Tag: Rainbow Coin Strip quilt

My kids are punks

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I’ve been working away on the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, spurred on by the, frankly, heartwarming reception my kids have been giving it whenever they wander through the craft room. Everyone loves to look for fabrics they remember, and oh my goodness, have I been feeling like a Winner.

I finally got all the borders attached and laid out the quilt on a bed so it wouldn’t wrinkle while I prepared the backing. I mentioned to Emms that the quilt was pieced in its entirety and laid out on the bed if they wanted to see it in its full glory, and they headed off to the room. Moments later they shrieked and then started laughing, which piqued my curiosity and Nathaniel’s, so I went into the room after he ran in and saw this:

So I walked around the end of the bed to see what was so interesting, and saw it:

And those little punks squealed with glee, took pictures of it, and texted it to their friends for a laugh.

And you know how people say, “Will it matter in ten years?” I decided that yes, it would still matter in ten years and they would probably still be making fun of me, so I decided to fix it:

I don’t think it will matter much, jokes about snipers and presidential assassinations are going pretty strong in our house at the moment.

And it’s no longer the “Rainbow Coin Strip quilt” to my kids, it’s now called the “Kennedy Sniper quilt.” Which is not a name you want people to adopt for anything you make, ever.

Seriously, who OK’d the decision to put that on fabric?!?! Why?!?! What quilt would be elevated with that headline?!?!

I imagine it was one of the fat quarters included in a low volume or text only bundle, and when I was cutting fabric for the border I just grabbed white fabrics with black on them, no reading necessary, stacked them in a pile and did a batch cut. And then I sewed them together, right sides facing, so I missed it again. Ugh.

Oh well, the hexagons are cute, and it allowed me to use up a little bit of canvas that’s been sitting in the stash since I made the original Storybook Hexagons quilt with it. It was nice to revisit memories of that quilt, which is still to this day the most popular quilt on this blog.

And now that adorable fabric is covering up a presidential assassination headline. Lovely.

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“Introducing” the Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt

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Since I never formally introduced you, let me redress my errors: Meet the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt:

You all know that I’ve been more than a little obsessed with working through my scrap bins for quite a few years now, and this was an effort to push forward on that goal back in 2019. I came across a quilt block in Electric Quilt that just erupted into a full quilt in my mind’s eye and looked like it would do a very good job at handling the little skinny strips of leftover fabric/strings that I found myself drowning in at that moment. So I went ahead and got pretty far on the quilt before 2020 arrived and everything went off the rails.

But it’s back, and I’m making good progress. This is a great quilt for using up pieces of fabric that you just can’t seem to use in anything else, especially those white backgrounds with colored designs prints. I’ve been specifically targeting the fabrics in my bins that I’ve hand on-hand for a long time because they’re tough to fit into quilts due to various issues, and man, does it feel good to use ’em up!

A sweet moment happened Friday evening: Emms came through the craft room and noticed the quilt on my cutting table, and squealed, “It’s the shower curtain fabric!” I laughed and said yes it was, and how fun it was sewing up all the little scraps and bits from so many projects I’d worked on in years past. Emms then took about five minutes looking at all the blocks and pointing out all the fabrics they remembered from the various things I’d made for them over the years and reminiscing about wearing and playing with said handcrafted items. Oh, it made my mama heart happy. Emms celebrated their 18th birthday this last week, and goodness is my heart sore with the pangs of knowing they’re going to be heading on out into the world soon. It was nice to hear of some of the small joys of their childhood for a few minutes. Made me feel like I’d done some things well.

I had been stewing over what to do with this quilt once it was finished; I honesty thought I was going to give it away up until Emms’ nostalgic perusal. Not anymore, this sucker is staying in the house. (Maybe it’ll need to head off to a certain college dorm room in the autumn?)

I’m hoping to get this quilted this week, we shall see…

#craftygoals: February 2022

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Y’all hanging in there? January’s a hard month to survive, I think. Good job making it to February! Alas, I think February often gives January a run for its miserable money most years, which makes me feel like…

But we’re just going to keep our heads down and go to work on those awesome crafty goals, and we’ll pass this gray, cold month with color in our hands and beautiful stitches to chase away the days. Sounds like an excellent plan! Go forth!

I had a plan for February, but as I went about to start prepping for it, I asked the person I was going to make a thing for if they wanted the thing I was planning to make for them and THEY SAID NO. So…I need some new plans. (It was a dress for Rachel. She’s so thrilled with her new Halloween skirt that she said she didn’t need anything new at the moment, and anyways, that particular dress was something she was “only into for, like, last summer.” 😒 This is why, more and more, I’m against surprise crafting. It often ends poorly. Just ask people what they want and then tell them it’s going to take forever to make. Everyone ends up happy. Even if it takes ten years to finish the thing. Trust me, I have A LOT of experience with this.)

I didn’t mention it in my January #craftygoals post, but I want to try to sew up an article of clothing each month this year. (I didn’t mention it because it would have hinted that “Rachel’s Birthday Gift” was a piece of clothing. Which ended up not mattering because I had to spoil the secret anyway. Gah.) I like the idea of making well-fitting clothes, but it’s a very new skill for me and I avoid it because it’s still kind of difficult to do well. It’s way more gratifying to crank out quilts because I’m already good at them. Clothes, though…eek. Practice, practice, practice.

1. So, with Rachel’s dress off the table, I need to come up with another clothing item to make, and I need a little time to figure that out because reasons.

The other #craftygoals for February are:

2. Finish the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt. I don’t think I’ve ever posted about this quilt, but I started it in December 2019 as a kick-off for the coming year being devoted to sewing up my scraps, and almost got the top completed, actually. And then my first shipment of Blank Quilting fabric arrived and the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt went into hibernation very quickly. The Convoluted Formulaâ„¢ dictates that it be the next thing I work on. I’m pleased it’ll be completed soon. It’s cute.

3. Continue (maybe finish?) the Far Far Away quilt.

4. Brick House Scrap Quilt blocks #5-8

5. Clementine Quilt Along Month 3 & 4. I didn’t quite finish the Month 3 blocks last month because of my back, but they’re close. Hopefully I can railroad through the fourth month’s blocks, too.

6. Berry Blocks. Not even started, annoyingly.

7. HST Leaders & Enders. Also not started, extra annoyingly. But we’re not going to worry because Scrappy Thursday is for working with scraps at the pace that I can work. There are no deadlines in the Land of Scrappy Thursdays, just a love of scraps. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN, DARN IT.

Hand Stitching-wise, I’m still knitting away on Michael’s Building Blocks sock, and really should be able to finish those up by the end of the month.

I have NO idea what I’ll work on after that. I think I need a portable project for taking to work, and an “at-home” project that is more involved or larger or whatever. Maybe a pair of vanilla socks for work, and resume working on the Stalagmite socks that I started three years ago? Or the Better Days Sweater? I don’t know, but it’s gotta be something yarny. My fingers are so cold in the winter that I have a hard time with hand sewing.

January’s #craftygoals went really good. I finished the Cat Lady quilt, Rachel’s Halloween skirt (pictures coming), the Mini Charm Chiffon Baby quilt (pictures waiting on delivery), and was able to start working on the Far Far Away quilt.

Scrappy Thursday-wise, I got the Brick House blocks for the month done and almost finished the Clementine blocks. As previously stated, I did not get to the Berry Blocks or HST Leaders & Enders. Not much I can do about that. Hopefully everything cooperates in the universe and I’m able to work on them this month.

And in the sphere of Hand Stitching, I finally finished the Nereid Mitts! Huzzah!

Good luck with your #craftygoals for the month!