A Little Progress

Monday, I sewed all the corner pieces of the purple bow ties and got them trimmed and pressed. They're ready to be sewn into the 4-patches that make the bow ties.

Then  on Tuesday, I decided I needed a little break from all the small sewing. I have this project I started a month or so ago, using some larger scrap pieces. It's a quilt-as-you-go project. Each block finishes at about 16" square.

I took this pile of 48 blocks:

And sewed them into 12 large squares:

To quilt like this:

I have a friend coming to visit next week - she wants to learn how to do a QAYG project so I'm saving the blocks until then.

In Our Garden Blocks 5 & 6

Here are my April blocks for Amy's (Sew Incredibly Crazy) block of the month, In Our Garden. Amy has a guest designer create 2 blocks - one applique and one pieced - each month in a whimsical garden theme.

These blocks were designed by Doris of Quilting Queen Online.
I added one extra flower to the applique block. I just love her addition of embroidery for the water sprinkles.

And this is my pieced block. I made a slightly different block from Doris' darling rosebud block because I'm using only browns for my pieced blocks and I thought her design in all brown might be a little too much brown!

See more of these blocks here.

Bow Tie Plan

I made 80 orange bow ties for April's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

And I loosely mapped out a plan for this quilt. I'll make (48) 8" finished blocks and use a 6 across/8 down block layout. Each block will be made up of (16) 2" finished bow ties. So I'll need 768 scrappy bow ties. The RSC16 posts a new color each month for 10 months (the last two months are reserved to sew the blocks together and quilt and bind). I'll need to make 80 (or fewer) of each monthly color.

What a fantastic way to make me sort through bins of scraps, using up little pieces and cutting and/or sorting fabrics.

Now I just need to get the previous 3 months caught up! It should go pretty quickly, though. These little bow ties are unbelievably fast to sew together.

Yesterday, I got the purple squares cut out. :)

Resistance is futile...

I've been watching everyone post all kinds of fun and colorful blocks from this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 3-1/2 months and I just can't take it anymore! I have to join in. I've been using the excuse that I don't know what to make.

Then I saw this on Pinterest:

**sigh**

Well, now I have no excuse so I better get cutting.

April's color is orange. Yay!

I think the best way to join in the middle of a quilt along or block of the month is to start with the current one and keep up with the group. Then catch up on the prior blocks as you find time. That way you're a part of the real time fun with everyone else and not lagging behind by yourself.

I'm making 2" finished bow tie blocks. So I'm going to need a lot of these:

And a bunch of these:

And a big ol' pile of these:

And then I need to catch up with blue, brown and purple!

For more information on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC16), go to So Scrappy's blog.