weekend. 

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

OMG

Oh Scrap! 

Finished or Not Friday

RSC 2023

Design Wall Friday

Can I get a Whoop Whoop 

Peacock Party

Don't Cut Too Deep! Scissor Sort!

 Getting out all my scissors was very eye opening! 

I have even more scissors than rotary cutters!

They kept popping up everywhere!  Two of my 

sewing buddies got my extra pinking sheers awhile ago but 

Still, I ended up with eighteen pairs of scissors! 

There is even a small black pair I know I have but can't find.

The four in the upper right turned out to be nail scissors. 

I will offer those to an embroider friend and the

rest will be donated. 

These very large pins will go to the 

give and take table at the guild along with brown 

handles ones left over from a set I bought years ago. 

That gets me down to 

fourteen but I feel the rest are necessary. 

Two snips for rag quilts, lots of small scissors 

for snipping machine side, 

pinking shears just because and my blue set

along with the large black handled pair for the small sewing room.

All done and dusted this little sort!  I can snip that off the list with 

the little paper scissors!

Now, how about all these buttons!?!

Stay Tidy!

Blue on Blue on Blue!!!

 Stitching along into the month and lots of 

blue is on the work table. 

The fiddle sticks are pinned up where they 

wont be misplaced and the Scrappy Irish chain is progressing.

 The light blues are all sewn up nice and 

I will start working 

on the darker blue shortly. 

The picture technique of my pattern 

making wasn't going smoothly so I visited the

Martindale books web site and found the book:

"Irish Chain Quilts Contemporary Twists on a Classic Design" by

 Melissa Corry, available and on sale. 

Even with my limited online shopping skills, 

I had a pdf copy on my laptop within minutes at an 

extremely reasonable price!  It turns out, a large scrap

crumb square is made first and then the necessary 

squares are cut as needed. 

 A pair of mittens was even sewn up at a workshop but alas, 

I ended up with the wrong precut pattern 

pieces and the end results are too small for my farmgirl

hands. They are pretty and I learned a bit about

sewing felted wool!

I made a big decision this week. I am 

going to attempt to tame more scraps by making 

wonky log cabins in each month's color to use up 

the bins of scraps lurching under my work table!!

Those pictures got censored out but here is the 

start of this month's blue wonky log cabin. 

Two local charities are needing quilts 

larger than crib size and the 8" block makes it 

quick to build, (see what I did there, building log cabins!!)

A recent zoom meeting had me stitching up ten blocks

and attending to business so great multitasking for me!

This week I am going to work on the some log 

cabins, more RSC blocks and plan the finishing

for the leftovers from last year's RSC.  

Some great advice from a zoom has me eager to finish them!

A little sorting is happening too!  See that here!

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Finished or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

Friday Foto Fun

Can I get a Whoop Whoop!

To do Tuesday

Design Wall Monday

Sew and Tell

Monday This and That

Patchwork and Quilts

Wait Loss Wednesday

Time for More Marie!

Yes the new year, new beginning and 

thoughts of decluttering, sharing and organizing! 

Karen Brown at Just Get it Done, is running a

decluttering challenge for most of the month of January. 

Inspirational, but I am marching to my own set of

drums and just doing what every falls off a table or shelf! 

 My first victim of the year is going to be, my rotary cutters!

I have.... yes count 'em , eleven!

Two of them are kaput, the yellow 45 mm Olfa on the right and the 

blue and pink 35 mm komfy cut on the left. 

I am not sure why I was keeping  them, ever hopeful I guess. 

 

The holes are worn and the blades go fafump fafump when it rolls. 

I salvaged the center posts and screws and 

the plastic will be recycled. 

 

 

I am not really thrilled about the burgundy Kaicut either. 

It is heavy, and has an automatic blade guard, variable 

pressure lever but I just don't love it.  

Also leaving is the grey handled 28 mm on the right. 

Who needs that many tiny cutters?  I do not. 

They will be the next guests on the "leave and take" table 

at the guild meeting.  It acts as almost a lending library, 

you leave things, take things and sometimes you 

bring them back and leave them again!

The remaining cutters will be distributed 

around my sewing area for convenience. 

 

One will land in the small sewing room on the 

peg board.  Sewing during zoom meeting and messenger 

sew time with friends or even trimming while on the

 

phone is a great use of time. Others will end up in the to go

featherweight, retreat tool kit and out in the workroom. 

My current favorite is a the 60 mm cutter. 

It resides right on the work table, or whereever lots

cutting and trimming is happening. It can buzz thru

layers of scrap piecing like nobody's business.

Next up : Scissors!!

Holiday Seating!

 I am categorizing this under my Favorite Finds.

It is so rewarding to find a perfect item unexpectedly!

This story requires a back story!  Every year there is a 

large highway long yard sale/festival. Highway 39 runs 

between two rural towns and the one in the center hosts

a community festival. It is all very local and small town. 

A giant sale/ flea market sets up along the main street

sidewalks. You can find almost anything for sale there, 

from locally grown honey , to puppies and even pigs!

Anyway,  my buddy and I were strolling and found the 

perfect chair frames to match a family antique set I have

but they wouldn't fit in the car.  So we got the seller's contacts.

I called later but could never reconnect with the vendor. 

Fast forward 2 years, and I was in another small town

for a holiday lunch and visited a nearby thrift shop.

Surprise!  Two perfectly matching chairs!

The one on the left is one of the pair I found and the 

right is from our dining room. 

I turned around and found a matching stool!

They are leather seated but the frames are very complimentary

to my set. The stool will need a recover but with a good wipe down,

 they were perfect to accommodate the family bottoms at Christmas!

The price was good, the shop supports a local charity, 

and the staff were wonderful. 

 I also found a lovely watercolor for a gift. 

 It was painted by a local artist and the frame 

just needed a bit of stain to freshen it up. 

It also needed a new back but that was no problem.

A bit of acid free craft paper and a glue 

stick and it turned out very well. 

 

The other good find of the day was a small pitcher. 

I have veggie family member so I always make 

a mushroom gravy .  Everyone likes it but the new

gravy pitcher will designate veggie content only.

It was a great day shopping and ended with a few great 

additions to the family possessions pile.

Happy Hunting!

 

Blue , blue 2022 oops 2023!

 Well, we are back into blue!!!

This is my third rainbow scrap challenge year.

Doing things differently, I actually have a list

of blocks/projects to do for RSC. 

Usually I just punt and hope for the best. 

Starting this year with wonky stars. 

 The backgrounds will be colors 

instead of always white.  These can 

be used together with the white star 

squares to add more variety to the quilts.

 I finished up the stars with a nice stack of sixteen to put 

into the parts department. 

While looking for more white scraps, lots of  strips

showed up!

Three, yes three  wonky log cabin tops were

finished up during the week's sewing! I started 

sewing the blocks New Year's day.

They are measuring (56 x 80)

so they can easily be  a family quilt when upsized by 

adding one more row. I certainly have more strips!

 Stitching up a 

matching baby quilt to keep on hand would be fun. 

A blue and pink wonky log cabin should be adorable!!

I am trying to work through my RSC list.  

A lot of small little pieces showed up during the 

bin sort, (I was looking for white pieces to use in the stars.)

This morning, I will sewing up all those bits to prep

fiddlesticks for next month's RSC. Here is this 

month's offering and they were great fun to do!!

Next up on the RSC journey is the scrap Irish chain.

 

I don't have a pattern so a little drafting/doodling is in order.

 

Can't wait to try it!

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Oh Scrap

RSC 2023

Design Wall Friday

From Bolt to Beauty

Can I get a Whoop Whoop

Peacock Party 

Design Wall Monday!

Needle and Thread Thursday!

 

 

 

Friday Night with Friends

 It was a great Friday night.

I came across a wonky log 

cabin on a Pinterest post and 

surfed over to Bonnie Hunter's site. 

Knowing the non measuring aspect would 

make it quick, stitched up a few. 

Friday I decided to spend the evening with some 

very funny Canadian humor  and 

stitched all the log cabin blocks in rows. 

By the end of the night, I had this!

Enough rows here for two twin sized tops!

Oddly enough, I still had this!

I seem to have an incredible Buddha bin of scraps that just refills as

 

I use them up! I am sure all scrap quilters can identify with that!

There were a few too many wide orange strips 

 

in the blocks so I did a little "editing" 

and covered half the width with blue strips.

So today I am sewing up the rows and hanging

the flimsies in vault!   

It was definitely fun to spend the night sewing.

 

The show I listened to was called, " The Red Green Show", 

very funny silly stuff. During one segment on tall tales, 

a very classic Canadian actor playing Hap Shaughneesy (Gordon

 Pinsent) told a yarn about drilling for gunpowder!

Thanks for hosting Friday Night with Friends  Gone Stiichin', I had 

 fun and got something stitched! Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Friday Night with Friends

Oh Scrap

From Bolt to Beauty

Wednesday Wait Loss

Needle and Thread Thursday