Scrapping away in the heat...

to get all my wee scrap blocks finished for the 365 Challenge.  I have 1 to go for the week that finished on Friday, then I  need to make up Saturday and Sunday's blocks. I am most pleased with myself as so far I have managed to hang in there and it is so good using up some of my scraps.  Am trying to keep to the dark look for this border, but balancing the colours between blue, brown, green and red.

The brown fabric has light lines over it and it looks like it has loose threads all over it.  We have branched out into doing triangles now which is interesting.  I have had a big play around with my sewing machine to make sure I am sewing a "scant" quarter inch seam with these. I hate reverse stitching too. However, if it is too scant, then the block is too big and it is not always good trimming back as you can lose seam allowances on pointy corners (you know what I mean?)

Then, just to make myself really challenged, here is my first blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016.  January's colour was Blue with a purple accent. These blocks will be the start of a quilt I would like to make for a good friend of mine who loves purple.  I used a block out of Judy Hopkins "501 Rotary Cut Blocks," a book I haven't used for ages.  When I did the cutting I failed to notice that I was cutting out for two blocks until I wondered why I had so many quarter square units!!  Ha!  So, figured I would make them up differently if I had to make two and see how they looked.  Both are quite nice I think. On top of that, I had a little issue with my quarter square triangles!  It is a loooong time since I have made these and this was why I had to figure out my scant quarter inch seam.  It is a different scant to the little 3 inch blocks...go figure...as they say.







While I was industriously making all these blocks, I finally organised myself to try doing the "Leaders and Enders" thingy that Bonnie Hunter teaches. Have owned one of her books for a while, but having never actually got myself sorted the time had come.  Now I am hooked.  I have this grand little system all set up, because I also found this really neat wee tutorial on how to trim your Half Square Trianges quickly and... "Bob's your Auntie"...all these gorgeous little HST's have been stitched, trimmed and ironed.! Look at this girls, it's just so impressive, and...I have the next project all lined up to come out of the cupboard and get stitched up! Did I tell you I was determined to be disciplined this year and get some stuff done and moved out of my cupboards into somebody else's cupboard, bed or anywhere?

The stitching station...the container has ended up in the rubbish bin a couple of times and they have had to be dethreaded from this adventure.

The trimming station.  Love that you don't have to press it out first then fiddle around with the diagonal line and all that hassle.

This is the extra little step I figured out.  To cut those pesky corners off quickly, line your ruler up square to the bottom left corner of the size HST you are making and trim.  This gives you the correct angle of the cut.  (Ask me how I figured this out?)  LOL.

Did I mentioned these are only 1.5inch HST's.  This is the tail end of my madness.

Last step at the ironing board.  Each time I go to press something when making the other blocks, I iron at least 4 of these little suckers.  Sometimes I get carried away and iron 8 of them!!  Hehe

End of production story.  Hmmm, I wonder why they say that we patchworkers have an incurable disease?

Final photo.  Dragged these out of the cupboard.  Might incorporate them with the blue blocks.  Started these way back when I first got involved with blogs and the lady got sidetracked away from doing these each month.  A good start though for something?








Well, I have come to the end of this chat.  You probably need to go somewhere by now as I think it has taken ages to get down this far.  Thanks a heap for sticking in there with me.  It has been soooo hot here these past few days.  We are swelting under 36C, which is quite a lot hotter that normal for us. For those of you in Fahrenheit, it is just touching 98F. My question is this, if I am melting away in the heat, how come I don't look any skinnier.  Darn,  I have to try something else maybe, like not eating ice cream on hot days do you think?

That's it, the last words are here.  I am linking to Oh Scrap here
and Rainbow Scrappy Challenge 2016 here
So Scrappy here

Hugs to you all,
Clare