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Saturday, August 30, 2014

August Wrap Up

Somehow, I managed to lose the entire month of August.  I feel as though I blinked on July 31st and when I opened my eyes it was Labor Day weekend.  When my daughter was home on vacation, she brought home a pile of skirts with various ailments:  hems hanging half way down, seams ripped, and one that needed new elastic in the waist.  Even though she is 25, she is still hard on clothing.  I fixed all but one of the skirts and should have the last one finished this weekend.   She was offered a full time job in the University research lab where she was working during her Master's program and is waiting for the final paperwork to go through.  Although, I admire her thriftiness, hopefully, with a little money in her pocket, she will buy some new clothes and I can stop mending for a while.

I did manage to take pictures of the blocks I completed.  This weekend is the last chance to finish up this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color, light and/or bright green.  The two blocks below use a mint tone on tone that looks a  bit washed out.

I added a light green row to my Rainbow Chevron quilt.


Our church's craft group received a donation of an unfinished quilt top that was a perfect example of how not to make a quilt.  I suspect it was the first attempt for the person who made it. The various patches were not uniform in size and the seams were stitched in varieties of zig zag stitches, tight satin stitches, decorative stars stitches and tiny straight stitches.  The fabrics used were a combination of jersey knits, cotton/poly blends, and what appeared to be ribbon.  The ladies at church were about to throw it away, but I liked the Peter Rabbit squares that formed the center of the blocks.  It took me two days with a sharp, new seam ripper to take the blocks apart.  I trimmed the squares to a uniform size and started a new quilt top.  I have a few more blocks to put together.
I like how the blocks look in person, but after seeing the photo, the pink seems very distracting.  I'm thinking of sashing them with white so that may help.   There are three that have a light dotted fabric in the final border and they will have to be changed.

I've been going through my stash and trying to find sensible uses for some of the older fabrics.  I have two large Rubbermaid bins loaded with novelty fabrics.  I spent a few days fussy cutting some of the fabric into 5 inch charms.  I will be making a few Eye Spy quilts using the 254 squares I already cut.  Truthfully, it didn't make as much of a dent as I had hoped.
I turned piles of scraps into 2.5 inch charms

Made few more four patch blocks for my ongoing project.

These are the blocks I made this week.  I took the picture on our very sunny deck and the moment I snapped the picture, the wind blew the blocks all over the yard.  The 7 four patch blocks on the left are lying on dark blue fabric because they were completely washed out on the sheet.  The seven bordered blocks will receive sashing and then be cut into wonky squares for an Eye Spy quilt.The quilt requires 30 blocks, so I will be making more in Septembe.

The August goal for the 350 block Project at Prairie Moon Quilts is 30.  I struggled this month to finish 40 blocks, but I am delighted that I met the goal.  My total number of blocks made this year is 529.
I am linking up with Angela and all of the other great quilters at Sew Scrappy for the August Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I didn't have much bright/light green fabric to make use of this month, hopefully, I can get more blocks done in September when the color will be orange.

8 comments:

  1. Lots of lovely blocks! Oh, I would rescue Peter Rabbit too - how cute! I am spending the weekend trying to 'finish' a few items.

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  2. I love what you have done with Peter Bunny-the sashing sounds like a good plan and yes, I can see the three with the light outer edges that will have to be darkened up if you sash brighter and lighter. It will be so cute when you finish it tho, truly I think so.

    All your squares are so cute. As a green fan, I am in approval of all you have done to promote it this month. Orange will be a good workout-can't wait to see what you come up with.

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  3. I agree that August was a blurr. I did very little quilting. You have great progress on your projects. The rainbow chevron is great. I love to make I Spy quilts.

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  4. Some months do just seem to run away. Looks like you did get a bit of sewing though. Hopefully orange will inspire you in September.

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  5. I think you're doing well to reuse the Peter Rabbit pieces. The original colourful frames distracted too much from the prints of the original pastel watercolours.

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  6. Love the Peter Rabbit quilt - I am currently reading a bio of Beatrix Potter!

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  7. What a lot of work you are doing. The Peter Rabbit quilt looks as if it could be really lovely. Will be interesting to see the quilt finished.

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  8. Hey Girl. We haven't shared emails in a long time. I hope your are okay. I understand that there's a lot of extreme winter weather in you area. Please be safe and stay warm.

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