Scrappy Saturday

I got completely distracted this week with the multi-year Omigosh project. It started with just sewing a few 1" pieces into this double 9 patch block which was one of the RSC Tiny Tuesday blocks this week. Cute! 

So I kept making more blocks with the scraps on the cutting table, and ended up finishing these 4 blocks to add to the project.
Then I went in search of the other blocks. They are stored in the refrigerator - the fabric one, not the food one!


I decided it was time to take stock of this project and see where it's at. 

Omigosh project in the freezer

The double 9 patch blocks are on the left. I have enough of those and really should stop making any more! 
The small pile of alternate blocks on the right is another story. The piles should be the same size. They are not as much fun to make as the double 9 patch and require more coordination, but I need to focus my efforts and make lots more of those. 

I got out all the alternate blocks and put them on the design wall for the first time with the double 9 patches of the same colours. Here is what it is looking like. Omigosh!

Wow! That is awesome! There are some colours that are over-represented and some that are MIA, so that will have to be sorted out by the project manager LOL! I counted all the colours and will try to be more purposeful about filling in the gaps now. No more willy-nilly making random blocks when I feel like it for this project. Focus is required!
So see more RSC projects hop over to the weekly linkup.

Scrappy Saturday

In a demonstration of great self restraint, I am NOT joining in on the Moda Summer Camp Quilt Along. It sounds like so much fun, but really how much fun can one quilter stand?!? Also Bonnie Hunter announced her new leader and ender challenge Jewel Box Stars, which looks like lots of fun too. 
MUST STAY FOCUSED!
Okay... staying focused means working on quilts already in progress, so instead of starting anything new, I better buckle down and get to work on my multi-year Omigosh project. Last month was teal month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I've been working on some tiny teal blocks.

These are the alternate blocks in Omigosh which are a shoofly variation. There are 41 pieces in each of these labour intensive little 5" blocks. Because they are so small, there is no wiggle room and all components must be squared down to the exact size. 
Here is the collection of the alternate blocks made so far. I have finished 27 as of today. Only about 80 more to sew!! LOL

See how wonderful they are when put beside the double nine patch blocks?!? YUM!

To see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, hop over to the weekly link up. I'll be looking for some red scraps to stitch up today.

Pink Scrappy Saturday

Pink Omigosh blocks

An Omigosh quilt has been in construction in my sewing room for about 4 and a half years. When the colour of the month is announced at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I start gathering up my 1" strips and scraps to make some Omigosh blocks each month.
For three years I sewed the double 9 patch blocks and have made 93 of those so far.

I started sewing the alternate Shoofly variation in March last year and have only made 14 of those so far. Here are a couple of other blocks made in the last 2 weeks.
It's such a wonderful way to make a quilt... no pressure, no deadlines, just a leisurely sewing of blocks and putting them into the project box in the closet as they are made. It's fun to watch the pile of blocks grow!
To see more pink Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects being worked on, hop over to the weekly link up.

Scrappy Saturday - Omigosh!

The first order of the day is to announce the winners of the draw for the mini double 9 patch mug mats from the Small, Smaller, Smallest blog hop this past week. There were over 80 names in the draw and the two lucky winners are: 

Vicki H said...

Oh, I love your quilt. I have saved many scraps that small but haven't sewn them yet. I think my sewing machine might eat them instead of feeding them through. Now I am inclined to give it a try. Thanks for sharing and inspiring.

tink's mom said...

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you are insane. That said,Your quilt is amazing. I'd love a chance at one of those sweet mini rugs.

Congratulations and thanks to all the bloggers who participated, to Carol for organizing the fun, and to everyone who visited and left encouraging and often hilarious comments! 

This week I made a few more light green blocks for my RSC Omigosh. This has been a multiyear project and uses all the tiniest scraps from my sewing adventures. 
I still have a few unfinished purple blocks from last month, so that's what I am sewing today.




So many people have commented that 1" pieces are toooo small for stress-free sewing, and if you prefer to sew with larger pieces, you could still make the Omigosh pattern using larger blocks. My friend Helen made her Omigosh quilt using 1.5" pieces and look at her amazing quilt! She calls it something like "Oh well... whatever"! LOL

To see what other quilters are sewing with their green scraps, hop over to the RSC link up.

Scrappy Saturday

March is green month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Since I already had my 1" strips out working on my project for the Small, Smaller, Smallest blog hop happening this coming week, I kept right on going with the little green pieces. These blocks are 5" for the Omigosh quilt. I have all the double nine patch blocks finished (110) and have been working on the alternate churn dash variations.

Speaking of churn dash blocks, I finished sewing my 66 blocks for Barb's block swap and got them in the mail this week. I used 3 dark repro fabrics for my 6" blocks. They really look boring on the wall, but just wait until I add in the swap blocks I receive ... it will be magical! You can see my previous swap block quilts here.

And back to the Omigosh quilt... I just started making these  alternate blocks last March and guess how many I have made? Drum roll please... a grand total of 14! Not really a stellar level of production for one year, but I do think they look awesome and many more will be made this year.
To see what other quilters are making with their green scraps, hop over to the link up at SoScrappy. And the new block pattern for the Squared Away quiltalong is posted over at the Academic Quilter. Can't wait to dig into the scraps this week to make these fun blocks!

Distracted by Omigosh

I missed out on the Super Blue Blood Moon event last night, being unwilling to sacrifice any welcomed moments of sleep. I know this is a rare event, but I'm sure my parents were out looking at the moon and will tell me all about it! 
Today is the release of the last block for the Moda Blockheads quilt. You must hop over to see Wendy's finished quilt - click here. Yes... finished! She uses a "potholder" method of making quilts so her quilt is already finished!

My Blockheads quilt is 8 blocks short as of today. I'll work on it this weekend as my friend Louise is coming for our annual quilting retreat. We will talk and quilt, and talk and quilt, get some Indian takeout food, and talk and quilt, and maybe sleep a little. It will be fabulous!


In the meantime, I got completely distracted in the sewing room... squirrel!
Distraction happened because I was sewing the On Ringo Lake blocks together and it is hard sewing these blocks together without sashing. Then I noticed the lovely gold scraps in the scrap bin and thought of my Omigosh project. And wanting something easier to sew, I started making some blocks. Tada... easy peasy 5" Omigosh blocks! Two double nine patch and two shoofly variation blocks to add to the pile. They are so adorable and made mostly from 1" strips. Now, what was I supposed to be doing?!?

Scrappy Saturday

This week is the 4th anniversary of my Omigosh project, so I had to make a few more blocks to celebrate! This is one of my multi-decade projects. 
Last month's colour was orange, and October is pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Finally I had a chance to play with my tiniest scraps to make a few more Omigosh blocks.

The grand total of blocks is: 

87 double nine patch
8 scrappy shoefly

After 4 years of adding to the pile, I'm almost half finished the block production. See what I mean about it being a multi-decade project?!?!

To see more scrappy projects in the making, hop over to the  SoScrappy linkup.

Scrappy Saturday

Blue is the colour for July over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 
The Omigosh project saw some scrappy attention this week. I finished 3 alternate shoofly blocks and 1 more double 9 patch block. These blocks use up my smallest 1" scraps. These are fiddly blocks and take just as long as a full size block to make (and sometimes longer if the seam ripper needs to be involved!)

Here's the full blue block collection. Many more shoofly blocks are needed but 3 is a good start!

This is a multi-year (maybe multi-decade project!) and I just sew a few blocks here and there when I have collected enough tiny scraps.

To see more blue scrap projects, hop over to the link up at SoScrappy.

Green Scrappy Saturday

The RSC colour for May is green, which is one of my favourite colours especially at this time of the year when the grass and leaves are growing and we are surrounded by vibrant juicy greens. I have big scrappy plans for green month but at FSNI last night I only managed to sew one little 5" alternate block for Omigosh. This brings my grand total of alternate blocks to 3! 





That's okay because: a) this is a lifelong project and b) we had a blast at FNSI and talked for 5 hours straight! There was a lot of talking and laughing, and not as much sewing! 

To see blog links to quilters accomplishing more green things than I did this week, hop over to SoScrappy!

Scrappy Saturday

March is the month to use up your red scraps over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge . I have a lot of red scraps because I am currently working on 3 different red quilts; Broken Dishes, Aurifil BOM and 150 Canadian Women.
This week I used a few tiny red scraps on two different projects:
1) I have been sewing tiny double nine patch blocks for my Omigosh quilt for a long time. This week I tried my first alternate block which is a shoofly variation. It is so adorable and I really can't wait to make more of these. 

Here are 4 of the red blocks ready to add to the collection. I was really happy when I saw how these blocks are going to work together.
This is going to be such an epic Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt!




2) I also sewed a little birthday cake for Temecula's 10th anniversary. They have shared so many wonderful projects over the years, and I wanted to be a part of their anniversary celebrations. So I made them a cake to become part of their signature quilt!
Click here for the pattern. You still have lots of time if you'd like to make a cake for them!
To see what other scrap quilters are making, hop over to the weekly link up.

Scrappy Saturday

Another crazy week is over and I am relaxing today by sewing some tiny random 1" bits of purple fabric into 9 patch blocks. Purple is the January colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I have just finished my 9th purple block.
I was so sad reading the news that Sue Garman died, which was announced this week by The Quilt Show. I have followed Sue's blog for years and have been inspired by her quilting and life adventures. She was an amazing woman with a fascinating career at NASA, followed by a brilliant career as a creative quilter, teacher, pattern designer and blogger. 
The news of her passing inspired me to get out my own Sue Garman project called Omigosh. You can see her original version of the pattern on her blog post from 2008 here. I've been working on my version for more than 3 years now and I have 84 of the double nine patch blocks done (110 are needed), but haven't even started sewing the second block yet! It's a perfect RSC challenge project, and I enjoy picking it up now and then to make more blocks with small scraps around the sewing room.
To see what the RSC quilters are making this week, hop over to the weekly link up at SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday

The colour for the Rainbow Scrappers this month is red and I have plenty of red action going on in my sewing room this week. With my smallest of scraps, which are 1" squares or strips I made a few more red blocks for the never-ending Omigosh project. The neutral squares are 2". I have been making these blocks for 3 years now, and am hoping to reach the half way mark by the end of this year. 
To see the other red RSC links this week, hop over to SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday

Blue month continues for the Rainbow Scrap Challengers. I have been sewing a few blocks using Bonnie's leader/ender technique as I have been working on other projects throughout the month. 

Here are two more double 9 patch blocks for Omigosh, and 6 more Alamo Stars. These are l-o-n-g term projects. 
I just know someone is going to ask me how many of these blocks I have now? I have 70 Omigosh blocks, and this many Alamo Stars...

How many is that?
I didn't count, but it's a lot!
I have been debating how to work on a layout for this quilt. No way am I going to lay out hundreds of 2" star blocks on a design wall to somehow organize into a coherent design! Today I am thinking it might be good to sew these blocks together into 9 patchs, so the design unit will be bigger to work with. Do you have any other ideas for me of how to create a quilt design from hundreds of small blocks?
To see more blue scrappy projects, hop over to SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday

If you like scrap quilts, you have to go see the Tucker Quilt Parade over at Pam Buda's Heartspun Quilts. There were a lot of scraps sewn into little quilts in November. Most of the quilts shown were made in the USA, but there were a few from Canada, and also represented were UK, Paris, Brazil, and Holland. 
What am I sewing with my scraps this week? 

Mostly I am making blocks from the scraps being generated from the Quiltville mystery. We are working on step #4, and this is the first block I put together.
Hey, it's Santa!

Only guess what?
I sewed the blocks together wrong. Ugh. I was so excited about my blocks looking like Santa, that I sewed 4 sets wrong before I realized the problem. Today I will be unsewing those Santa blocks and this time I'll be sewing them according to the directions.


And with the tiny scraps from the mystery blocks, I have been sewing double nine patches for Omigosh. Here are the newest 4 blocks.

To see what other scrap quilters are sewing this week, hop over to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Scrappy Saturday - Brown

It's brown month for the RSC'ers.
I don't love brown (it's just so dark and colourless!) but we are learning to get along. I must admit that I like brown quite a bit more when I call it chocolate brown! 
Here are the brown Alamo star blocks I have sewn so far this month as leader/enders. Their job will be to help the other blocks to sparkle in the finished quilt :)

I've also finished 4 brown blocks for the Omigosh collection.I have more than half of the double nine patch blocks finished now. That means about 1/4 of the piecing is done on this quilt - now that's progress.





Here's the pile of the blocks that live in my fridge, where they can stay nice and fresh for years!

To see what the RSC'ers are up to with their brown scraps, hop over to SoScrappy's link up.

Scrappy Saturday - Red

I am up to my elbows in scraps today, and having a great quilty time at Deanna's. The colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Quilters is red. I have been cutting and sewing small scraps into 1" squares or strips to use in my Omigosh blocks. Here is the only red block that got finished this week so far. Just look at all those tiny .5" bits of red scraps in there!



This is what my sewing table looked like when I was sorting my red bits. Some strips are sewn and red to crosscut into pieces for the 9 patch blocks. Isn't that tractor fabric so fun? 



This week Angela hosted a link up for a mid year review of our rainbow scrap projects, but I didn't have time this week to participate. Let's just say I have "a lot", in various stages of non-completion, and that's how I like it! 
You can see some of the projects I've been working on this year here. This is a photo of 56 of my double 9 patch Omigosh blocks on the design wall. More blocks have been made since then, and today I'll be adding to the red pile.
To see what other projects are being made with red scraps today, hop over to SoScrappy.

Omigosh Scrappy Saturday

The month of December is a month of finishing up scrappy projects over at the RSC. I am slowly taking inventory of where I am in working on each scrappy project. 
These are the 56 blocks I've sewn over the last year for my version of Sue Garman's Omigosh pattern.

I like these blocks so much on the design wall I was thinking about not making the alternate blocks, and just making a quilt from these double 9 patch blocks. But then I look at the Omigosh pattern and like that even better, so I'm 99% sure I'll end up making the Full Omigosh.
Anyway, I finished a couple of light blue blocks that I started last month and they are very pretty. Now I only need a batrillion more! But I think this is exactly the way to sew a large scrap project like this one, using up the small quilting scraps generated throughout the year, and making a few blocks here and there each month.
Hop over to SoScrappy to see more scrappy project postings.

Scrappy Saturday

Orange was the colour for September over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
I wasn't quite ready to move to the October colours since I hadn't sewn a single orange block for my Omigosh quilt yet.
A while ago I received a card from a wonderful friend that included some 1" orange scraps.



I enjoyed sewing up her scraps mixed in with my own orange squares, and sewed 6 double nine patch blocks.
That brings my grand total of double 9 patch blocks to 54!
I am now ready to move on to some of the darker golds and browns for October.
To see more scrap postings, hop over to SoScrappy.

Scrappy Saturday - Last Purple Post

It's the last Saturday of April, which means the last week of working with purple scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I am pleased with my blocks this month and did make a good dent in the purple scrap bin. I sewed some Stars - both Alamo and Maverick stars, and some spool and Carrie Nation blocks.  This week I finished up some cute little double 9 patch blocks for the never-ending Omigosh quilt. Each 5" block has 49 pieces, for a total of 196 scrap pieces used in these 4 blocks! WOW!

My last scrappy blocks to finish up this month are purple pumpkin seeds. I have sewn a few while watching QuiltCam, and am happy to be adding blocks to that collection. The finished blocks and an updated photo of the pumpkin seeds will be posted next Saturday.

To see more purple projects being sewn, hop over to visit SoScrappy. I wonder what colour we will be working on for the month of May?!?

Scrappy Saturday and FNSI Update

Rainbow Scrap Challenge update:

I am making great progress this month on my Omigosh blocks. I have 28 double nine patches done, and I think it needs a total of 110, so only 82 more to go! Here are the 4 teal/aqua blocks I made this month. 




I also finished up a blue double 9 patch from January and 5 pink blocks from February. So everything I had cut for this project so far is sewn into blocks this month...woohoo!
Angela... I need to add some purple, orange and/or green blocks, so maybe those colours could be on the wish list for upcoming months?! No pressure! LOL
To see what other quilters are sewing with their aqua scraps, visit SoScrappy.

Friday Night Sew In Report:
One of the sewers came down with a bad ankle or something, and couldn't come last night (rumour has it that she was either in a fight at work and kicked someone, or she slipped on the ice?) 
Wine was bought to match the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour of aqua, and I worked on machine quilting blocks for my UFO this month. 

I think this is one of my favorite blocks so far. I think the quilting makes the blocks look like tilted crowns. It is fun to quilt each block differently using the same shapes.

This is a quilt top that Sandy was hoping to make progress on at FNSI. "Isn't it awesome?!? It is from the book Small blocks Stunning Quilts". 
Also, my sister's pretty Christmas quilt is on the design wall behind the quilt.
PS - the other quilt holder will remain anonymous because she really needs a hair cut! Just sayin'!