Early Dark, a Book, and RSC 2025 Nine-Patch & Snowball Progress

As the evening dark begins descending earlier and earlier it signals to me a time to slow down, stop hurrying, reset priorities, especially where daylight is concerned, and enjoy the slowness of the season.  I love these early and long nights.  They're just what I need and, I suppose, just what the earth needs, too.  I couldn't get this song out of my mind and decided to share.   


I think I've mentioned before that our local library has a little shop where they sell used books and give away magazines and some children's paperback books.  A few weeks ago I picked up this book, The Home Builders.  

I love children's book for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes they just make me laugh--a little surprise at the end, or just-perfect illustrations, or a funny story line.  Other times there's a subtle truth presented so simply that a child can understand and an adult can understand more.  And other times, the illustrations wow me.   

The illustrations are what captured my attention in this book.  I fell in love with the colors the illustrator, Simona Mulazzani, used. But it isn't just the colors, it's also their intensity and tone and how she uses the colors together.  I think they are beautiful and sometimes the combinations are surprising.  I couldn't figure out why they were so appealing.  And then it hit me:  these colors are similar to the ones I use most often in quilts (minus the oranges).

As I've been making blocks for my 2025 RSC quilt, I've been frustrated with how few medium value fabrics I have.  They are mostly darks and lights, with very few mediums.  Some of the blocks look like a muddle.  This may turn out to be a boring quilt.  I'm glad each 9-patch is surrounded by white snowball blocks!

Anyway, it was an interesting observation.  I need to buy a few fabrics with lighter tones and values.

I've been feeling a little scattered lately.... 

  ... what with trying to find the best, yet least expensive, retirement health insurance policies (one of my policies more than doubled its rate from last year to this year!); trying to stay motivated on the sewing/quilting front; and trying to lay out my RSC blocks to consider placement and size.  Kitty Bitsy thinks those blocks on the floor are a free ride.  She jumps onto one in a way that lets her slide across part of the floor like it's a skating rink and the blocks go flying.  She makes quick work of my efforts.
 
They were arranged as I thought I wanted them but I need to make several more edge blocks and cut some more for around the edges.  Sadly, I didn't count before Bitsy skated through.  I should have taken photos and counted as soon as I put the blocks on the floor.  I need to decide whether to make the quilt larger or the same size as Jolene's, 9 blocks by 11 blocks, which equals about 54" x 66" before quilting and shrinkage from washing and drying.  That seems like it would be a short person's napping quilt.  (I like to tuck the end of a quilt under my feet and pull it up to my neck and across my shoulders for a nap.)  Anyway, this will most likely become a donation quilt so it matters much less what my preferences are.  I'm so close to having the blocks ready to sew into a top that I might just call the blocks I have enough.  However, that leaves me a short stack of unused, one-color, 9-patch blocks in several different colors....  Hmmm.

For anyone who may be wondering:  my headache persists and my energy waxes and wanes.  Have you tried or do you know anyone who has experience with acupuncture?

Okay, that's it for today.  I need to get on with some other things.  I hope you're having a good weekend and are enjoying whatever weather and activities come your way.

--Nancy.

RSC Blocks, Little Plaid Basket, Locust Trees, and the Ocean

Autumn has been moseying its way into central Ohio, even now at the end of October.  The temperatures are cool but the colors are still mostly green.  It's an autumn without the bright colors we associate with fall.  The colors and timing this year is similar to the the year I made the maple leaves quilt.  That year I decided if nature wasn't going to provide autumn colors, I would make them myself.  I think we'll still have green leaves in November again this year!

These six blocks below are probably the last I'll make for my Rainbow Scrap 9-patch quilt.  Last month Angela suggested sea colors--blues/aquas--but I had plenty of those and made these instead.  

Oops!  I finished stitching this Little Plaid Baskets with Zinnias block.  How can I have spent so much time with it in my hands and not have seen the problem?!

It looks like I'll be doing some unstitching soon.  (Color above is more accurate.)

Lizzy and I both talk about locust trees.  I love our honey locusts, and was surprised when she first responded with her intense dislike of locust trees.  What's not to like? I wondered.  She mentioned the thorns she remembers from childhood and how they stabbed her feet.  But ours don't have thorns.  With a little research, I learned that there are several kinds of locust trees.  Finally, a year or so ago at a nearby park, I saw what she was talking about.  Now I understand her dislike of the trees. 

In autumn the leaves of our honey locust trees turn a bright golden hue.  When they cover the ground, they almost seem to pave the it with gold.  I feel so wealthy in the fall.  The leaves add such brightness to my world.  Their only drawback is that they are not friendly to our house:  on rainy or damp days, they cling to our shoes and if we're not careful, come inside and fall to the floor leaving a mess.  Even with that small inconvenience, I love them.  (The photo at right was taken in a neighborhood a mile or so away.

And the ocean!  We went to the dear, dear ocean the first week of October.  I was thrilled to go!  After family events at the beginning of the year, I thought our trip last September was the last time in my life I would see the ocean in person.  It was wonderful to go again.  (The weather is better in September than October.  That is, if there isn't a hurricane.)

This was our view from the hotel room on sunny Tuesday morning.  You can see the rain streaks on the window.  They were easy to ignore with the gorgeous view.  We were on the third floor this year, so a better view but more steps. Later that day we walked through beautiful Thompson Island.  It's on the northeast corner of Rehoboth Bay with a path that meanders through a forest and ends at a tidal marsh.  It's an interesting contrast to have forest just a mile or so from the ocean.

The forest floor was covered with pine needles from the tall loblolly pines. (What a fun name!)

The next day was cloudy with a calm ocean.  I love the ocean no matter what the weather but boisterous waves are more fun to watch.  It was foggy in the morning and still cloudy after the fog dissipated.

It was interesting to see the little tide pools after the tide went out.  They were gone after a few hours.

Another interesting feature of the beach this year was the ledge the waves/tide created in thee sand.  It was less than a foot high and was only along a short section of the beach.

On Thursday, the waves were stronger and the sky mostly clear blue.

This is the path we walk from our hotel to the ocean.

And this is the path from the ocean to the hotel.

I've been back from vacation for two weeks but I'm having trouble setting aside the vacation mindset.  Responsibilities?  What responsibilities?  I just want to relax.  Do you struggle with the transition from vacation to real life, too?  I need to get on with making alternate blocks for the RSC quilt....

--Nancy.

Autumn Nine-Patch, an Owl, and the book *Still*

Summer is slipping into fall here in central Ohio.  The leaves of trees are in their slow transition from green to bright autumn colors, and the honey locust leaves are already blanketing the ground in gold.  The groundhog tells us whether we'll have more winter or spring will come early but, as far as I know, there's no animal that tells us if we'll have a long fall or an early winter.  I'm okay with that.  The seasons change all in due time and I know autumn is nearly upon us because the days are growing shorter and shorter.  I love this season of early dark and longer evenings and nights, of cool, crisp air, of bright colors reaching toward the sky, then carpeting the ground.  For me, it's a little heaven on earth. Do you love autumn?  

I've not done much sewing, or quilting, or much else, either.  I don't do much, as in my days are not busy, and I still know where the times goes.

I finished this 9-patch top a few months ago, sans border, was ready to be done with it, and put it aside.  

I decided to use double gauze for the backing and realized that this quilt really needed a border, so added the dark maroon.  I chose a teal backing, but it shrank in the washer and dryer so I had to remove a row of blocks from one end of the top so it would fit on the backing.  Then I reconsidered that backing's color and thought maybe orange would be better.  When I bought a longer length and washed it, it shrank even more than the teal.  I decided against it not because of the shrinkage but because the color was too bland.  This quilt had mostly autumn colors but it has plenty of tiny teal squares, too, so I think the teal back will work.  You can see that the batting is also just barely large enough, and I hope it will be enough.  It will get quilted very simply with big stitches using perle cotton.  With all its challenges, this quilt might turn into nothing worth the time!  (I started hand quilting it last night and the gauze grabs the needle so it may be slow going.)

Instead of more greens and blues for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, I pulled out some fabrics that lean toward army green and some that lean toward golden browns.  I pinned them last week and will sew them this week.

My daughter and I went to the Ohio State Fair in August.  The Natural Resources area must have had a youth art competition because there were many drawings and paintings by children. 

This gorgeous, primitive-style owl captured my attention.  I thought it a fabulous drawing.  (I think the white fluffs in the sky are a reflection on the glass/plastic covering the drawing.  Ignore them and delight in that gorgeous owl.)
 
Have you seen the book Still by Mary Jo Hoffman?

When I saw it recommended and looked at the cover, I guessed it was a book of nature essays in a small format.  I was wrong.  It is a gorgeous book of photographs of natural objects--seed pods, leaves, shells, flowers, etc.--and it's about 9" x 12".

In the photograph to the right, she has arranged stems from a tree into star-like shapes.  This captured my attention because we need a new star for the top of our Christmas tree, and these seem just about perfect.  I need to borrow the book again to remind myself what tree these are from.

I cannot tell you what kind of branches/stems/grass she used to create the arrangement to the right but it intrigued me, as did many of her photos.

If you like seed pods, seeds, branches and stems from trees, and other nature bits, you might enjoy this book.

Hoffman takes a nature walk every day, quietly looking at the detail of whatever holds her interest.  She brings the objects home and photographs them, capturing details.  Often her photographs look like flat lays, with leaves or nuts, seedpods or flowers carefully arranged.  Some of the photographs are of objects that she's gathered over time reflecting their growth from spring to fall or that show the variety found in an object. 

She wrote and included several essays as well as clear, concise details about how she photographs the natural objects.  

This is the kind of books that makes me wish I'd thought of taking photographs of the natural things I collect!

I'm going to bed soon, but I should go and DO something so I can write an interesting blog post!

What have you been up to?

--Nancy.

Somewhere Between Green and Blue....

Aqua, turquoise, blue-green, green-blue, cyan, cerulean, azure, celadon, turquoise, teal, and probably hundreds of slight variations in those color combinations make up the color range between green and blue. Aqua is the RSC color for August, so I made a few nine-patch blocks for my quilt similar to this quilt Jolene made.  My preference leans toward teal, but I have plenty of lighter, brighter fabrics in the blue-green range.

There are one or two squares in this group that I might think of as absolutely green, but aqua is one of those flexible colors.  Put it next to blue and it might look very green.  Put it next to green and it leans toward blue.  Ah, well, since no one polices the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, we can all decide which fabrics look aqua (or pink or blue or red, etc.) to us.

I love Jolene's quilt but I'm not sure whether the blocks I'm making will pull off the look.  I haven't laid them out in any arrangement yet.  I think it's too soon to know, specially since I don't have the fabrics for the  background blocks (white, or off white) chosen yet.  

I also made a few more pink and purple blocks.  I don't know how many of each I will need....

Does it count for good when you really want to do something positive and can't quite muster the energy to do it?  It feels like life is passing me by as I wait to get past the effects of the drug that I hoped would alleviate this headache.  I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to fall asleep quickly again, or if I will ever recover from having too little sleep.  What do you think, or what have your heard, or what has your experience been:  Can we catch up on sleep?

I did not know that Hens and Chicks plants grew flowers!  (Unless maybe this is not a Hens and Chicks plant.)  I was in an office building the other day and when walking past one of the doors I saw this plant with a long "string" coming out of it.  At first I thought someone had raped a pink charging cord over the plant.

Upon closer inspection I realized it was a stem with flowers.  Aren't they the dearest little flowers?!

 

If I get back to the building in the next week or two, I'll check on this plant and see what the next development in its growth is.  Or maybe I'll stop in at the office and ask about the plant.

Linking this post to Angela's RSC post at https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2025/08/scraphappy-saturday-aquamarine-vibes.html.

That's it for me this week.  I hope you have a good weekend and upcoming week.

--Nancy.

The Last of the Orange Blocks for RSC 2025

On Thursday, we had the most beautiful weather.  Blue skies except for an hour or two of clouds when we thought it might rain.  It didn't.  The day was cool enough and windy enough to open the windows and let the breeze blow through the house and billow the curtains.  Outside, the branches of the trees swayed in the wind.  Just glorious!  I wish I'd taken photos.  If every summer day could be like that one, I'd love summer!

These are the last of my orange RSC blocks.   (Linking to Angela's RSC blog.)

I have 10 now, probably too many for the quilt I'm hoping to make.  On the other hand, having so many will offer me options when choosing blocks to use.  And orange also happens to be the favorite color of one of my grandsons.  I could make some more and have enough for a quilt for him.  But you know how fast children's favorite colors change....  (And considering how little I like orange, I'm sure I'd struggle making enough for a whole quilt.)

Vertigo has been visiting again this week so my only accomplishments are finishing these orange blocks and finishing the bindings on Everyday Patchwork and Parsonsfield.  I'll post about those when I can get some decent photographs.

I hope you have a great weekend.
--Nancy.

RSC - Orange Is the Clown of the Color World

As I was arranging orange squares in preparation for sewing them together for this week's RSC blocks, the thought came to me that orange must be the clown of the color world, joking around, teasing, having fun.  And I thought, orange can't possibly take itself seriously.  Can it?

I like orange in very small doses and prefer the ones that lean toward red, or coral.  I found a few fun fabrics with orange (and chose not to use the yellow-ish oranges).

I don't think I'll need many orange blocks for the quilt I'm planning, which you can see here.  Maybe another one or two....

I'm linking this post to ScrapHappy Saturday Orange at SoScrappy.  Thanks for hosting, Angela.  Visit the link to see the blocks that other participants are making with orange.

Health Note.
It's been a really slow week.  The nurse practitioner doubled the dose of medication I'm taking to try to get rid of this headache.  I guess that was always the plan---to start low and increase.  It hasn't done anything for the headache but it makes me so extremely tired.  I can hardly make myself move.  You'd think 12 hours of sleep in a night would do it but I still have to push myself to get up in the morning and do things, and four hours later I'm ready for a nap after having done the bare minimum (shower, dress, brush my teeth, breakfast, etc.).  Several reliable websites agreed that the tiredness should go away as I adapt to the medication.  I'm grateful I don't have a full-time job away from home because if I did, I'd surely get fired.

Even with being tired, I've partially sewn another simple summer dress, stitched a few feet of binding on Everyday Patchwork, quilted Parsonsfield, did a load of laundry, and nearly no house cleaning.  Cleaning requires consolidated energy for longer than five or ten minutes; the other activities I can sit and do.  One of these days I hope things will get back to the old normal, or at least to a new normal that doesn't include a headache and extreme tiredness.  Isn't life interesting?!

I hope you have a good weekend.

--Nancy.

The Last Green Block for May's RSC

I think this is my last green block, though I may need to make one or two more after I see all the blocks together with their alternate snowballs.

In my effort to catch up with colors from previous months I also made some blue and red blocks.

The crazy jumble of these blocks is too much except that I know the alternate light snowballs will calm the whole mess.  I think these blocks are very fun to make, and easy, too.

I'm linking this post to Last Green Day at So Scrappy.  Thank you for hosting, Angela.

Now I'm off to see what the color for June is.

--Nancy.

Green for RSC (Plus Red, Blue, Yellow, and Pink)

Whenever I see a quilt and think, Oh, I want to make one like that, I find that my results don't quite match up to the quilt I saw.  I suspect that's going to be the case in this instance, too.  This 9-patch and snowball is the quilt I saw that I'm trying to replicate.

Here's one more green block for a total of seven.  I posted six last week.

And in an effort to catch up from January through April, I made some blue, red, pink, and one more yellow block.

When I see these blocks all together with their jumble of colors, they sort of turn my stomach.  Thank goodness they won't be in rainbow-color order in the quilt and will be separated by white/off-white/solid color snowball blocks.

I can almost imagine a 9-patch and snowball as a one-color quilt, especially with the variety of fabrics and prints in each color range.  Maybe for another time?

That's it for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks for this week.  Thanks so much to Angela for hosting!

--Nancy.

Jumping into the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I've loved the idea of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) since I first learned about it at least 10 years ago.  I considered, then reconsidered, then decided against participating.  But every Saturday, the idea of participating kept nudging at me.  I knew I didn't want to make a rainbow quilt so, I reasoned, the only way I could participate would be to group the colors and make different blocks for each color or each color group.  For example, reds and oranges could be one block, greens and blues, another, or some variation.  Except I haven't chosen blocks yet.

But last week, Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting posted her green blocks and linked to Jolene Klassen's Nine Patch and Snowball Quilt at Blue Elephant Stitches.  I remember loving Jolene's quilt when I first saw it but didn't think about making one myself.  Nancy gave me the nudge to pull out my greens and begin because, I realized, Jolene's quilt is almost the perfect RSC quilt (without seeming like a rainbow):  all the colors, six-inch blocks, no background fabric in each block, quick and easy sewing, etc.  I anticipate a larger quilt and will have to decide how many blocks of each color I'll need to make.

These are the green blocks I made this week for May.

There may be two things that are different about how I manage my scraps than most people.  The pieces I call scraps are usually really small and odd-shaped.  The other thing that is different from how I see most other quilters store scraps is that if a piece of fabric is large enough to cut at least a 2" square, I put it back with the larger piece of fabric it was cut from.  (I do have boxes of scrap colors but they're mostly lesser quality fabrics that came in scrap bags at a quilt show or thrift store.  I realized this week that I should go through those boxes and just pass on what I wouldn't want to use for a quilt.)  All this means I don't have a collection of 2½ squares already cut.  So it was fun to look through my stacks of fabric for greens.

And then I realized I should probably start making blocks for the rest of the colors for 2025:  pink, blue, yellow, and red.  These are the yellow blocks I made this week.  I'll get to pink, blue, and red.

Do you ever look at your fabric and think, How boring!?  Maybe it's because I've had so much of it around for so long and it's all so familiar to me that it's boring.  (Or maybe it really is boring fabric.  Haha.)  I look at others' fabric in their blocks and think, Wow!  I'd love to have some of those fabrics.  No envy here, just maybe a hint or reminder to myself to reconsider more carefully what fabric I buy from now on.

I'm linking this post to ScrapHappy Saturday-Green Day.  Thanks for hosting, Angela.

I hope you have a joyful weekend.
--Nancy.