Scrappy Plus Along

I took a little break from bee blocks (they're not due to be sent until Nov 15 anyway) to start a new quilt. This one came from Instagram inspiration. It's the Scrappy Plus Along from Blotch and Thrum. I've had charm packs from Simply Color sitting around since the line came out, yeah, I didn't have that burst of inspiration that gets me excited to make a quilt. But this quilt just yearned to be made from one of the charm packs. A single charm pack plus the sashing that is all from my stash will yield a 60"x70" quilt top. And this design allows for almost all chain piecing.

The one really unfortunate this is this morning as I was working on one set of the blocks, my sewing machine decided to suck the block down. I stopped immediately so as not to damage the fabric or the machine, but now something is not right at all and the thread keeps knotting and the machine keeps pulling the fabric down into the bobbin area after 3-4 stitches. I got out all the lint, and all the everything that might have been causing it to catch, but it continued so I will be taking my machine to the repair shop as soon as it opens. Conveniently there's one less than half a mile from my apartment.

1st block

 All the pinks (this charm pack only had 3 from that color way). And a couple purples.

 It's growing. 

 And now half the greens are done. 

 All the greens and oranges minus one since it's still sitting uncompleted due to the machine troubles. This will end up taking over my design wall. 

Half way there

I've made 3 of the 6 blocks I need to do for the fall paper pieced bee. So far, I think my favorite is the middle green and gray one, although I did have fun with the rainbow block and that print from Riley Blake gives the block motion.

Orange, Aqua, and Gray with Gray background

 Gray and Green (with Navy) on White background.

 Rainbow on black background.

Sun Star for Fall 3x6

I joined the 3x6 Flickr Bee again and chose the Sun Star block from www.compuquilt.com for this round. It definitely will lend itself to playing with color with three focal points per diamond, I've already done some mental planning for the other blocks - the rainbow ones in particular will be fun. 

These colors are brighter in real life but since this picture was taken after midnight there was no natural light. I've already started on the first that will be sent out. Pictures will be forthcoming as I make this in 6 more color schemes.

Some design wall time and big quilt quilting

I finally put my design wall up - I've had it for awhile sitting folded on the futon that's in my sewing (guest?) room. I put up the bee blocks I received from the Bee(ful) of paper. I'll be making one more myself. And now I'm deciding if I want to do sashing, solids, other text prints, or what. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments.

 The other thing I'm working on now is quilting the roller rink quilt. I'm doing straight line quilting along the big seams, and stippling in the centers of the blocks. I haven't decided if I'm going to do anything in the gray/white areas. Perhaps, but for right now I'm thinking I'll leave those areas unquilted. This is a queen size quilt that I'm doing on my home machine - lots of squishing around under the throat.