Hey June, September's Almost Over!! --- Pt 1

Reiterating my last post:  What a summer!  There has been enough and not enough going on that blog neglect was an understandable consequence.  One thing that happened over the last three months was that I stalled on so many projects.  In some cases it was due to circumstances beyond my control, in others I just got creatively stuck! 

The title of the post refers to a project in that second category.  Back in June I had mentioned I was planning to participate in Gudrun Erla's latest GE Designs Quilt Along called "Hey June!".  There had been a fabric line at a discount supplier that I had liked when I picked up a piece of it back in January for the outer borders of my "Tobacco Road" top.  

Olive outer border fabric is from the "Chrysanthemum" line by Maywood Fabrics

I held off buying more of the line at that time because I didn't have a purpose for it so couldn't decide which prints and how much of each to buy.  When the QAL was announced, I now had a excuse mission to buy!  I scooped up a bunch of the prints from the line, a fat quarter bundle that had a cream print (seen as a strip here) that was not available in yardage, three more coordinating fabrics (on the right) and purchased two additional coordinates from Joann's to round out the project stash (on top).  

My MIL also was excited to participate in the QAL having previously done Gudrun's "Elvira" last year as I had.  She also put together a stash and ultimately did better than me in getting her blocks done.   Unfortunately, I only got as far as making twelve blocks before my enthusiasm waned.  I believe that was mostly because I started worrying about "filling the layout" as I made the blocks rather than just making the number of blocks needed and seeing what came of it when I was ready to lay them out.  Considering that due to purchase minimums, I had purchased far more fabric than I needed for the project, I don't know why I was so concerned with making only the number of blocks I thought I needed.  I had plenty of fabric to make more if I felt constructing additional blocks would fill a particular spot in the final layout better.  

However, I didn't come to that realization until after I saw some of the early reveals in one of Gudrun's Tipsy Tuesday videos.  Then in early August, my DH and I were finally able to make the visit to my MIL that had been aborted back in June due to car troubles.  I had brought along my block parts in the hopes that I would be further inspired by her finished blocks to continue working on my own.  Well the first quilty thing we discussed upon our arrival was that she hated her blocks and the initial layout she had put together!!   

Part of the problem is my MIL has not totally come around to the scrappy side of quilting yet so struggles when it comes to making scrappy blocks and then putting them into a layout.  She prefers a look that will feel balanced to her eye.  Fortunately, Gudrun gives five different layouts for the blocks in the pattern.  We tried three of them before finding one that allowed for a more balanced but still scrappy look with the blocks she had made at which point she was happy.  

Same blocks in two different layouts (# 2 and #3) 

This just reiterated for me that the solution to my dilemma with my own blocks was that I needed to just put my head down and make the darn blocks and worry about how they will look in the layout later!  However, between the activities we engaged in while there (another jaunt to Pineapple Fabrics, attending her church's anniversary and her quilt guild meeting) and work on two other projects I brought along, I never got back to work on my "Hey June!" blocks until almost a month after we returned by which time it was September.  I made a lot of progress on them and had hoped to finish them all at that time.  

However, DH and I had also made plans to attend the big RV show in Pennsylvania in mid September.  Unfortunately, we found out that the manufacturer of the rig we are most interested in was not going to be at the show.  Since we had planned to go camping (the first time in ten years!!) as part of our trip to the show, we decided to keep the camping part of the trip anyway.  By the time we left, I had 40 of the 48 total blocks I needed done.  I had hoped to finish the rest up when we got back but that didn't happen because of other things going on.  No sweat though, making up the remaining blocks and finishing the top are now another entry on my initial WIPS-B-GONE challenge list!

Another project that diverted my attention when we had visited my MIL, was continuing work on my daily "Wishing Rings" blocks.  I had started these back in March inspired by Cathy's quilt over at her Sane, Crazy and Crumby blog.  A true scrap project with blocks small enough to make use of small pieces, I had planned for this to be a year long project and had happily worked on them up to the time we had originally planned to head down to my MIL's in June.  Just before then, she mentioned that she had a "mess 'o scraps" that she was getting ready to toss out to make space in her sewing room.  Nooooo!  I told her to please, please, please box them up and hold them for me in her garage until we came down.  I saw this as a great opportunity to mine someone else's scraps for more pieces for my blocks!  She agreed to do so, however since we wound up not traveling to her until August, I only made blocks out of my own scraps up through the last five days in June.  At that point, I began to struggle with finding interesting and adequate scrap combinations in my own scrap stash.  When we finally got down there in August, I was presented with two boxes like this:

Scrap manna from heaven!  So when I was not helping her with her projects, I spent the rest of my days digging through the boxes, pairing up fabrics, cutting (and sometimes die cutting) the pieces for block sets and sewing them up.  By the time we left, I was down to one box to bring back home with me, had made the rest of the blocks I needed for June, all of the blocks for July and had blocks sets prepared for sewing for the first two weeks of August. 

As I cut the blocks sets, any fabric remaining from what was chosen were trimmed (if needed) and sorted into baggies:  extra strips and squares sorted by size, strings, triangles, orphan blocks and larger (but less than a fat quarter) fabric cuts.

Once back home, I sewed up the August block sets that were already prepared and planned to go back into the remaining box of scraps for the rest of the sets needed for the month.  Then I came across a gallon size baggie of scraps that I had brought home from her when I had visited her back in December 2020!  So I took the time to process those first which provided the block sets for the rest of August and the first week of September.  I also made one block from some scraps left over from a small bowl mat I made before we left and which I teamed with some of the "Hey June!" sashing fabric.

But wait, there's more!  Hopefully I'll post about it all in the coming days.