Finally Up to Date on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2021

Warning:  Because I'm just catching up, this IS a long one.....

So glad to finally have caught up on participating in this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I've watched the fun for years and love all the wonderful projects that come out of it.  Angela's finished Rainbow Dear Jane top is Super Awesome!!

This year I had a special incentive to join in the fun.  I had visited my MIL at the end of last year and helped her organize all of her craft room supplies, including sorting all of her scrap bins by color.  I figured that to encourage her to actually dive into those bins, we could both do the RSC this year.  We were both busy with projects at the start of the year so it took us until last month to finalize what design we were going to use and to get started on our first blocks.  

For our joint RSC project, we're making Quilt In A Day's Milky Way design.  We're making the blocks larger than the pattern though -- we're doing the blocks 12 inches finished so the unfinished block units are all 4-1/2 inches.  That means the Triangle Squares can start from Charm Squares and the corner Four Patch blocks can be cut from 2-1/2 inch strips which are sizes my MIL favors.  This is what I have so far:

Right now, I'm only making block kits because I will need to make a decision about which gray fabric to use for the corner-square Four Patch blocks.  I have two fabrics that I think I have enough of to make all the four patches but right now I am not sure which I prefer.  I also have a bunch of gray fabrics and wonder if I'd prefer to make the four patches scrappy.  No rush to decide, I have all year!

ADD Quilter that I am, I am doing just a few 😉 more projects in addition to the joint one so it took me even longer to get them all set up!  I only had finished half of last month's yellow set at the start of this month so it has taken me this long to bring everything up to date.  

My other projects in this year's RSC queue are: 

Rainbow Log Cabin Hearts

This was actually the first project I had picked for my MIL and I to do for the joint project.  My MIL had said she was interested in doing Log Cabin blocks but then didn't want to do it as a heart motif.  

I'm using the Neverland Stitches block tutorial. When Lisa had originally posted the tutorial, it had a picture on it of Lynda's quilt made with this block (Lynda also used it to make tote bags!).  When I saw that approximately twelve blocks would make a nice sized lap quilt, I decided to keep this one for my personal RSC project list.  

       Bea Lee's Scrappy Hexagons

Another project I'm doing is the Scrappy Hexagon quilt designed by Bea Lee which appeared in McCall's Quilting magazine back in 2015.  

I follow Bea's blog because she does a lot of projects with Accuquilt dies.  This one not only appealed to me because of the scrappy nature but because it is a hexie project and uses dies that I have.  I had purchased the 4-1/4" finished hexie die to make a quilt called "Nature's Harmony" which was also in McCall's Quilting (and I finally found some fabrics I liked for that one last year).  So I loved the chance to put the die to work for another project. The white centers for them are also die cut. 

This one really makes you think about the colors you are using.  When sorting through the scraps, I realized that I had different pinks and different greens so made up more than one block of each of those.  I have scraps pulled to make another pink one where the pinks are in the "Salmon" range.  I think this one may be a two year RSC since the blocks take a while to piece up.  Good for leader/enders though!

Technicolor Rainbow Runner

Another "kitting" project that should also be quick to make up when the time comes to put it together!  It is the cover quilt from Benartex Fabrics free quarterly online magazine  "Modern By the Yard" Issue #4 .  Once I had decided to do RSC, any Rainbow quilt project was a draw, LOL!  I only make runners to fit my sideboard and so will only need twelve (there's that number again!) color squares to make the elongated snowball blocks for a runner that fits my sideboard.  I'm throwing in extras now so that when I'm ready to make this up, I can choose what works best with what.

   

Twisted Ribbons

Another one that's being "kitted up" as I go is this one from a 2003 book called "Fun With Nine Patch and Snowball Quilts".   The fact that it called for twelve columns of color meant it was a perfect pick for RSC!   For each month's color I am bagging up color squares for the nine patches and color HST triangles for the Snowball block corners.  I only need two pieced triangle squares using the month's color and a neutral and eight double color triangle squares so am piecing those as I go.   I did cut a bunch of neutral squares and HST triangles in advance but will use my Accuquilt Snowball block die  to cut those centers out of scrappy neutrals when I'm ready to lay out the quilt on the design wall.   I probably won't make this one up until I have all the colors collected so this will probably be a 2022 finish. 

  

Accuquilt Go! Rainbow Log Cabin

And last but not least is this pattern which comes with Accuquilt's Log Cabin die (although if you have an Accuquilt account, you can get the free pattern separately too).  I love this die, having used it for blocks and pieced borders.  Now RSC just gave me a good excuse to make up this pattern too (anything Rainbow)!   

The value of this die is that you can cut all the strips for a block in one swoop.  I had realized that this quilt pattern uses sixteen blocks but that each color gets used just once in a block.  I knew if I cut all the fabrics from each RSC monthly fabric color, I'd have more than enough for all the blocks.  Whatever is leftover can go into the Log Cabin Strips Storage Box for use in future quilts.

I waited until a few months of colors had come out so I could choose which fabrics I liked together best.  One pass through the cutter (and all three layers at once) and this die makes cutting all of those varying size 1-1/2 inch strips easy peasy!

I already have some neutral strips in the storage box but may run a few lengths of those fabrics though the die cutter with next month's color just to build up additional stash.  This is another one that probably won't actually get made up until 2022.    

And speaking of 2022:  Don't think I'm not already planning for that......

 So many projects, so little time!

Linking up with all the Rainbow Scrap Quilters this week at Angela's So Scrappy blog.