Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Still Thinking Pink

Here is a rosy post for you...and for me too. Always a downer coming home from a Brady visit.
I am happy to report that my first project I hit upon for the RSC2017 has all blocks complete. The pink one is now done.
It's no secret star blocks are my favourite, with the schoolhouse block a very very close second. However, I saw these as house blocks, not quite schoolhouses, when I started this back in January. Each block is 16.5" unfinished. The pattern is available for one block or a pattern with two quilts, a bench pillow and a cushion, in my Etsy shop. The house has evolved over the course of this year.  This house's 'garden' is a little overrun with dog paw prints! Thanks, Jake for the perfect, much-loved Laurel Burch piece there, and the inspirational thoughts of hers in the windows. 😘 I thought it a nice touch, especially seeing how poor Naala had such a rough and scary month in October. We are so thankful that she is still here, doing really well, got the last of her staples out, has gained 5 pounds back, and is eating like a horse!

The Rising Star is one of my favourite star blocks so I thought it would be cool to have a double star for this last block. I mean what's not to love about a star in a star?! I did pause for a half a minute and think, do I really want to make a 3" star? Like how big, er small would the star points have to be?

Answer: 3/4" finished.

Take a big breath. It wasn't too long before I had this:
Okay, that is tiny! But SO CUTE! Fabrics, I have to tell you: the centre is a scrap from my mum's quilt I just gave her; my previous post tells all about it. The star points are a batik scrap from the coolest bag I made years ago (should blog that on a Throwback Thursday--what happened to those anyhow?), love batiks. The background is a pink Cracked Ice, a very popular fabric in a multitude of colours, much like Moda Grunge, back when I first started quilting in the 90s.
New + old (er, vintage) = perfection!

All my blocks, in chronological order of colour of the month:
I am going to put sashing between, not sure what colour yet. There are scraps from projects done this year, like the house front purple, the border of the Cows quilt, the blue house roof, from Let Your Star Shine, and scraps from forever ago, like the 'garden' the red house sits on, smocked dresses for my girls in the early 90s, the neutral block house front is lining of a patchwork light jacket from the early 2000s, and one of the star points in that block a scrap from the second quilt I made. This is why I love scrap quilts best: the memories, sensations, life goings-on, visuals that pop into my brain when I see a fabric are vast and plentiful and..well. pungent comes to mind because they are just so real, more than just smell and taste.

I am up to date with Wayward Transparency QAL.
Lotsa love on Instagram for this photo. I know I sure am pleased with the pinks! Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to go for them. Wish me luck as the lightest pink is a little iffy, yardage-wise, so I might be creatively cutting... that, or creatively cussing if things go awry! This is the chance one takes when using fabrics from one's stash and leftovers.

Moving along the Colour Wheel to pink's mama, red, I am just ecstatic that I completed the last three blocks in the 150 Canadian Women QAL!
148 - Ada Jane McCallum: now this lady was one smart and colourful Madam! She ran 51 Hollis Street in Halifax, and ran it fairly, looking after her girls; in her 60s she moved to Dartmouth and ran a call girl service; 149 - Beverley Busson: a part of Troop 17, Canada's first women RCMP officers; she also got her law degree, and was Canada's first woman Commander of the Order of Merit of Police Forces, an also was named one of Canada's Most Powerful Women; 150 - Mom: Kat made this last block in honour of all moms/mums in Canada, that it's a choice, not an obligation, and wrote a great paragraph of her thoughts on motherhood. I adapted her heart block (had to finagle a bit, because I only had a 5" square of the flag fabric) to show that I love Canada with all my heart, and am, like my dad, a proud Canadian.

Monday was such a nice day, perfect light in the late afternoon for photographing these and the pink house block. Those are fallen leaves from our Norway Maple, such a brilliant yellow, a ton of them now on the ground thanks to all-day thunderstorms (hindered my sewing big time, grrr), pounding rain and crazy wind of Sunday. I wanted to point out that in block 149, the top right, I worked in a bit of my hoarded Canada 150 fabric, a piece I love that has interesting Q&A about Canada. It says 'RCMP officer'. 😊 The opposite large square is actual old newspaper headlines fabric and this one, from the Ottawa (Canada's capital) Citizen talks about the inauguration of Alberta, my home province, into the then Dominion of Canada in 1905 where "the Mounted Police displayed a splendid exhibition drill". Two à propos fabrics, n'est-ce pas?

My second RSC2017 project is the Migrating Geese, which is going to be the one I quilt up for Q4 FAL. I hung up the strips on my design wall uh, ceiling tiles/air space, ha. Then I hung them a little different way, and then again...well I seem to have four possible layouts. Which do you like? Tell me in the comments below please! I was leaning heavily to C, but now I'm thinking maybe D...
Clockwise from top left, A: all geese going the same way (could be down, too); B: alternating strips north and south; C:  first half flying north, second half flying south; D: alternating as in B, but also alternates warm and cool colours, which are still in ROYGBIV order.

Coming full circle, here is my pink begonia, taken Monday, Nov. 6, a little less full thanks to falling over in a bad wind a couple of weeks ago, but thriving still, nonetheless:


I do think its days, and that of the verbena sitting in the willow chair above it, as well as that of the impatiens in the front garden, are limited, seeing as the weather is going to take a turn for the worse, with overnights going below 30F/ -1C beginning mid-week. All things said and done, I adore Fall more each year we have moved back here.
Sunday morning, the road into our 'hood, before the storms hit. Ah, the colours--!! From greens to golds to oranges, to deep reds, a feast for the eyes.

This is the 6th Fall back here now, like how can it be 6 years since I was in the throws of getting into report cards gear at about this time, chasing down unruly teenagers who owed me assignments, agonizing over those going away on vacation right when it was a major test...

and
I'm
BACK to my reality today, which I love! Big breath! Yep, loved teaching, LOVED it, but it is good to be going in other directions... Funny, I realized this morning as I was doing the math for, and planning the execution of another pattern that will be coming out in another Modern By the Yard e-zine (insert ear to ear grin) that I still am teaching, as in yoga, but also as in sharing learning and teaching techniques, by writing patterns. Now to get my butt anchored back in my chair to learn more on EQ.  A little progress has been made in that direction, I am happy to report!

Linking up
Cooking Up Quilts
Freemotion by the River
soscrappy

27 comments:

  1. D - It's got that wonderful negative space, those quadrilaterals, that I find comforting. I love that the negative space connects each line on both sides so that the "geese" can be friends with those on either side. I LOVE that you've put the complementary colors together rather than the ROYGBIV so that they eye is free to start at any corner or side and travel around the whole.
    D

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  2. Me again! The photo of the block deceived me! I saw it and thought, "Oh, a house quilt! Clever, I love it!" then scrolled on down to find out it was just a little thing, a block, one of many! I love how perfectly alike and how completely different each one is. You know... this one is going to be right up there on my favorite list with the cows and the yellow/orange one and your mom's 70th one.

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  3. Oh just love those houses and stars. That's going to be some quilt. My vote goes to D, geese look wonderful too. Hope its a productive home coming.

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  4. Good Morning Sandra,
    I love, love, LOVE that pink block. You had me just from the picture with stars and a house, but then your description sealed the deal. And the migrating geese!!! Those strips look SO darn cool. You cannot make me vote on this Election Day - I love ALL the choices. Geez, I can't imagine how you're going to choose. Go with the one that speaks to you the loudest. ~smile~ Roseanne

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  5. The house block are adorable. I love flying geese, the top left layout sings to me.

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  6. Definitely D - to my eye, the best combo of movement, balance & contrast. Love the way all the houses blend together but each has its own individual character - just like a friendly neighborhood.

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  7. I love your house blocks, Sandra! Each one has so much personality! I think my favorite part is the different star in each window. The migrating geese are wonderful, too! I don't have an opinion about the layout - like them all!

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  8. I like layout B or D, the alternating rows really speak to me. I hope that you have enough of your light pink fabric for the QAL; let me know if you have any questions!

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  9. Goodness, you have been busy!!
    Yay on finishing all of your Canadian women blocks!! I liked seeing all of your house blocks together ~ that'll be another good one :-) I love star blocks, too. The star in a star is adorable! (I used about 15 3" stars (along with a kazillion other stars and swoon blocks) in my Stars for a Star quilt, and then made a 2" star for the label - it was so cute!!)
    I like B the best for Migrating Geese, although I can't really explain *why* (I see that, so far at least, we aren't helping you at all)

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  10. The D Geese would be my pick. I particularly like the sporadic colour splashes, rather than an orderly progression from left to right. Your quilt house blocks are terrific. Though they are giving me a guilt trip. The "story" ... a few yrs back an LQS did a similar pattern as a BOM where you got your pattern plus one strip of fabric per month. Turned out they didn't have it planned ahead and fought with the pattern to create the side wall blocks each month. At the end, they gave us the final two strips, and said ... make your own. Oh great! It got set aside and once in a while I remember it!

    Congratulations on completing your Canadian Women blocks! I missed the start of them and should have jumped on the band wagon later. Maybe it will come out in a book?

    Glad you are home, even though you are suffering withdrawals ......

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  11. I like D, your little house, and the flowers. This morning we have massive squally rain, the spouting is overflowing, gale winds right now, just as forecast ( YES, they got it so right) and I am guessing the tree fellers will have a day off.

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  12. Beautiful post. Loved seeing all the houses laid out in a brilliant rainbow of color. Looking at scraps that have been saved for years and remembering the lovelies made from the original piece is a pleasure. Your migrating geese rows are so nice. I mixed all my colors and when I went to put the rows together, I tried to alternated the direction of the geese rows. I had trouble lining up my rows and ended up unsewing a couple of rows and had them all flying the same direction. I also found the value in following the instructions to mark each block before sewing them together into rows to be absolutely the best idea!! It really helped so much. Look forward to your finish and reading about how easy things go together for you.

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  13. The house star blocks are shining stars themselves. I have some cracked ice scrap pieces in different colours. My choice is 4, it yelled pick me.

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  14. You are doing so well with the RSC17! Love the houses and the geese - you've done a much better job using your scraps for this project than I have. I gave up sometime in April!

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  15. Where to start? There's so much quilty goodness in this post Sandra. Your house blocks all together are just bee-oo-tiful. Congrats on finishing the 150 Canadian Women blocks. I never got started, and eventually stopped collecting the patterns too, because I had to be honest with myself and acknowledge I probably would not find time. It feels like I am drowning in project possibilities. Your migrating geese are fabulous. I rather like B but any of these settings will make a stunning quilt.

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  16. Oh my! So much quilting goodness here! Love the houses with the stars - can't wait to see that one finished. But those migrating geese! Be still my heart.... I love them, they are so gorgeous!

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  17. I'm an orderly gal when it comes to ROYGBIV, so I like C the best. All the geese together in the big flock, heading north in the spring. Then all of them together heading south in the fall. Option D seems like multiple years to me: south, north, south, north, etc. I just can't plan that far in advance, ha!

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  18. lots of pink going on here, love pink. The houses look great, but if it were up to me, which it isn't, I wouldn't add the sashing. I think it looks more modern quilting without it. Still friends?
    My favourite house, is the orange toned.
    You have done brilliant with your migrating geese. We get Canadian geese flying by here, my explaining that to my daughter ended up in my making a whole millennium family quilt!

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  19. The fussy cutting on your blocks are so wonderful. Nice work with the flying geese. Wow!! Time to bundle up and enjoy the autumnal weather and colours. Have fun :)

    -Soma

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  20. I love seeing your rainbow scrap projects together. It makes me want to participate.

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  21. Your house blocks are such fun! I couldn't pick a favorite, they are all very bright and cute. You can't really go wrong with any of those settings for your flying geese, but version C gets my vote.

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  22. i love your house blocks! I've always loved the houses, but haven't done any myself- too many pieces to cut out... guess I'm just lazy! as for your flying geese: I like them in rainbow order, flying north AND south. (I didn't take the time to read all the comments; dont' know what everyone else thought...

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  23. The last arrangement of geese appeals to my sense of balance. What a great RSC project! You've inspired me to do this next year. How long are your rows/columns of geese?

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  24. Your house blocks are just gorgeous. I love that I can see the progression of how you changed the blocks. The blue star is new to me! What is it called? It reminds me of a card trick block. Interesting!

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  25. Your houses are amazing. So bright and colourful. Sorry your visit had to come to an end. But now you can dream about your next visit.

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