2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge - The Year in Review

Warning!!!  Picture-heavy post!!!

If you saw my 2015 Rainbow Scrap Challenge - The Year in Review post, you may be disappointed this time around.  YOU may be, but I'm not!!  This year was all about trying to find a BALANCE between the RSC16, my UFOs, and other projects. While I found a modicum of balance, I didn't exactly win on the UFO front.  Again, I'm OK with that!  The FOUR commission quilts that I finished needed to take priority over my other projects, PLUS there was a wedding quilt (or two) to make, as well.

Anyway...

Here is how the year panned out:

January

February

March

April

May

 June

July

August

September

October

Not bad (for someone who was trying to achieve some balance in her life!!)  ONE block of each type per month. in most cases.  I consider that a WIN!!

Add in a Rainbow of Crumbs:

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

Rainbow Crumb blocks included, I still had PLENTY of time to work on other projects each month!!!

********************

Let's take a different look at my progress for the year.

The Stack:

The Overview:

And... By The Block.

Maverick Stars:

Slab Blocks:

String Blocks:

Tiny Nines:

What about those Rainbow Crumb Blocks:

Can any of your RSC block be sewn into quilts this year, Joyful?

MAYBE...

But, I think what I'll do is proclaim 2017 "The Year of the Quilt" and worry about completing the RSC projects from the past two years into quilts then!!

Thanks for bearing with me as I went through my accomplishments during the 2016 RSC.  Watch for plans for the upcoming
2017 Rainbow Scrap Challenge in next week's post. 


 For now, head over to Angela's So Scrappy blog to see what all the other RSC Quilters have gotten done and/or plan for the new year.  You just might decide that you want to participate, too!

Click HERE for the final LINK PARTY of 2016.

Linking up with Oh Scrap!, too.

Until next time...
Get Scrappy!!!

Best of 2016!!!

Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs is having a Best of 2016 Linky Party.  She encouraged us to include out "best" posts from the year.  If you are new to The Joyful Quilter, welcome!  If you've visited before, welcome back!

It was kind of exciting to REALLY look at what I've accomplished this year.  I completed 4 commission quilts, 5 other commission projects, 12 mini tree quilts, along with a variety of other projects and became the owner of an APQS longarm quilting machine.

But my BEST posts??  That's a tough thing to consider.

Mine include:

• The post with the most views:  The Decrapification Project - Part One - The Arrangement

Per special request, here are the links to the rest of The Decrapification Project:

Part Two - The Scraps

Part Three - The Fabric

Part Four - The WIPs and UFOs

Part Five - The Reason

Part Six - The Aftermath

• The post sharing my most artistic finish of the year:  Design Floor Friday - Bluff Challenge Revealed - {The Personal Edition} 

 

• The post that drew the most comments:  ScrapHappy Saturday - RSC16 - Week 43

• The post showing my fastest 2016 finish:  Wonderful Wednesday - Trying Trails

• The post that shares the project that is simply my favorite finish of 2016:   Wonderful Wednesday - A UFO Club/2016 Q3 FAL Finish

Thanks for coming along on a trip down memory lane.  I'm glad that Cheryl organized this Linky Party and that Cynthia over at Quilting is more fun than Housework chose to participate. If these two things didn't collide, I might not have noticed that I forgot to list my FIRST finish of 2016 over in the sidebar!!

Until next time...
Quilt the year away!!!

Wonderful Wednesday

Welcome to another edition of Wonderful Wednesday!!  Last week you saw Tree Lot, the series.  This week, you get to see the happy recipients of those trees.

Members of the Cherry Creek Lane Quilt Bee:

Along with a late arrival:

I showed the ladies a cheap and easy hanging method using THIS pop top (flip top of a soda can) for a small quilt:

All you need is one of two of the pull tabs, along with a needle and thread to get your mini quilt ready to hang on any wall:

This tip comes courtesy of Deborah Boschart.  I was fortunate enough to take a class with her this Fall.  Find her award winning art quilts HERE on her blog or HERE on her website.  That little hint may also be available in Deborah's new book.

I know that I've said it before, but... Thank you, again, to Kevin the Quilter.  Without his inspiration (and easy to follow tutorial), these trees wouldn't have happened.

Until next time...

Give joyfully!!!

Mystery Monday Link-Up! En Provence! Part 5

Welcome to Part FIVE of the En Provence Mystery!!  The mystery is brought to us by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame.  She has hosted this reader appreciation QAL for a number of years now. This is my THIRD year of participation.  Thank you, Bonnie, for taking my mind off holiday tasks for a little while each week!!

This year's quilt is providing my first experience with the Tri-Recs Tool.  In years past, I have avoided quilts incorporating units such as these.  Because of Bonnie and her video tutorial, I will no longer have to shy away from these triangle units.  Hooray for stretching my quilting muscles!!!

Since  the Part FOUR Link-Up, I have made some progress on my (abbreviated) version of En Provence:

LAST MONDAY - I joined over a hundred "Bonniacs" from around the globe in showing our progress for Clue Four of En Provence.  After last week's Link-Up, I decided that I should put in some time one Clues 1 and 3.  Not a LOT of time, but I made a few more of each 4-Patch.

TUESDAY - With the last of my Tree Lot minis complete, I made the rest of my 4-Patch units for Clues 1 and 3.  Progress is good:

And look at me, I even managed to SPIN the centers!!!  :o))

WEDNESDAY - Since the 4-Patch units were done, it was time to turn my attention to the triangle units.  HERE is what I got done:

THURSDAY - After my Quilt Bee's Holiday Luncheon, I finished up the rest of my triangle units.  Well, all the ones I'm planning to do before Bonnie's BIG reveal:

FRIDAY - Part FIVE of En Provence was released today.  This clue brought our Essential Triangle Tools into action.  Hooray!! There is a VIDEO to help us negotiate its use (to make HSTs with our darks and neutrals.)

But first, I did just a few more triangle units:

SATURDAY - I spent the day wrapping Christmas gifts.  Clue 5 will just have to wait for another day!!


SUNDAY - I spent the afternoon and evening sewing (since we didn't travel this year.)  Now, I give you Clue 5:

Yes!!  They REALLY are blue and brown.

My success with these units and the use of my new Easy Angle ruler, is due to a demonstration of the technique provided by my friend, Libby from Life on the Hill blog, who took time out at Mountain Quilt Camp this Fall to show me how to use that tool.

Thanks again, Libby!!!

That brings us to today's Link-Up.  I hope YOU got a LOT done... in spite of the Holiday weekend!  I'll tell you this much, I for one, am THRILLED with my progress.  :o))

I even used up a fair amount of my small scraps from Clues 1 - 5:

ONE Slab Block in blue and brown.

Until next time...

Be Mysterious!!!

ScrapHappy Saturday - RSC16 - Week 52

Welcome to Week 52 of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!!  I'm not sure HOW we have arrived at Week 52 of the RSC, but we have.  I continually hope that I will have done some work on one (or more) of my RSC projects.

Let's see how that panned out this week...

SUNDAY - I spent the afternoon quilting on the last four minis in my Christmas Tree Lot series:

MONDAY - I was up early to help DH get out on time.  After that, it was a trip to the doctor with DS2.  (No worries, just a check up.) The afternoon was spent binding quilts.  Three out of the "Tree Lot" were bound:

The last one posed a challenge in thread color selection.  That's OK!  Tomorrow is another day (and it's time for dinner, anyway.)

TUESDAY - Got up even EARLIER!!  Was up for a couple of hours and then went back to bed and slept LATE!!  I goofed around on the internet for a while and then went off to do the grocery shopping.

Upon my return, I went up to the studio to finish the LAST tree in the lot:

With THAT done, I turned to my En Provence Mystery Quilt.  You can read all about that in THIS POST.


WEDNESDAY - I did a bit of work on my En Provence Mystery...

... Before turning my attention to Wonderful Wednesday - The Tree Lot Edition (where you can read all about my TWELVE Christmas Tree mini quilts, thanks to a wonderful tutorial from Kevin the Quilter.  This is the time to sort your scraps and begin projects for NEXT year's gift giving.  Go have a LOOK!!

THURSDAY - My weekly Quilt Group celebrated our Holiday Luncheon today.  All I can say is... YUM!!!

During the gift-giving section of the meeting, the quilters were VERY surprised (and thrilled) by my offerings.  What did I give them, you ask??  Hint!!  See yesterday's entry.  :o))

As others sat around working and waiting for Show and Tell, I cut the borders for THIS quilt:

I decided that it has "marinated" long enough and NEEDS to be finished by the end of the year!!  Now, let's see if I can make it happen.  Maybe sew, maybe no, but I'm going to try!

FRIDAY - Since I missed Knit Group on Monday, several members agreed to meet today.  I was pleased to show off my completed Quaker Yarn Stretcher shawl and my nearly completed Christmas Magic Cowl.

I met DH at Home Depot after the meeting. We spent an hour or two in the plumbing isle trying to decide on a new faucet.  Ours developed a leak (just like our original did just two years ago!) Santa's got a new job this Christmas!!

The evening was spent with a new little friend.  We are just getting to know each other and plan to spend more time together in the coming months.

SATURDAY - Joined Angela's LINK PARTY (so that other RSC Quilters can feel good about their progress.)  With any luck at all, I may have some to show NEXT week!!!  (Given my success rate thus far, I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.)

Enjoy your Holiday weekend!!  I'm off to wrap presents.  When the dust clears, I'll make my rounds of all the RSC Quilters' posts.

Until next time...
Get Scrappy!!!

Wonderful Wednesday - Tree Lot Edition

Welcome to another edition of Wonderful Wednesday!!  In this edition I'll be taking you on a tour through my adventure (obsession?) of the past three weeks.  It started with THIS one tree:

As I cut for that ONE tree, I got the idea that it would be just as easy to make EIGHT trees instead of just one.  That thought ultimately lead to The Tree Lot series:

Thank you, Kevin the Quilter, for the inspiration and the

easy-to-follow tutorial to go along with it!!

After the original eight were done, it was determined that I really needed FOUR more trees!!  So I pulled more fabric and cut MORE block components.  These have natural tones for their backgrounds:

HERE are three of the final FOUR:

 THIS is the final tree.  Its quilting was modeled after a tree spotted over on Kathy's Quilts:

You may be wondering why I'm making such a BIG deal about how each of these were quilted.

What's up, Joyful??

Well...

If you look closely, you will see that EVERY tree is quilted differently.  Yep!!  That's TWELVE different quilting designs.  Take a look at the following photos for "picture proof" of the variety...

My standard double loops with "tree quilting" to accentuate that section and a funky star on top:

Your basic allover meander in the background with a star atop the tree to add interest and "ornaments" quilted within its "branches":

Then, I thought I might try a version of "match stick" quilting:

This tree received outline quilting like Diann over on 
Little Penguin Quilts blog who followed my link HERE:

Thank you, again, for the shout out Diann!!

For future reference, don't try vertical match stick quilting without first basting the quilt WELL... no matter HOW small the quilt is:

Hmm... let's try ditch quilting:

You might consider this  one to be cheating, but it REALLY is different from the other tree quilted with a starburst design:

Then I went a bit crazy and tried a new-to-me holly design found recently at The Inbox Jaunt.  Not only did I try it with very little practice, as seen in my 6" x 6" sample shown below...

I also adapted the design to fit within the area of the quilt corners:

Thank you, Lori Kennedy, for giving me the confidence to try this at home.  Not bad, huh?  Go on and take a look!  I also put my own spin on the quilting within the actual tree.  Another tutorial along the same lines can be found at WeAllSew.com.  A closer look:

What else can I try?  Let's see.  An allover e's and o's meander:

A different variation of loops and swirls with Kathy's tree quilting and an asterisk star on top:

Scroll back a few trees to see if you can spot the difference in the two starburst quilting patterns:

This tree sports a true allover meander with a star on top.  Dull and boring for the last tree on the lot, but YOU try quilting TWELVE mini trees with a different pattern in each.  You might find that your last one looks like this one, too:

Another detail (that doesn't really show) is that EACH TREE was stuffed with SCRAP batting and bound with SCRAP binding!!

ALL of it from previous quilts, with the exception of ONE that I cut from the green SCRAP pile sitting on my ironing station waiting to be cut into squares for, what else, MORE trees:

Oh, WAIT!!  That one wasn't long enough, so I went BACK to the binding drawer in my Scrap Center and chose another piece of scrap binding that WOULD work.  I forgot about that!!

SEW...

I give you The Tree Lot Series.

I'm linking up with Oh! Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework because...

ALL of these trees were

Made COMPLETELY from SCRAPS!!!

So, Angela... Maybe you should have one Color of the Month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge be "Holiday" colored!!!

If YOU want a more contemporary tree...

Follow THIS LINK to Diary of a Quilter, where Amy will walk you through the simplified piecing of her Modern Christmas Tree.

Until next time...
Fa la la la la!!!