SAHRR Round 6 Letters and Numbers

And just like that, another Stay at Home Round Robin is done. This was my second time participating, and once again, I really enjoyed the work for my math and creative brain, and really enjoyed where the quilt ended up, as much a surprise for me as those watching!

Many thanks to Gail of QuiltingGail for dreaming this up and being the main host. 

SAHRR Round 5 “Four”

This round’s directive was given to us by Gail at QuiltingGail. She said the theme this week is ‘4’. We could do whatever we want but it has to have an element of four in it. I decided to make 4-patches, and my first plan was to put them in the four corners. Here is how my quilt ended up:

Read on to find out how it got there.

Project Quilting 15.4 Hourglass

I had told myself to make a little less involved of a project this round of Project Quilting at Persimon Dreams. When I saw the final graphic that Trish had posted, the idea to make a placemat, and thus have a rectangular based hourglass was born.

I have tons of green and tons of blue strips so I at first figured I’d do the side triangles in blue strips. It didn’t take long to realize that that would be a whole lot of seams regardless of whether they met or not, and on the bias. Not such a great plan. A little thinking ensued.

SAHRR Round 4 Square in a Square

I had intended to add more fish in a subsequent round, and this round was perfect for it! Brenda of Songbird Designs is this week’s host who gave us the directive: add Square in a Square blocks in this round. 

Along with the fish which are the SiaS block, I made three more plain SiaS blocks, pulling in two fabrics from previous rounds as well as introducing the bubbles shimmery water-like fabric.

Special Makeup Bags

It seems I am constantly making makeup bags, but I do love making them so it’s never a problem. I have two to show you today, one which has been half done for a couple of months, just waiting for me to finish it up, and the other was a DrEAMi (Drop Everything And Make it!)

You may recognize the fabrics in the one on the left; they are the same ones I used to make my big tote bag for Project Quilting 15.3 this past week. 

SAHRR Round 3 Triangles

I made my first paper-pieced fish on Tuesday but didn’t get a chance to get back to my Stay At Home Round Robin until Saturday because I was working on my Project Quilting 15.3 challenge. So here is round 3, Triangles.

This is an inside shot because the outside shot I took was minutes after the sun had dipped behind the neighbour’s house across the street, so it’s very blue. This one is excellent for showing the true colours.

Project Quilting 15.3 Inside Out

For this third challenge we were to create something that thematically or literally shows the aspect of being inside out. I think of expressions like Wear your heart on your sleeve, or My eyeballs fell out of their sockets. You could have exposed seams, which made me think of the old jeans and flannel-backed quilt I made years ago with raggedy edges from sewing the layers wrong sides together. A bag would work, Trish said, because it gets sewn with right sides together and then, as she said, 'birthed', pulling the outside of the bag through the inside-out lining. That bag idea was it, and I knew right away what one I would make. After last challenge's challenges (ha) and missing the deadline by a few hours, this one was going to be Simple Simon, no getting all fancy.

As soon as I read the directive for this challenge, I knew I would make my Positive Flow bag pattern. I sold the one remaining in my shop a little while ago, so with the intention of making one to replace it, I was off. Well, as much as one can be off with a dog recovering from ACL surgery and tag-teaming with one’s husband so that one of us is with her 24/7.

This ensures her safety and keeping her as quiet and immobile as possible for the first 3-4 weeks. Still, I got it done on Friday in time for an outside photo or two in the (are you sitting down?) sunshine!

Hashtag Naptime

In August I participated in Cheryl Brickey‘s book release blog hop for Just Two Charm Packs Quilts. I made a baby quilt size version of her design Diamond Hashtag, which you can read about here. I had the behemoth 150 Canadian Women quilt on the frame at that time, so it did not get it quilted and it has sat waiting patiently ever since.

I may have a lot of WIPs and USOs, but one thing I am pretty good at is keeping on top of finished tops getting quilted. This is the last of the two tops from last year.

SAHRR Rounds 1 and 2

Although I had formed an idea of what I would do with Round 1, Signature Block, prompt, I never did get to do it what with spending a lot of time on the Project Quilting challenge that week and with the stress of Xena's torn ACL. So this week I made sure to get that round done as well as Round 2, which threw me a bit I must say. Anja of anjaquilts gave us a pretty much wide open prompt : use just two colours and do whatever you want. Sometimes those wide-open directives can be problematic for people like me who are rule followers. I've always loved challenges where your creativity gets stretched, and both PQ and SAHRR are wonderful activities that do just that.

Here is what I did with Round 1.

It's interesting how my brain works on these prompts in the background of my mind. I honestly do not remember exactly what/where/how I came up with this idea, but one signature block it is, bubble-type fabric in turquoise on either side, with bubbles coming up from the swimming fishies.