WITB?

 WITB (What's in the Box, Bin, Bag) is the theme in my sewing space for the month of March. I've been trying to see how many bags, bins and boxes I can empty to move a few UFOs forward.

I've also been working with yellow scraps this month because that is the March Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color. 

And I don't always follow the challenges issued by the Scrapbuster group but this month the challenge is 1.5 inch scraps. I have been trying to empty a couple of boxes of those this month.

Rail Fence

5 inch blocks

Rail Fence

5 inch blocks

On a post at the beginning of the month I showed a couple of boxes of 1.5 inch width scraps I had sorted into bags.  One bag held strips greater than 2.5 inches.   I pulled out that bag and cut pieces into 5.5 inch lengths, sorted by color and sewed 5 strips of the same color together to make 78 Rail Fence blocks. 

BAG empty!

Four Patch

6 inch blocks

I emptied a little baggie of Four Patch parts in red, white and blue. I think these were left over from making Americana.

The resulting Four Patches are now in the red, white and blue orphanage. That box is overflowing so I might have to make a red, white and blue orphan block quilt soon. 

Another one of the bags in my 1.5 inch width scrap boxes held pieces longer than 5.5 inch and at least 14 inches long. I matched a colored with a neutral and cut 14 inch lengths. I didn't have enough neutrals so had to cut a few of those from scrap chunks.  I emptied my bag and made 92 strip sets. 

Those 92 strip sets are now going into the Boo Boo Patch project bag. Moving forward I will pull out the ones in the RSC color of the month, subcut and make into my Boo Boo (or 18) Patches. 

I currently have 168 Patches and when I use those strip sets to make 92 more blocks I will reach my goal of 260 -- 3x6 inch blocks. That will be enough for a 60 x 78 quilt (20 blocks by 13 blocks).

I emptied another baggie of 1.5 inch width strips that were less than 5.5 inches. 

I cut those into rectangles 1.5 x 2.5 and 1.5 inch squares. 

The 1.5 x 2.5 inch rectangles went into the Potato Chip baggie. 

The 1.5 inch squares (postage stamps) went into a bigger bag of 1.5 inch squares. 

I've been using those to make my Gum Wrapper Chain strips. This one has been stalled for a bit because I ran out of 1.5 inch squares. However, I recently received that big bag of 1.5 inch squares so I can work on this Postage Stamp quilt once again. 

And remember I had two boxes of bags of 1.5 inch width scraps at the beginning of the month? 

Well, now I only have one box because I emptied the men's size 13 shoe box. 

The box of what I have left for 1.5 inch width scraps - a baggie with some longer pastel strips I will put with my pastel scraps, a baggie of multiple width of fabric (WOF) strips of the same fabric, a baggie of neutral pieces all lengths to be sorted and cut, a baggie of black and whites I will put with my black/white UFO, a baggie of pieces left over after making Waffles, Rails and Boo Boo Strips that need to be sorted and cut for WIPs/UFOs.  

Oh, and I did put some 1.5 inch width pieces long enough for 4 HSTs into my Little Baskets (4 inch) project box.  I have 35 Basket Blocks and my goal is 110. 

I emptied another baggie that someone had given me with Tumbler pieces.  I sewed those together into 9 strips 3.5 x 40 inches long. I figured I could use that length of strips in a row/strippie quilt. 

Someone also gave me a baggie of 4 Patch parts so I made those 15 - 6 inch blocks and emptied that bag. 

I have a little bag of old calico bits and pieces so I put the Tumbler strips and Four Patches in with those- Fodder for a future quilt. 

I'm keeping score of what bags and boxes emptied this month:

Boxes:

1- Coins

2 - Legos

3 - 1.5 inch width scraps

Bags:

1 - Kaleidoscope

2  - solid 1.5 inch strips for 51 Waffles

3 - 1.5 inch strips for 9 Legos

4 - Windmill blocks

5 - Happy Block parts

6 - Posies

7 - 1.5 inch strips for 78 Rail Fence blocks

8 - Four Patch parts

9 - 1.5 inch strips for 92 strip sets for Boo Boo Patches

10 - 1.5 inch width strips cut into rectangles and squares

11 - Tumblers

12 - Four Patch parts

And sew on...

In The Pink Part I

Boo Boo Patches

3 x 6 inch finished

Pink is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for May. 

This week I dug into my pink scrap bag and took out all of the 1.5 inch width pieces I could find. 

Little Baskets 

4 inch finished

Windmills

4 inch finished

Switch Plates

3 x 5 inch finished

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

***

CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

May 3 - Finished the book Elsewhere by Dean Koontz. The Key to Everything might have been a better name. (I know I would not ever want to be trusted with the Key to Everything).  The book is a fantasy that explores the multiverse theory and travel between parallel worlds. What if?  Also I had to laugh a few times when I read about bad guys with names like Yessman and Canker and a scientist that invented travel between parallel worlds named Harkenbach.  

 

Green Scraps Chapter I

Boo Boo Patches

3 x 6

The Boo Boo Patches are a result of a mistake I made last August when I intended to make an 18 patch with 1.5 x 2.5 inch strip sets but measured incorrectly and ended up with an 18 patch of 1.5 inch squares.  So I turned a mistake into a new quilt and will carry on making Boo Boo Patches. 

Green is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month. I keep my scraps by color and then within the scrap bag I sometimes have separate bags of different widths of scraps. If I know the width as I sort and put away scraps I put them in the appropriate scrap width bag within that bag of colored scraps.  My intent has always been to get the bags down to scrap chunks but you know how scraps just happen around here.  Then it just so happens that I usually have a different block going as a RSC project to use each size width of scraps. I have found this a good way to use scraps and have fun doing it. I can make scrappy blocks a few at a time each month and before I know it I have enough blocks for a quilt or two. Sometimes I have to wait for scraps to happen in a particular width and color. If I don't have any scraps in a particular width and color then I skip making that block or I cut a width from my scrap chunks. 

It is always a lot of fun to see what scraps I get to work with each month when a color is declared. So, anyway, when green was declared the color for January I pulled out the huge green scrap bag and within I found a whole lot of green 1.5 inch width scraps. So all the blocks this week are made from those scraps. 

Lil' Baskets

4 inch 

I started making these little baskets last February. I made a few pink ones and then must have promptly forgot this was a RSC project and never made any more.  These will be set on point and  alternate with squares of a red fabric with baskets. Pattern from the book Scrappy Firework Quilts by Edyta Sitar. Background fabrics will be all creams, baskets will be all browns and HSTs will be in he RSC color of the month.

Potato Chip Blocks

6 inch

I started making these in September 2022 and have not gotten very far. There are usually not many 1.5 inch scraps left by the time I get to making these blocks. When I started making lots of blocks from 1.5 inch scraps I had a bin of 1.5 inch scraps I was trying to empty. This is actually the last block I make with 1.5 inch scraps if there are enough 1.5 x 2.5 inch pieces for a block after all other blocks are made. 

Windmill

4 inch

I also started making these back in September 2022 and have quite a few of these. 

Switch Plate

3 x 5

I've been making these since May 2022 and have quite a few.

And then I cut what was left into 1.5 x 2.5 pieces for the Lego project box. And then I cut 1.5 inch squares for the Postage Stamp Strippy project box. 

And sew on...

Got scraps?

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

************

CELEBRATE:

Jan. 5 - I won 27 FQs!!! Stashbusters UFO Challenge 2023 year end random drawing. 

 

It's A Top! Double Irish Chain

It's a top! 

Double Irish Chain

71 x 91

This was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) project I started back in June 2020. 

All blocks have cream/tan/taupe backgrounds and dark brown chains. The other chains in the block were made from scraps in the RSC color of the month.  I made these blocks in order to use up a lot of 1.5 inch width scraps. 

When it came time to join the blocks I just could not figure out for the longest time what color(s) to use to finish out all the colored chains. Then it dawned on me to try a multicolored fabric. I happened to have enough of a multicolored piece of woven looking rainbows left over from the backings I used to make quilts for the friends of my deceased granddaughter. 

Now if I can find a backing it might just get quilted in January when the theme in my sewing space is "Blues and Browns". 

And sew on...

***

Health Notes - Hubby

About a week ago I noticed that it appeared hubby's G-tube was starting to come out. I made an appointment with the surgeon's office to have a new one put in on December 26. I had to go pick up the new G-tube from the pharmacy where we get the enteral feeding supplies and take it to the office visit.  Well, of course, the G-tube came out completely at about 4:30 on Christmas Day about 1/2 hour aftter I had hooked him up for his pump feeding. I know the stoma and tract in the stomach would start to close up immediately so we had to get somewhere to get a new one put in because we could not make it until the doc appt. on day after Christmas.   So I called 911 to ask what to do and they sent medics to look. They taped him up and told me to take him and the new G-tube to the ER and they would put it in.  So off we went to the ER. They tried to put new one in but could not. They put a foley cath in temporarily to keep tract open until doc appt. on 26th.   That took 4 hours. Then we went to doc appt. yesterday as planned. What should have been a 15 minute procedure to put in a new G-tube ended up to be a 4 hour wait in the doc office. It turns out the G-tube the pharmacy gave me was the wrong one. And that is why ER staff could not place it. Well, we had to wait to see if the correct type could be located. Then when they did find one we had to wait for doctor to see his other scheduled patients and then to make rounds in the hospital and then come back to the office to insert the correct G-tube. 

The surgeon advised me to watch the procedure and to keep a correct G-tube on hand at home so if this happens again I can actually insert the new one and avoid visits from medics, to ER and to doc appointments. It makes me queasy to look at holes in people or at other people's bodily fluids but I watched the simple procedure and am going to order another one of the correct G-tubes and if the time comes I will psych myself up enough to get it inserted. 

  I have to say I kept thinking of those old cartoons where a character has holes for whatever reason all over their body and then drinks something and the fluids starts spurting out of all the holes. 

What we do in the name of love! 

It's exhausting work. 

Think I'll go (try to) sew!

 

A Finish! Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

It's a finish!

56 x 72

It was inspired by a quilt called Soul Searching in the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. I say "inspired" because Kathy's quilt called for 2.5 inch width pieces and I modified the pattern and used 1.5 inch width pieces because I was cleaning out my 1.5 inch scrap bin last year (finally!) and most of the scraps in there were brown. 

I made the top in October 2022.

This month the theme in my sewing space is "brown stuff" so I decided to get this brown stuff quilted. I quilted it on my DSM with chocolate swirls in a variegated brown thread. 

The binding is scrappy - all brown pieces from my left over binding box. 

Pieced backing.

Pieced backing close up. I thought it kind of echoed the blocks on the front. The other neutral fabric is a wide back trimming. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

A Little Soul Searching

Little Soul Searching

It's a top!

42 x 60

Why is it called Soul Searching? The inspiration came from a quilt by that name in the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. Her blocks were made with 2.5 inch pieces but mine are made with littler 1.5 inch pieces ---Little Soul Searching. 

I started making the 12 x 14 inch blocks last year when I was emptying out my 1.5 inch scrap bin.   I ended up with several blocks but not enough for a small comfort quilt. I like to make those roughly 40 x 60. 

The other day when I was looking at a few UFOs I noticed I only needed 3 more blocks and I could move this UFO to flimsy stage.   

I had my purple scraps out for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) so made a purple block. 

Then I noticed I could really use an orange block since I hadn't made one of those. But I had very few small orange scraps in the orange scrap bag so pulled those out and then supplemented those with some yellow scraps and mixed them up a bit for this block. 

Then I always seem to have a lot of blue scraps so I made a blue block and then there were 15 blocks and I was ready to make a top.

And so I did make a top. 

To be continued...and quilted...and sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

On The Rail Fence

Rail Fence

40 x 60

It's a top!

My theme this month in my sewing room is  KIDS! KIDS! KIDS!  so I've been working on moving a lot of old UFOs forward that fit that theme.  I'm hoping a different theme each month will provide me with some focus to move a lot of things along this year. 

These are five inch finished blocks made from 1.5 inch scraps. Looks like I started them way back in 2021 as one of many Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) projects. 

In September of last year I reached my goal of 96 blocks and put them aside into my Some Assembly Required (SAR) box to assemble at a later date. Later date has arrived. 

I just sewed the blocks together randomly. I was kind of surprised that the majority of them were in red and purple. Normally blues and greens are in the majority. I just go where the scraps take me and enjoy the journey. 

And now there's another one ready for the quilting pile. 

KIDS! KIDS! KIDS! 

And sew on...

 

The 1.5 Inch Scrap Bin Is Empty!!!!

My goal for a couple of years has been to empty a 16 quart bin of 1.5 inch scraps.  I've made several blocks and quilts over the years using scraps from this bin but now I'm trying to use scraps as they happen so want my bins of scraps sorted by scrap width empty. Now my scraps are stored by color. 

I've made a few 12 x 14 Soul Searching blocks  and will continue to make these until I have enough for a donation quilt. I'm thinking maybe a kiddo sized quilt. 

Windmills (4 inch finished)

18 patch (6 inch)

Coin strips made from pieces less than 1.5 inch square and greater than .5 inch. They do mount up.

Switch Plate blocks (3 x 5)

1.5 x 2.5 pieces for Lego blocks

1.5 inch squares for a postage stamp quilt WIP. The squares at top are sets of four and I put those in the Monkey Wrench work box. 

All of the above was completed before October 25. I made a draft post and meant to schedule it for when I was off with cataract surgery but forgot to do that.   Since then I have made more blocks and emptied my bin as follows.

4 inch Windmills

Switch Plate and Chinese Coin strips

Lego pieces

Postage Stamps

The bin. 

I put a bag of neutral 1.5 inch scraps with the rest of the neutral scraps and I put a bag of solid 1.5 inch scraps with the rest of the solid scraps. 

Mission accomplished! Goal completed! The bin is empty. Now what should I do with it? 

And sew on...