Rainbow Scrap Challenge Blocks

(Day 7 of my blogpost a day August challenge)

When I've had a spare moment or bit of inspiration I've been trying to catch up on my Split 9-patch blocks for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. (This is hosted by Angela over at soscrappy.)

Since I've mastered the web-piecing technique, I find these a lot of fun to sew up!

I enjoy rummaging through my scraps looking for the right coloured fabrics - it generally turns into another session of scrap taming and sorting and that is not a bad thing! Of course, once I sew them up I immediately think - oh that scrap doesn't belong....but such is the nature of scrap blocks/quilts.

April's colour was pink —

May was orange —

Pastel was the colour for June - I've missed this one out for now as I didn't really know what to do. When I decide which colour is needed later on, I'll sew it up then.

Aqua for July —

Yellow is August's colour which I haven't started on yet.

Taking scrappy sewing to the extreme, I'm not adverse to joining a couple of scraps to make a 2 ½" square - if that is all I have of a particularly cute fabric - but this one took the cake......I had joined two pieces to get the right size - but then mis-cut it when I went to trim it down. Not to be outdone, I decided to sew it up again and keep it as a wee memory of my stupidness!

Here's the family photo showing them all together —

'til next time.

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Sewing at Scrub Stitching

Since I've been home, there's not been a lot of sewing done.

After the first few weeks I had - 

A. Sewn a side seam for my DIL which was damaged by label removal

B. Sewn an air filter for a motorbike for the MOML

C. Re-hemmed some jeans for ED.

Better to focus on the sewing I achieved at Scrub Stitching - 

I took two 'new' projects to work on....totally allowable in my eyes as they were both scrappy ones, cut/prepared from scraps and stash.

As well as making the pouches shown in my previous post, I made good starts on the two projects - 

The first was a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt. I did spend some time prior to Scrub Stitching cutting the strips for this and sorting them into piles. Once at SS and sewing, I just had to hope that I'd made the right decisions and that I was heading in the right direction with the prep work.

Hopefully once I've sewn them altogether and rearranged them, this quilt will make sense!

Nicely organised baggies. I impressed myself with my organisation prior to SS —

I also wanted to make a start on another impulse project. I started with a vague plan and a whole lot of strips thrown in a bag. I sewed until I decided I needed more space to lay this out and think. 

What is fun about this is the random sized strips that are used for the log cabin. When I have decided on a size for each quarter block I will just trim them all to the same size. 

I have a lot of strips hanging around which I've been saving for a 'rainy day' and this was a great way to start using them.

Looking at it now, I think I'll sew a couple more dark rounds and then decide on a size. 

I'm calling this Starry Log Cabin for now (haha original name!).

It was nice to have a couple of fancy new pouches to bring my projects home in.

I really had the urge to sew the other day so spent some happy time just sewing my current leader-ender project, 4-patch fun.. It's nice to sew up a bunch and then spend some more happy time rummaging for more reds to cut up!

Can you spy who is in the photo below, who was entertaining me while I took my photos this morning?

Yes, baby Olive (and her family) are here!! They were here when I arrived home from Australia so it's no wonder I haven't got a lot of extra stuff done!!

It's been wonderful to spend the time with them —

Yesterday she carried on the family tradition and helped Ganma feed the chooks —

Okay, time to go,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

My Claytons SAHRR 2025

Here in New Zealand (and Australia too, I think) there used to be an advert for a drink called Claytons with the byline, the drink you have when you're not having a drink. The word Claytons rapidly became part of every day language to mean something you're doing when you're not really doing it.....or similar renditions. 

I feel like some of my projects are Claytons projects.....I'm doing a quiltalong but at my own rate, or a challenge but I don't join up with the link parties, or make my own rules for a sewalong. I pretend I'm taking part,  but aren't really!

The other instance is that I start a new project,  but it isn't really a new project because it uses scraps, stash, or orphan blocks.

(OH the things we tell ourselves!)

I've realised that I love the inspiration,  I love to be making something......hmmmm starting something new is always nice.....I love visiting blogs and seeing how different people are interpreting the theme, but I feel bad when I don't join in physically,  comment, link up, or have breaks to the routine......this has happened a lot over the last couple of years and so I've developed this thing of sitting on the sideline, participating but not quite participating in a Claytons sort of way.

Which brings me to last year's SAHRR (January 2025). The annual Stay At Home Round Robin, hosted by Gail at quiltinggail. You stay at home and your work stays at home; as opposed to many Round Robins where the quilt (often) travels from maker to maker for each new round.

Gail and her team post regular prompts for each round. 

So in my Claytons way, I joined in.

I started with an orphan block. You may remember that in the past, I test sewed patterns for Juliet of Tartankiwi designs. This block is part of her Singing In The Rain  collection and I sewed it back in July 2023. I always wanted to come back and sew all the Dancing in the Rain girls and the cloud, but never did.

I decided that this was an ideal time to use it.

The first round's instruction was to make a King's Crown block OR a block that begins with our initial. 

To be honest I can't remember the exact logic behind my choice, and my notes are back home where I'm not right now.....I will come back and update the details at some stage.....I'm sure it was something to do with Royal (my initial) which I thought quite cleverly tied in with the King's Crown idea too. And I think I elongated it to form the frame -

Round Two asked for Half Square Triangles which was nice and straightforward-

The third prompt was Stars. I felt it was the perfect time to bring some of the red liberty fabrics back in. And a pop of colour with the gold.

You can see that I've also decided to do chains heading out to the corners. 

The next instruction was to make a split block. Basically slice a square of fabric, add in a strip of fabric and sew it back together again. I had some ideas for this round but my work hung untouched on the wall for quite some time.

Fast forward to this year and my Claytons participation of the Chookshed Challenge AND a monthly challenge with the Thursday sewing ladies at my work. 

While I was busy sewing my Show and Tell blocks, I leader-ended my simple rectangle split blocks.  

Whoops I forgot to take a photo of the individual blocks but you can sort of see them here-

The narrow gold strip finishes at half an inch.

And joined to the centre-

The photo doesn't show the fabric variation in the border very well and you could say that it would have been a lot simpler to use one long strip of light blue, one of gold and one of the dark blue......but where is the scrappiness fun in that?

I feel like I will probably be tempted to come back and swap out the latest cornerstones for a triple patch,  rather than a 4-patch, but I'll see what happens when the time comes.

Even though this latest round frames the quilt quite nicely,  there are two more rounds to plan. I'd like some more red and gold. 

So this is where I'm at with last year's Stay At Home Round Robin. One day there could even be an update!

Sorry I got a little wordy,

'til next time, 

Happy stitches,

Raewyn

End of January catch up.

I've been able to indulge myself in The Palace (aka the sewing room) this month. There has been the much needed tidy-up which led to lots of opening of and peeking into project boxes, and then rearranging them within the room. 

The biggest change has been installing another cube bookcase under my cutting bench. (Six cubes, on its side.)

I put one in for project boxes sometime last year and it has worked rather well, and after getting fed up with folders and papers everywhere - and all over the cutting bench - I decided to get another identical one for the other side of the bench to tidy up that area of my life.

Sideways bookcase #1 for project boxes—

The Palace also doubles as a Farm Office; the main hub for the farm accounts, animal and farm records, not to mention an ever increasing amount of Fonterra compliance paperwork (even online systems need supporting paperwork!). These all incessantly jostle for space with my sewing and quilting folders and paper stuff.

Of course I didn't measure beforehand and the big ring binders don't fit the cubes....(sigh). Thank goodness I hadn't found a new home for the large cube I'd been using and after a bit more rearranging, a new solution was found!

Sideways bookcase #2—

The start of the year always sees me doing some secret sewing for the shop, as we work towards our 'New Year's Launch' later on in February. 

However, while waiting for some fabric to arrive, I did have a chance for a little more personal sewing, making this quilt top for a soon-to-be-new-baby.

I started with a block from the new pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, Show and Tell.

And grew it a bit, adding to her suggested instructions for a baby sized quilt.

Here are two kiddos showing it off at the shop —

Hehe —

I then discovered the perfect fabric for the final border, and soon it was ready to be presented as a top. My attempts at outdoor photos (in the natural light) did not go well —

So indoors it came!

(Hint there may be more of this pattern sewn for the shop's New Year's Launch).

Apart from the extra fabric for the border, all the rest of the above baby quilt were scraps and bits and pieces - using those always gives me so much pleasure!!

And I've had lots more pleasure sewing more Leader-Ender blocks while tackling my other projects.

Back in October, I shared that I had joined in with Bonnie Hunter's Leader-Ender challenge. This year's block (July-July) is Four-patch fun.

I'm using any shade of red and have amassed 51 blocks to date—

I made a couple of blocks in the same fabric at the start but am now only using each fabric once. 

144 blocks will give me a 72" square quilt, and that is my goal at this stage. 

(I used 80 different reds for Mum's birthday quilt back *here* so let's see how I do this time!)

And yesterday a Squirrel sent me down a Rabbit hole. I have so much on my plate that I was not looking for another project, but I always relish the chance to pull out and play with some scraps (can you see where this is heading?!).

I saw Janice's finished Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt on her blog the other day, and commented that the block she had used was one I'd always admired (or something like that). Of course that little seed planted itself in my brain and sprouted into a baby squirrel!

Hence —

I was quite pleased with myself because I finally mastered the web piecing technique for making this block. I was shown it a few years ago but had not seriously tried it until now. It meant that once I had all my squares laid out the block went together very quickly (and efficiently).

Blue was January's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - I'll probably follow Angela's colour prompts, and make one a month.

I know this is getting photo heavy but I just want to show you my new chickens. I like to get a few every year to keep the supply of eggs going (their laying slows down as they age).

I saw some advertised reasonably local and couldn't resist grabbing them. On my way home I picked up Odie to help me unload them and he was as entranced as I was with them......

They bob their heads around so much that decent photos are hard to get, hence I caught this one for a selfie—

(Yes, I should have waited until he'd finished his snack!)

We call them Dr Suess Chickens but their official breed is Legbar. Apparently sometimes you have to trim the feathers around their eyes so they can see. 

They MAY lay green/blue eggs but we have to wait patiently for a couple of months to find out.

Cute, huh?!

And on that happy note, I will leave you.

'till next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn