Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Pink Projects Popping up Partout!

"partout' is French for everywhere. It worked for my alliterative title, and since I'm deep in another L'Inspecteur Gamache book, it was à propos. 

So, after a few posts on Instagram on Saturday I took the rest of that day and Sunday and almost all of Monday off that social media platform. It was rather wonderful, and I mean to do that more this year. I don't know if it's the menopausal muddle in my melon or what, but I certainly seem prey to being easily sucked for an hour or more into that vortex. I plunged into my pink scraps and strips with abandon. Ahhh! I petted. I played. It was perfect.
What once was a neatly arranged pile of pink, slowly but steadily erupted into this disarray. What first evolved from the strips were these blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project #1.

Are they fun to make! This is another project out of Classic to Contemporary String Quilts by Mary Hogan that I used for The Final Season, my trees quilt. She has you foundation piece the strings blocks, but I just used the 4.5" white squares as my guide for size. Her quilt in the book is arranged as above, but I 'saw' an alternate arrangement, so who knows what I'll end up doing...

I made eight blocks, but I've just realized I may need ten if I do her arrangement as it's an 8x10 block quilt.

The second project is another out of her book. This one will be one of my Hands2Help quilts, a card trick block quilt. So far I've just made a few of the HST sections. I didn't care for the way she did the construction, because you ended up with half of a 6.5" square of 'waste'. This is the year of either using the scraps as immediately as possible, or not even creating them... So I figured I could do the two-at-a-time HST method. So to end up with two 6" finished HSTs, I cut a grey background 7" square, and another out of paper as my guide. I wasn't doing foundation piecing here either. I found a 2.5" strip that would go across the diagonal of the block. When sliced in half along the diagonal, it would be 1.25" strip minus the seams of course. I pieced strings on either side of the 2.5" centre strip.

I got so into it, I nearly forgot to take photos, but here it is nearly trimmed to size. All trimmed, see below.


Layer it next with the 7" background square, RST.
Sew 1/4" either side of the diagonal, and voilà! Two HSTs! Trim to 6.5".
I'm hoping I can figure out a fast way to make the quarter square triangle blocks... 

And what have we here? Well beneath the hearts you see four of the above HST blocks. I will need six in pink.

The pink hearts is yet another new project, another Smooches quilt, this one going to Michele, Brianne's BFF who needs a big quilty hug. Not only is she an essential worker, working in Shoppers Drug Mart, and being at risk all day and evening long, but she's had to look after her husband who had to have major surgery in December. When Brianne was telling me what she's been dealing with, and it's a lot, more than just those two big items, I knew I needed to make her a quilt. It was my OMG for December, but the month was devoted solely to the upcoming publication quilt, and the 'On Point' quilt you see peeking into the corner of the pink photo, so I didn't get it even started. But yay, I have two beautiful perky pink hearts of the twelve needed. This will be the third Smooches quilt I've made, all three given away for important peeps who need a hug and love and support. Those two gorgeous pinks are Island Batik beauties.

So my OMG, in case you missed it in there, is to finish Michele's quilt.

And.
I have started a quilt I've had a hankering to make for a couple of years. When I first started to see and hear of these, I thought, huh? Seriously? And then I started to see them being worked on, completed, month by month, and well, hey, those I've seen completed are just so very cool, certainly fun to look at. I really liked the one Joanne of Canuck Quilter did last year, and filed away her free pattern for future reference one day... Well this is the year. Here is my fabric pull, twelve colours in all:
I'd planned to use all Kona, but I don't have enough of a range, or quantity of some of them. A bunch are left over from Postcard from Sweden. So, the rich beautiful untouched burgundy is a Nancy Crow print from several years ago. There is a Moda Grunge in there, one of the oranges, and a Paintbrush Studio, robin's egg blue.

So far the first four days of January have been Chartreuse for highs, which is 0 to 4C, and Pool for lows, which is -4 to 0. Our temperatures don't fluctuate that much here; since January 1, we've had 3 for the highest high and -2 for our lowest low.

Now, I must give credit where credit is due, and I got the nudge I needed to make this quilt when Casey, Dayna's sister-in-law, who lives in Tennessee, asked me not too long ago when we were chatting back and forth on Instagram if I'd ever seen or made a temperature quilt. Being a high school science teacher, and a nature and tree lover, she thought they were really cool. She's the one I sent Postcard from Sweden to. You see, she loves quilts, and she especially loved that quilt and followed its progress all the way.  She actually decorated her daughter's room around the quilt (!), which I may have already mentioned on the blog. Well, in with the photo collage Christmas card she sent us this year were some photos, taken that same day, and she's given me permission to share...



Aren't those just the BEST? I'm so glad this quilt is so loved and appreciated. I need to make another one of these days, because it just makes me so happy. It's such a great pattern, and made 'with' my friend Helen in Ireland, whose fabric swatches I still have a bit of, some more than others, with her labels on. 😁 The best thanks when you've gifted a quilt is to see/hear the love for it.

Back to another subject of this pink post:
My To Do List from last week was
1. Finish my December challenge quilt for Island Batik.✅
2. Write my Best of 2020 post.✅
3. Write a planning for 2021 post, maybe. I already have a mental list started but I do believe in writing goals and directions down, though I don't always state them publicly, but doing that helps keep one accountable, doesn't it? ✔ (partially done, in my planner, didn't publish it)
4. Write my gratitude post for Thursday.✅
5. Finish at least one more item on my Q4FAL List.✖ 

For this coming week:
1. finish the flimsy for Michele's quilt
2. keep up with the temp quilt
3. figure out the QST RSC block and make two more pink HST blocks
4. work on Let Your Star Shine pattern release
5. finish the black scraps box (on my Q4FAL list, so it would fulfill last week's goal!)
6. make my Project Quilting 12.1 yellow and grey quilty item


20 comments:

  1. I'm on the fence about making a temperature quilt. I guess I have a week to think about it before I'd be too far behind. I love Inspector Gamache also!! I eagerly await each new book. Enjoy the read.

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  2. I'm inspired by your blocks to get a Mary Hogan book and start blocks for a RSC quilt! Thank you for sharing the fantastic quilts you make.

    By the way, I grew up in Buffalo near Lake Erie in the 60s and it was not as pretty back then. I enjoy seeing how beautiful it is now.

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  3. Those strippy pink bow tie blocks are clever, and such a gorgeous little poppet on her quilt!

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  4. Pink IS popping up everywhere! What a fun post! Your string HSTs are great! What a cutie, also in pink, on her special quilt! ❤️

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  5. Hi Sandra! I'm so pleased with your post . . . and had to dig deep to find a few p's there. Pinterest and Instagram are both time suckers - big time! You think, I'll just see if I can find something on Pinterest and then four hours later you have forgotten what you went to look for. Those Postcard photos are FABULOUS. I was thinking about playing about with Project Quilting - I just didn't expect it to start this week. Egad. {{Hugs}} Thanks for linking up today. ~smile~ Roseanne

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  6. I am soooo excited to see this quilt!!!!! 🤗

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  7. You are one busy quilter! Love what I am seeing with the pinks and the temperature quilt. Our bee almost did one as a challenge last year...but the show was cancelled so we dropped our challenge. I love seeing all the fun you have cropping up in the studio. I may delve into the yellow - silver challenge. I have a piece of fabric that may work...now whether inspo hits or not is the question!

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  8. Good luck! I've decided not to make a temperature quilt this year...considering I haven't finished 2019 or 2020. LOL

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  9. You sure have a lot of pink going on here, however they look really good. I have made a few green HSTs like your pink ones. Good luck with the temperature quilt.

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  10. You are always percolating pretty projects, and it's fun to read your posts. I'll be watching your temperature quilt progress. That one interests me as well, but for now I'll watch you and cheer you on!

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  11. I've decided to do the RSC21 challenge and I should be making my grey and yellow quilt for Project Quilting 12.1 but I'm reading emails and blogs instead :-) Love pink and love your blocks for RSC21. I'm trying to make Drunkard's paths but struggling. I love the Postcard from Sweden quilt and will make it one day, hopefully. The little girl in pink on the quilt is just gorgeous. I've seen the temperature quilts but so far I'm not tempted - I think it would be depressing here in Scotland -or maybe it would show me that the temperature just warm up occasionally. (Two c's one s or one c two s's? Doesn't look right to me.)

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  12. Ooh, your pink string blocks look positively delicious! I just added that book to my Amazon Wish List after seeing your project. Good luck with your finishing goal for January and have fun with your Temperature quilt! I am proud of you for finding alternatives in your stash. I, on the other hand, am a weak-willed quilter who would have ordered more Kona (like I just did a few days ago when I realized I'd miscalculated how much Kona Ocean I needed for my Retro Building Blocks sampler). If I won the lottery, I'd open my own LQS that stocked EVERY SINGLE COLOR of Kona Solids, Bella Solids, and all of the rest of my favorites. I wouldn't even care if I didn't have any customers; just having a whole bolt of every color under the sun to choose from is the fantasy! ;-)

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  13. Love those pinks and how you are sewing them

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  14. I can see it didn't take you long to find something to do in the time freed up from IB projects. Ha. Interesting design for the temperature quilt. I've not made one (since we're usually gone so long in mid-winter), but even with the time this year, I don't think I want another big quilt to deal with. Maybe I'll make some pink string blocks this afternoon.
    Pat

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  15. Sandra, you shared so much great eye candy in this post. I love the "Postcard" quilt photos the most (and that quilt!). The temperature quilt pattern is terrific; I've also been intrigued by them and downloaded the pattern. I'm not sure if it's a project for 2021 yet. I'm also deep into Inspector Gamache (my second time through the series) and swap back and forth between the paper and audio versions. My husband and I are binge reading more and binge watching less. :-)

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  16. Oh my, you are ever so organised and I'm floundering already this year & it's only day 7.......must make some lists. Pink is popping up everywhere & it's my favourite colour. Ah, whats a quilter to do, but go and get that fabric to finish Stars Aligned today. Best get to it, make some lists & get organised. Take care, stay safe & huggles.

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  17. What a wonderful post. Full of color with all that pink. Great to see the Postcard quilt in use by such a pretty little girl. Saw a temperature quilt a few years ago and thought it was interesting. The maker lived in the middle of California where it is hot all summer, day and night. I think I could have a wider range of high and low colors here in No. Nevada (high desert). Lows have been in the teens and twenties and highs in 30-50 degree range. Even summer usually has at least a 30 degree difference in high and low temps. While I don't do a lot on pinterest of Instagram just surfing for ideas is a time eater/waster. Looking forward to all your fun posts.

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  18. Oh Sandra you have been so busy. What fun projects you’ve been working on. Looking forward to seeing what you create for Project Quilting 😉

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  19. I love ALL your strings! and the love being shown with the little girl just makes my heart sing. Absolutely makes you want to keep making, doesn't it?? Great post!

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  20. Love all your pink projects! I've been wanting to make a temperature quilt for a while but haven't actually started one. How great to see photos with your quilts in them--the best compliment for a quilter!! Love seeing your quilt being used!

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