Rhododendron Trail Flimsy!

It's finished! I enjoyed participating in Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I don't normally go for pink, but this quilt is so bright and cheerful that it's definitely growing on me. I changed my quilt from Bonnie Hunter's original design; I used the border geese for the sashing and omitted the solid aqua sashing. I also reduced the number of rows and added a fabric border.

I have a bunch of blocks leftover, so I am definitely going to figure out something else to make with them. I'm thinking about making one lap quilt and using the rest for the backing on the big one.

This completes my One Monthly Goal, with a few days to spare! 

This flimsy will get tucked into the tub and will get quilted once I get my new Handiquilter long arm. I think our basement is going to be finished in the next two weeks and then we can figure out how we're going to shuffle around the furniture and fit in the long arm. 

I'm linking up with

One Monthly Goal

Needle & Thread Thursday

Finished (Or Not) Friday

Brag About Your Beauties

Peacock Party

Feb Friday Night Sew In

For this month's Friday Night Sew-In, I decided to focus on my Rhododendron Trail no-longer-a Mystery Quilt. By bedtime, I'm about 75% finished. All the filler corner pieces are finished. The rows are assembled and I have to sew three more of them on.

Once I finish sewing them together, I'll have to trim down the inner border and add the outer border. Unless I get distracted, I should be able to finish this weekend.

Tuesday ToDo #32

Last week I posted these tasks for my ToDo list:

1. Make significant progress on the Tickled Pink project.

Done. I made all 24 of these Amethyst Blocks. They were a challenge and I'm glad I stuck with it.

2. Make a red block for the Flowers for Nana Girl lap quilt. (It's a wonderful jelly roll quilt designed by Kim Brackett and is available in her Scrap Basket Sensations book.)

Done. I also made a pink block because I still had pink scraps lying around on my cutting table from the Rhododendron Trail quilt. 

While working on these projects, I continued to feed through pieces for my Leader Ender project and it's getting pretty close to being finished. I've started sewing together strips. It's amazing how fast this project has progressed. It feels good to get a quilt from small "squares" I had considered discarding.

Also, I think I figured out how I would like to finish my Rhododendron Trail quilt. Someone on a Bonnie Hunter Facebook group suggested using the geese in the sashing and I liked the way it looked so I played around with how I would do it with my fabrics. I arranged the geese so they make a little pinwheel. I also decided to use fewer blocks so I could add a fabric border. Since the arrangement of the seams wasn't planned out at all, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get it assembled, but I'll give it my best shot.

For next week, I am hoping to get these tasks finished:

1.    Sew 4 more heart blocks for the Tickled Pink project.

2.    Finish the Leader Ender lap quilt.

3.    Figure out the next Leader Ender project and start cutting it out.

4.    Make the setting triangles for the Rhododendron Trail no-longer-a-mystery quilt.

Thanks to Linda for hosting the TuesdayToDo Linkup.

Tuesday To Do #29

I've been having a good time working on projects this past week. We didn't have any visits with friends or family due to the pandemic so we had a pretty quiet week at home which gave me a fair amount of time to work on projects.

Last week I hoped to finish Parts 5 and 6 of the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt. I finished, just in the nick of time.

I wanted to get started on the first color for RSC 2022. The first color just got posted yesterday and it's red. I did get started on a scrappy project that uses red, but it was not one of the quilts that I'm making specifically for RSC. Now that I'm caught up with the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt, I'll start making some of the blocks.

I joined the Prairie Moon Quilts for the Studio Organizing Challenge. They were pretty simple tasks and I appreciated the little bit of tidying I got finished.

Finally, I planned to figure out what I'm making next and I chose my heart quilt for my one monthly goal so that is the one. I started making blocks in the past week and am having fun with it.

For this coming week, I would like to:

1.  Finish Part 7 of the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt.
2.  Start making red blocks for my RSC quilt(s).
3.  Make at least 4 of the pieced hearts for my Tickled Pink project.

Thanks to Linda for hosting the weekly linky party over at Texas Quilt Gal.

Another Pink Project

My goal this year is to spend the bulk of my time doing sew alongs, blog hops, and whatever else sparks my fancy. A few days ago I noticed the Tickled Pink blog hop and thought it would be fun to participate, especially since I had just put together a design for a heart-themed quilt in Electric Quilt.

I'm calling it Pieces of My Heart.

I've been wanting to try foundation piecing and this project gives me the excuse. My goal is for each block to be unique. EQ had quite a few hearts included plus I grabbed a couple of free designs online, like the ones on this page from Carol Doak. 

I'm not entirely sure how many total blocks I'll make. Likely, the size will depend on how many I can get finished between now and my day on the blog hop: Feb 16. It really helps me to have a deadline.

After finishing today's Studio Organizing Challenge, I decided to pull out some scraps and play with making a crazy style block. It's not the most stellar example because I didn't plan the layout at all and I was really scrounging for pink scraps, but it will do for a first effort. Maybe I'll try making another once I get some more pink fabrics.

I broke down and ordered some of the cheap pink fabrics from Marshall Dry Goods. I've ordered their $5/yard cottons in the past and they're sort of hit and miss on the quality. Sometimes they don't look so good after you wash them, but I'll be sure and prewash them before I use them so I can avoid the bad spots.

Tuesday To Do #28

This week went by so fast. I can't believe it's already Tuesday again, so I guess it's time for another Tuesday To Do. Thanks to Linda for hosting the weekly linkup party.

We didn't do much celebrating for Xmas this year, but we did enjoy a nice meal on the day. We didn't see anyone outside our household. That, of course, gave me a lot of extra time to work on sewing projects. 

I was able to finish everything on my list from last week.

1.  Trim down all the pieces that are already sewn together.  ✔︎
2.  Finish Part 4 of the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt.  ✔︎
3.  Get started on Part 5 when it comes out on Monday.  ✔︎

Luckily, I was able to do all of the trimming of pieces while we were watching cheesy xmas movies so I am all caught up through Part 4.

I spent a couple hours this morning cutting out pieces for Part 5 but I didn't manage to finish them all; it will probably be another 3 hours or so to get through all of them. I continued using the Cricut to cut out the pieces because I would rather not waste the fabric for all the little triangle corners that get trimmed off the finished seams. 

It's very possible I don't have enough pink fabric so I may have to drop by my local JoAnn's to get another piece of pink in order to finish. I guess I will see how many more pieces will be needed to finish. If this is the last round of pink cutting, I'll make it. But if there is more, I may have to go fabric shopping. Wouldn't that be horrible—not! =)

My goals for next Tuesday are:

1.  I'd like to finish Parts 5 and 6 of the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt;
2.  I'd like to get started on the first color for RSC 2022 (assuming the first color is released during the next week); 
3.  I think I'll join Prairie Moon Quilts for the Studio Organizing Challenge; and
4.  I'd like to figure out what I'm going to make next. I'm thinking about making the Jade Garden quilt (you can download the pattern for free); I bought all the fabric for it and I've been itching to get started.

You all have a lovely New Year's Day. As usual, we don't have plans. The pandemic has discouraged us from going out much. Hopefully, next year will be better...

December Plans

Three weeks ago I was talking to our contractor and he said he could start our basement project early if we could get ready by the 15th. While I wasn't excited about having the mess and chaos during the holiday, I am really eager to get the project finished so I can take delivery on my new Handiquilter long arm. So, I set aside my sewing projects and have spent the last couple of weeks packing, sifting, and selling stuff. While we still have a fair amount of loose stuff to deal with, we have dealt with most of the furniture and items we want to keep. 

I have so many fun projects I'm looking forward to working on, like these lap quilts I designed using Pat Speth's Member Appreciation Blocks from her Facebook group.

Get That Morris Feeling, MAB #8 & 12

Spring Has Sprung, MAB #7 & 16

I hope to be able to return to sewing on Dec 16th, once our contractor has started work in the basement. I'm eager to get to work on the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt before I get too far behind.

Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt

I decided to participate in my first mystery quilt along. I've never done one before but I have watched a number of them and thought it would be fun to try one. I love the colors for Quiltville's Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt so I decided to give it a try.

To be honest, except for the yellow, these are not colors I tend to just buy for my stash so I pulled what I had, but I'm sure I have enough for this project. I have TONS of yellow but I just pulled out the smallest pieces from my stacks; hopefully I'll use some of them up. And I didn't have an aqua that was more than two yards, but I had three pieces that were all close to the same color with a little different texture so I'm going to do the aqua portion a little scrappy.

As we get going, I'm sure I'll raid my scrap bins and come up with more fabrics, but this was just the first pass on my fabric wall.