I got the point!

Black & Tan block for October's RSC challenge! If you look closely you'll see that I managed not to cut off any of the (interior) points.  Slightly misaligned, yes, but they're all there. Now, some of the outer points had to be sacrificed for the sake a squaring up, but you gotta break eggs if you're going to make an omelette...hmmm, maybe my happy scrappy orphan block quilt could be called "The Everything Omelette?" 

It's rainy and dreary here today so I hung it from the shades to get some good light  for the photo. I think I might keep it up as I work on putting blocks together for the 4th side, we could use some bright colors around here! 

Thank you to everyone who helped answer my questions last week! I added medical tape to the back of the ruler (thanks to Angie, check out her awesome scrap jar stars!) I also added some tape to the rotory cutter handle which makes it feel more secure since I'm still afraid of slipping and cutting myself! But if I go really slow it should be OK, and a thank you to Angela who suggested a stiletto for keeping my seams straight. I had to google it, but turns out I had one in the supplies I inherited from my mom, just never knew what it was! 

The Dark and the Bright

More progress on my dark October crazy quilt block for Angela's RSC. It'll be interesting to see what it turns into at the end of the month!

It's a fun way to learn some freehand embroidery stitches, but I don't think it'll make it into my orphan block quilt.

Speaking of, I got the top row added and today I'm working on the first side panel! 

Two questions for those of you with more experience. When using your rotory cutter with a long ruler, how do you keep the ruler from slipping? I'm ok if the cut is less than my hand span (~8"), but longer than that is harder to control. Second, when I'm sewing smaller pieces together my seams tend to trail off at the end because there's not enough fabric to guide it.  Any hints to keep the seam an even 1/4"?

Sharing my inspirations at RSC at soscrappy and Happy Scrappy Orphan Block Quilt

Dark October...It's crazy!

The RSC colors for October are brown, black, and gray. I've been busy working on gifts (burp cloths for my sister in laws gender reveal party...it's a girl!, and a tummy time mat for the grandparents to be), so I thought it would be fun to try a crazy quilt block to give me some hand work and time away from the machine. This is what I've gotten done so far. I sewed the center column of the block and then attached it to a scrap piece for the background and then did a stitch and flip for the left and right columns. I then zig-zagged the entire thing to a piece of batting which makes it easier to embroider on. Now I'm just adding all the fun stuff. Any ideas what I should put in the middle? I was thinking a spider web, but haven't found any good tutorials on how to do one!

Linking to the Saturday round up at soscrappy!

Rainbow 4-Patch Blocks

Not a lot of progress on the quilt this week, but I'm sharing some of my 4 patch leader and ender blocks that I will probably use in its construction.  Most of the squares were cut before I got a rotary cutter which makes things so much quicker!
Linking to the Saturday roundup on Rainbow Scrap Challenge on soscrappy.

O.P.O.'s

All 3 borders and the first side done!

Pink RSC Blocks in progress for the top and O.P.O's

I've started adding the blocks I've made from Angela's RSC tutorials onto my scrappy quilt following Rosemary Youngs directions for a Scrappy Orphan Block Quilt.  I'm really happy with how my first quilt is coming along. 

And the O.P.O.'s? Those are Other People's Orphans that I've adopted. I went to the craft thrift store for orange fabric scraps (they have a "scrap" basket and you can fill a lunch size paper bag for $1).  Unfortunately no orange scraps, in fact no orange fabric at all in the entire store! (Fat quarters are normally $0.75, yards are $1.50-$2 depending on the fabric). But, I did find a bunch of orphans in the scrap basket...so now I'm going to give them a home in my orphan quilt! :) 

Quilt Tutorials

A running list of tutorials I've used in making my quilt:

Starch

Center Medallion

Spike Border 
soscrappy RSC 14 Quilt Blocks
Happy Scrappy Orphan Block of the Month Quilt
Bonnie Hunter Leaders and Enders 

Progress

Crumbs to Orphans?

My newest blocks! 

My husband looked a bit dubious when I told him I was going to organize the craft room, especially when I pulled out a crate of fabric scraps and proceeded to empty it's contents in the living room to sort them into sandwich baggies by color. But when I started to sew them into wonky quilt blocks using Angela's (non-wonky) tutorials from her rainbow scrap quilt along his suspicions were confirmed, nothing was actually going to get organized. 

Fortunately my husband thinks my blocks are kind of cool and forgives the random pieces of thread that I've started to leave in my wake. But, then he asked me if I was actually going to DO something with them...errrr maybe?  I could be creating a bunch of orphans from all these crumbs! (Quilters have the best terminology!) Angela has a plan for all these blocks at the end of the scrap-along, but I'm afraid mine will probably not work in the layout.  Now, not wanting to be socially irresponsible by abandoning a bunch of orphans that I created, I searched for a home to happily place them in, which is how I found Rosemary's scrappy orphan quilt-along. 

It was serendipitous, but left me with another problem, what would I use for the center medallion? So more searching led to this,

which has become this... 

Crumb(ly) Wonky & Scrappy Quilt Blocks

I don't quilt, but needed to find something to do with all my scrap fabric (or "crumbs" as quilters call them). I don't blog either, but I'm so excited to share what I've made with the great tutorials on So Scrappy  from her rainbow scrap challenge I've decided to post this.  Well, my scraps are a bit smaller than hers so I have to improvise a little. Turns out there's a technical term for my quilt blocks, "wonky!" :)

These are my blue ones so far, (from her January blocks) and a random green one. Think I might work on some yellow ones today!