I finally finished Scrappy Celebration! I am well in time for my niece’s wedding and shower. Now I just need to decide if I want to enter it in the Fair.If I do enter it, I’ll have to add a sleeve.
I don’t have much else to enter. If I do, it would mean not giving it to her at her shower, but I think that would be ok.
I am pleased with how it came out, but I think I want to make another quilt, or something complicated, with my man Phil’s Chrysanthemum print. I don’t know why I like the colors so much, but I do.
Scrappy Celebration – back
The back isn’t super interesting. I was reading the New Jersey issue of QuiltFolk. They said that this type of back makes the quilt a 2-sided quilt! Who knew?
Scrappy Celebration is finished. Well, my part is finished. Today I will bring it to Colleen for quilting.
This quilt was nowhere near ready to give to Colleen, but except for one mishap, it went together quickly and fairly easily (knock wood). I am pretty pleased with the way it came out. It is a lot more interesting to look at than it was to piece.
Scrappy Celebration back
As usual, I used a lot of the leftover fabrics for the back. Friend Julie said the look of the back is energetic. I hope that is good and not just a nice way of saying “what were you thinking?”
Notice that I didn’t use the Philip Jacobs chrysanthemum print on the back. I wasn’t ready to use it up yet.
The last time I talked about this quilt was in September! Since then I have been moving the blocks around my workroom in a desultory manner. I last had them all on the design wall in August and they don’t look great. I decided I needed to finish it and my deadline is on Friday. I have a date with Colleen and knowing my work schedule, will be unable to make another any time soon. So, I needed to get it finished.
Scrappy Celebration -what I had
I actually didn’t start from a bad place. I just needed to figure out where I was and where I needed to go.
The photo on the left is what I had when I put all the blocks up on the design wall. I ignored the block labels I had put on based on where the blocks were in the pattern. I rearranged blocks so they looked more appealing and, then, decided what I additional blocks I needed to make.
I worked on it last weekend and made good progress. I am now ready to sew the piece together.
I was going through my phone the other night and found this great picture of the group of fabrics I used for Scrappy Celebration. I am glad, because I forgot to take a picture before I started making blocks.
I thought I bought them in Mt. Vernon, but I don’t see them in the photo. Who knows?
I set myself a goal during the past two weekends of making progress on this quilt. I didn’t make much progress, but progress is progress.
First, I made this orange block. There is a little too much orange in it and I may change the centers of the mini-9 patches to something else. Maybe blue like in G2. We’ll see how I feel.
Scrappy Celebration, E8
I really like this block. I think I might have made all of them the pattern calls for, but I really like it. I may have to make more. I kept looking at D6 and wanting to make the same block with the center and corner fabrics reversed. I really like that violet and the emerald green. I don’t use a lot of green in my quilts, so that is odd. I might like this block, because I get to use big amounts of that Shaggy Chrysanthemum print. That is definitely a favorite even thought those autumn colors aren’t my normal colors.
Scrappy Celebration, E5
Scrappy Celebration, D3
Scrappy Celebration, G6
Yes, I am making the blocks that are the easiest to get as many of them done as possible. Then I get mad at myself for being ridiculous and make a block with a lot of pieces. None of these blocks are difficult; some of them just have a lot of pieces.
Scrappy Celebration – August 2023
In total, I made 5 blocks. I am now up to 28/56 total. I have enough blocks completed to make a good sized lap quilt, which is what I will do if (when) I run out of background fabric.
I made a few more Scrappy Celebration blocks last week when I was off of work. I think they are coming out nicely. The colors are an interesting combination.
Scrappy Celebration D6
I really like the way this 9 Patch/ 4 Patch combination came out.
I was really good about making several of these blocks last week, but have been off my game on them since the weekend.
I am working to make ongoing progress on the Scrappy Celebration. I now have two full rows and ideas for more blocks.
9 Patch with large center
Scrappy Celebration, 9 Patches within a 9 Patch
I made the 9 Patch with large center with a different fabric this time. I wanted to do it before and I may switch this particular block with the D2 block. I was inspired by the other 9 Patches within a 9 Patch block to use the orange for the larger patches.
It is a good thing that I chose good fabrics for this quilt, because the piecing is super easy and not interesting. I don’t know if it was the best choice for my ‘next project’ after finishing most of my UFOs. Still, it is a project and I will continue.
Scrappy Celebration A3
Scrappy Celebration F4
Scrappy Celebration F2
The Philip Jacobs Chrysanthemum print in those Autumn colors is really growing on me.
I have decided to use the Chrysanthemum print in the same block design, combined in different ways throughout the quilt. I may use it in other blocks, but primarily, I will use it in that block design.
Scrappy Celebration C3
I am not 100% on board with my first use (C3) of it when I used the same fabric in the center as I did in the Four Patches. I like the one above much better. The combination of the colors in the Chrysanthemum print and the turquoise is stunning.
So far, I have made 18 blocks of the 56 I need. I think this will be quite the large quilt.
I focused on getting some more blocks done for Scrappy Celebration over the weekend. My design wall is looking good even if I have to layer some of the blocks. I do need to move them all up and will probably do that today.
After encouraging my sewjo a little bit with the Spiky 16 Patch, I made some more blocks for the Scrappy Celebration quilt.
I have to admit I was dreading this block a little bit because the first one took so long to sew. I concentrated on chain piecing this one and it went more quickly.
I did forget to use the other blue fabric, so it looks the same as #1. Still, it is done and I can move on to other blocks.
Plus block #2
I also made the second Plus block, which completes the top row. Unlike the 9 patch above, I have decided to make the Plus blocks different colors. Well, I have decided that the pluses will be different colors. I have been longing to use that emerald green again, so here it is.
I like the combination of the red-violet and that emerald.
Scrappy Celebration blocks – June 2023
I moved some of the blocks around so the completed block layout I have looks different now.
Not a lot of progress, but over a small hump and progress is progress.
This will be a multi-part post on the recent Retreat I attended. I have to split it up, because I don’t have enough time to write a big long post right now.
I had a couple of specific goals in mind. I wanted to finish a Mother’s Day gift and I wanted to finish some gifts I am taking to my work colleagues later this week. Then, if time permitted, I planned to start a new quilt.
First, I was able to finish the Mother’s Day gift. It is small and you’ll have to read the post on May 14th to see what it is.
Three cork I Spy pouches
Second I finished the three I Spy pouches I started. I had some of the fabric cut, but not all. I cut the cork, yes cork, at the Retreat and sewed the pouches together. I cut quite a number of strips wrong, so will have to make some pouches out of odd sized strips.
In between, the top two projects, I worked on donation blocks. You saw some of these in the post a few days ago about donation blocks for April. I don’t think I mentioned that I used kits the guild team had prepared. The squares frayed a lot and made me quite crazy.
Scrappy Celebration – first blocks
After these, except the donation blocks, were finished, I started a new quilt. I had a fabric pull from a couple of years ago that I wanted to use. I had some options and finally decided on a plan. This quilt is from the American Patchwork and Quilting Sew-a-Long. It is designed by Lissa Alexander. Because I seem to be incapable of following directions as written, I resized the EQ8 project to include 12 inch blocks rather than 6 inch blocks. The straight nine patches are quite large, but they provide some space for viewers to rest their eyes. Also, the small squares in some of the blocks above are much easier to sew when the entire block is 12 inches finished.
I missed the Sew-a-Long, which started in February, but this project is super easy. The pieces are, mostly, standard sizes and easy to cut. I think even beginners looking for a second or third project could do it.
One of the things I wanted to do to start was to use all the fabrics I selected to see how they worked together. I didn’t quite succeed, but I was able to use a lot of them. So far, so good.
