The Last Week of Blues

Well, the last week of blues for the 2026 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I’m sure we will get to make more blues next year. There are only so many colors to pick from, so they will continue to make an appearance every year. And the scraps continue to accumulate every year. Speaking of every year, I was cleaning out some of my stacks and found some blocks from a previous RSC. And, there are some blue ones!

I got way too excited when I found these! I didn’t do the RSC last year, so I’m thinking they were from 2023 or 2024. Anyway, I got excited enough to make some more.

This block was from s Stashbuster challenge that I never did finish. I’m going to try and get more made. I need to figure out what I did with the ones made in previous years. I should have other colors somewhere. I may get a few more blue ones made today before I move on to the next color. 

I’m linking this post to SoScrappy. 

Just for fun, I made a collage of all my January blocks. 

I am going to try and maintain the momentum for the following months, if possible. 

Free Pattern Friday

I was looking for a pattern to use some (a bunch) of charm squares. I had a vague idea what I was but didn’t know if I could find a pattern. While I was looking, I found this one:

It’s called Four Patch Charm Quilt.

It’s not what I was looking for, but I like it and would consider making it at some point. It requires 3 charm packs and 2-3/4 yard of background to make a 63” x 69” quilt. It’s so pretty with the batiks and navy background, but it would also work for scrap squares. I think I’m about out of navy background, but I will look for some today at the quilt show. 

Have a good weekend! I’ll be back tomorrow with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge update. 

Cold Weather Sewing

Okay, I didn’t enjoy the cold temperatures, but I was able to get quite a bit done. I cleaned house nearly every day—not finished, but I was happy to make a little progress. 

While cleaning up my sewing area, I uncovered two boxes of 5” squares.

I have 7 or 8 of these boxes that are full. I was trying to figure out what I could make that would use up a lot of squares and came up with this: 

It went together pretty fast, but after I took the picture, I noticed I had messed up on the bottom right corner. Darn! At least I figured it out before I put the border on. That’s what I kept telling myself while I was ripping and resewing. Here it is fixed and with a border. 

The size is approximately 63” x 74”. It took 102 of the 5” squares, and I was able to empty a box! 

The quilt was so quick and easy, I may end up making another one. I will also continue to look for inspiration for other quilts that can use up more squares. It would be great to empty another box! 

My sewing time yesterday was spent on the random sized scraps I dug up while I was straightening up around the machine. I sewed a few 6” blocks.

This is 8 that I finished. There are about 8 more is various stages of completion. It’s fun and doesn’t require much thought, so I was happy. 

I was hungry for something hot and made some ramen for lunch.

This was a last resort. I called Kikko’s (Ramen shop), and they were closed until today. Mine’s not authentic, but it was actually pretty good. 

The weather is warming up today, so it’s back to the real world and no more holing up in the house. There is a quilt show in Rockport Friday that I’m hoping to go to; I looked at the weather forecast for Friday and it should be fine, although it’s supposed to be cold again Saturday and Sunday. 

SAHRR Round #1

The round one prompt was released Wednesday, but I was busy getting ready for quilt guild and then attending quilt guild, so I got a little bit of a late start. It’s okay, I’m caught up now. The prompt was hour glass, and I like hour glass blocks, but it wasn’t really inspiring me. Well, never one to leave well enough alone, I decided to juj it up a bit and make a double hour glass. 

I know how to make a double hour glass, but I didn’t know how wide to cut my strips to get a certain size block. Nor did I know what size block I wanted to make. I tried to google it, but I kept getting the measurements for a regular hour glass. Never mind, I would have to experiment and see what would happen. I ended up cutting 2.5” strips, and the blocks came out 8.5” unfinished. The center block is 24”, so I could make the math work without having to add extra coping strips. Bonus! 

I am trying to use scraps, but I had a yard of this yummy plum-colored Jot Dot, and I have plenty of the Toscana background.

The 8” blocks are a little large, but that way I didn’t have to make so many. Here’s my Round One all finished:

I like the way it turned out, although I’m not sure I love all the white. Oh, and don’t look too closely at all the points! There are a bunch of them, and they are not all perfect. I’m now at 40” x 40”, and I will need to decide at some point if I want to add something to the top and bottom to make it more rectangular. It has the potential to turn out pretty large, but that’s okay.

I’m linking this to Brenda@Songbird Designs.

A BOM

In 2025, I didn’t do the BOM from A Quilting Life, but Betty did. She printed out all the clues and saved them for me in case I get a sudden need to make it! She is an enabler! Here’s a picture of her finished top: 

I probably should have ironed it before I took the picture! She is busy stashbusting and used all scraps. The border fabric doesn’t show up well in my pic, but it’s a print we both fell in love with when we were out shopping one day. We each bought 2 yards so we could use it for borders. I haven’t used mine yet. 

I was able to get the borders on my 8 happy blocks.

I will try to get them in the mail as soon as this weather breaks. The deadline on these is the end of February, so I finished with time to spare. Here’s a link to the post if you want to participate. They are fun to make. 

Did I mention it’s cold here? Thirty degrees as I’m typing this. I stayed home most of the day yesterday and got a lot of sewing done. I thought about making some cookies, but I managed to talk myself out of it. Being cooped up indoors is not good for my diet, and if I had homemade cookies here, I wouldn’t have any restraint! 

I’ll see if I can get some projects completed this afternoon. Round 1 of my Stay at Home round Robin is closed to finished, and I have a scrappy charm pack quilt I want to work on. 

More Scrappy Blues

Good morning friends. I’m still playing with scraps. I hade made four blue nine patches last week,

and I was undecided about what to do with them. I had some leftover blue strips, and I played around and came up with this. 

I like them, but I still don’t know what I will do with them. I’m thinking I can use the neutral as a sashing assuming I have enough left.

I got another 16-patch star made with light blue this time. 

It’s pretty cute, but I think it will be the last blue one. I’ll wait for the February color before I make more. 

I was hoping to cut some blue batiks with my new Accuquilt dies, but I can’t seem to find any extra time right now. All the batiks are put away in a tote, and it’s just more effort than I want to got through right now to get the totes out and dig through them. If I get time later in the year, I can always catch up with any missed colors. 

Have a good weekend. I’m going tonight to see the Eagles Ultimate Experience. It’s an Eagles cover band, and I’m hoping it will be good. Hotel California has been playing in my head for a few days now, and I can’t get it out! 

Linking to RSC.

Manx Quilting

I spent yesterday at quilt guild making ONE BLOCK! And, I didn’t even finish it! In my defense, it was all hand sewing, and it was a new to me technique. We learned about the history of Manx quilting, and then Beth showed us how to make our own. Here’s one Beth made as a demo:

I copied this from AI:

Manx quilting is a resourceful, traditional patchwork technique from the Isle of Mann, characterized by using fabric scraps, hand measurements (thumb, middle finger), and a unique "folded log cabin" method where fabric strips are folded and sewn onto a foundation square, often without batting, creating thick, durable blocks for warm bedding. It's known for its practicality, minimal tools (needle, thread, knife/tearing), and distinct layered, textured look, perfect for summer quilts due to the lack of batting. 

Basically you use your hand for the measurements of the foundation, center, and 

strips. The strips are all hand sewn onto a foundation.

Here’s mine:

It’s not very good, and I don’t know if I’ll continue making blocks or not. I kind of doubt it. I didn’t get very far, but anytime I sew with a group, I spend more time chatting and looking at everyone else’s work than I do sewing. 

Edit: Here’s a full quilt made by Beth. She said she hand sewed 83 blocks and set them on point. 

In the meantime we are forecasted to have a freeze this weekend. 

I have plenty of tortillas, but I need to get a loaf of bread and some milk. It will be good weather for staying home and sewing. I’m going to move the outside plants into the garage and cover the ones that are planted in the ground. I have already drained the sprinkler system, but I still need to cover some outdoor faucets. 

Lots of Finishes

I got the binding finished on my Day One Graduation Quilt. 

I like the way I turned out! I used solid gray for the binding and for the back.  

Edit: I forgot to add the picture of the back! Here it is:

This quilt pattern (Birds of a Feather) looks great on the solid-colored fabric. Our guild pledged 25 graduation hilts for 2026, and they are due in March. I think we have 11 so far. I am going to ask at our meeting if all interested parties can get a few more done so we can meet our goal. I quilted one for another guild member. 

She cut those print squares from a plaid fabric. Those wonky squares kind of make me crazy, but I need to get over it! We all have different ideas I guess. 

I got two customer quilts finished for Janice. 

Both are pretty. I’m hoping she’ll donate one or both of them to our Day One drive, but that’s just me hoping! 

I will deliver the quilts today at our guild meeting. Our scheduled workshop is “Manx” quilting. I had to google it—it’s not something I’ve done before—but I have some squares and strips precut so I can try it. One of my favorite things about quilt guild is the workshops. I learn a lot of new things from them. 

FOMO or Squirrels or……

I have no resistance when it comes to taking on new projects! I was catching up Saturday on blog reading, and I saw several people’s posts about their center block for the Stay At Home Round Robin. There were some really cool centers! I went to the main site, and there was still time to join in. I got busy, and this is what I came up with:

I seem to be stuck on stars lately. I’ve had a picture of this pinned to my Pinterest board for a while, but it doesn’t have any measurements or instructions. That’s okay, I did my own thing. The centers are from a chunk of fabric that was in my scrap box. I have some yardage also, so it seemed like a good choice. I pulled some random colored scraps to make the star points. Would you believe it turned out to be 24”? I like it, and we’ll see what I can do with it. Here’s the link to the main page. 

Well, I didn’t stop there. Betty sent me a picture of her January block for the 2026 BOM from A Quilting Life. 

I had been thinking of starting a new BOM but couldn’t make up my mind. Oh gee. I had a few yards of a border print Betty had given me. Her sister bought it at a garage sale. 

It’s really old, but I do love any and all border prints, so that was my incentive to make a block.

I dug out some older fat quarters that would work with the border print. I like Betty’s block better, but I was limited to what works with my focus fabric.

I’m not sure I will love it, but I’ll try to keep an open mind until I get a little farther along. 

It’s been cold—good weather for soup!

Ground beef with potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and carrots. It’s so good on a cold night! I was wishing I had some homemade bread to eat with it, but I settled for saltines. Have a good week, and stay warm wherever you are!

RSC Update

I am continuing to work on my blue blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time thinking about what I want to work on than actually working on them. Does anyone else feel that way? I’m also surprised at how many blue scraps I keep coming up with. Blue is not my favorite color, but I sure seem to have a lot of it. I’m hoping this challenge will help me use up some of it! It probably won’t make any noticeable impact! 

I made another one of the big stars with the 16-patch center.

I still really like this block, and I’m wondering how many I should make of each color. They are 16”, so it wouldn’t take that many to make a quilt……maybe 20 total, and we have 12 months. Of course, we’re still in the January honeymoon period when I think I will go all year, and I usually don’t make it past the summer when I get busy with yard work and canning, so we’ll see. Maybe I should shoot for 3-4 per month. I’m continuing to work on the 16-patch centers as leaders and enders, and I got another done this week. 

I also sewed some nine patch blocks 

No plans on these, other than I really like nine patches and they are fun to sew. When I was busy pulling out the blue scraps, there were some smaller strips, and these blocks are 6” so that works out for using up some 2.5” strips. My plan is to keep the background consistent. I bought a few yards of the background fabric when I was doing collage quilts, and it’s time to use it for something. 

My goal for now is to get a few more blocks made this month, and to stick with it through the end of the year. (Linking to SoScrappy.)

Scrappy Dilemma

There is a new block drive for Hands to Help.  I am happy to send some blocks. I wasn’t able to participate in the last block drive, but I have time to make a few right now, and I do like making “happy blocks”. My problem is reading directions! Seriously. I made some four patches, and I was so happy with them. I lined them up and took a picture.

Then I re-read the directions, and it said not to mix red, pink, yellow color families with blue, green, purple color families. Okay. The block on the top right is pink and purple. The middle right has a green block with orange and yellow blocks. <sigh> I redid the pink and purple and made two blocks from the original one.

I really liked the orange, yellow, green one, so I’ll just keep it. 

I made a couple more red, yellow, pink, and came up with this:

Once I finish putting borders on, there should be eight blocks to mail. It’s not a whole lot but postage costs are so high these days! (Linking to Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.)

Finishes

Completing the WELCA (Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) raffle quilt was one of the goals I wanted to get done in the first quarter of this year. Here it is — quilted and bound, and finished!

I’m super happy with it, and more importantly, I’m super be happy to get it finished early. I don’t know if you remember, but I started with a donated top and took most of it apart. What remained was the center section including the piano key border. I added the rest of the borders until it was 96” x 96”. We typically do better on the raffles when the quilt is fairly large. We have a Deborah Circle meeting next week, so I will take this and drop it off. I’m going to check it off my goal list!

I also quilted a customer quilt. It will be a gift for her grandson who is turning 18.

It had a few challenges, but I got it done! It is made of really heavy fabric—think upholstery and drapery fabric. She also wanted a fluffier batting than I typically use, so I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some poly Mountain Mist batting.

I play Bunco today, but we don’t play until 11, so I will go by the shop and load another quilt. I need to keep things moving as much as possible since I’m still a little behind from the holidays. I have been sewing a little in the evenings on RSC blocks and some other scrap blocks, but I’ll leave that for another post. Have a good Thursday everyone!

Tuesday Newsday

I’ve been working on lots of things, but I haven’t gotten around to finishing very many things. There were a lot of interruptions last week and several meetings. Two were board meetings to strategize for the new year. It seems like everyone starts the year wanting to accomplish all the things we should have done last year (and maybe the year before). It’s pretty much the same as setting my personal goals here on my blog. Haha! How many things didn’t get done last year, and I put them on the list for this year? 

I was able to get a Day One quilt on the frame.

I’m trying out a new quilting design, Birds of a Feather. It’s quilting out really well.

I brought a kit home from church and got it sewn.

These quilts are for Lutheran World Relief. We work with donated fabric, and we work really hard to make attractive quilts with what we are given. It didn’t take very long to get this one pieced, and I’ll take it back to the church today.

I got the borders sewn on the two potato chip baby quilts I did a week ago. 

I like the teeth on the red dinosaurs

I smile every time I look at it. I will be anxious to get them quilted and donated.

Would you believe my Christmas cactus just started blooming? They are really late this year! The white one is still small. I will probably repot it this spring.

The pink bloomed first.

I think they were first last year also.

The red is the last bloomer. Lots of buds.

I brought it inside and finally had one bloom open. 

Today is my volunteer day at church where we work in making lap covers. We also have Tuesday Friends where we get together at an area restaurant for lunch. In other news, I got to watch the Texans game last night, and it was pretty exciting.