Rainbow Neighbourhood Quilt Along - House Block 4

Welcome to week 4 of the Quilt Along!

It looks like everyone is finding the house blocks pretty quick to put together and having fun with all the choices to personalize them. Be sure to check out the hashtag pool #RainbowNeighborhoodQAL as well as #RainbowNeighborhoodQuilt to see everyone’s progress. Be sure to use those hashtags when you post your blocks on Instagram and tag me @mmmquilts. 

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL - House Block 3

Hello, and welcome to week 3 of the Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL. First things first: I have a little surprise for you: last week I invited everyone to link up their first house block, and eight people did. I know there are more people quilting along, and I'm hoping that those who have bought the pattern (five this past week!) will join in too. Well, I recently won 50 fat quarters from The Fabric Nook, and so I am sending one off to Kathleen in Maine! More sharing to come!

All right, let's talk about making a third house.

Purple Projects Post

Purple is the colour for April in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with Angela at soscrappy. I got my three projects caught up on Thursday and Friday this week.

My first project, and I was only going to do one (best laid plans) is the one from a Quick Quilts magazine. I'm making three blocks in the colour of the month, four for a few months to total 30 blocks for a five by six layout.

I think two of the biggest reasons I love making scrap quilts is for all for the memories the pieces evoke as well as the depth you get with the variety of shades and tones and textures. Within these three blocks I see two QALs: my first, Freefall, and Follow Your Own Path, a Mariner's Compass quilt I made for Dayna, two quilts I designed for a couple of blog hops for Benartex, my time as an Island Batik ambassador, a quilt I made for my mum's 80th...and that doesn't include the history of the black fabrics!

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL: House Block #2

It's almost like Christmas morning the day this post goes live and I start to see the house blocks being linked up. I'm thrilled by those I've seen so far on Instagram and blogs. It is such a thrill when I turn a design I sketched out on graph paper into real live fabric, but when I see others make my design, it is even more of a thrill. As I noted last week, the pattern has virtually endless possibilities for making it your own unique quilt, and already I've seen 'outside the box/block' thinking! Andrée added a sidewalk to her first block, breaking up the lawn, and Rose has decided to not do various stars on all of her houses...but you may have to wait for a bit to see what she's been up to, that rebel.

Kool Kats Kwilt Finish

It feels so good to have the quilt done, packaged up and on its way to Indiana. It feels even better knowing how excited my customer is to receive it!

You can read how the commission came about here. I dodged rain and wind (the horrible storm that came up from Texas and ransacked eastern Ontario and east into Quebec was just lots of rain and high winds down here. We had our terrible ice storm at the end of February, very very scary when the weight of the ice fells ancient, metre-thick branches and crushes cars.

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL Official Kick-Off!

And....(drum roll)....welcome!!🎉🎉🎉 to my seventh, yes seventh(!) annual Quilt Along here at mmmquilts. Thank you so much for being here and for those of you participating, a huge virtual hug of gratitude for your time and enthusiasm. As per usual, the QAL starts on a special day, April 3, with the flimsy due on another even more auspicious day, June 15. What's with these special days, you may ask yourself? You've never heard of them? Well, long-time participants well know, and probably mark their calendars as my dad did, for the June 15 date for sure. However, if you are new, allow me to explain before I give you your homework for the week!

Kool Kats Quilt and RSC Update

A few weeks ago I had a message through my Etsy shop telling me she was interested in the cats quilt I had for sale but would I be able to make a throw, and in softer colours? We chatted back and forth, and I got the go-ahead for this commission. I was such fun to paw through (see what I did there) my bountiful collection of fabrics to give her lots (in retrospect, too many, but I wanted her to be completely happy) of choices for her cats. She was pretty specific in her colours and motifs, and probably as strong and vocally so in her intense dislike of anything remotely teal or turquoise, as my mother was with blue. I am happy to share the finished top!