Playing with left-overs

Time just seems to roll on by and when I look back I can see that things have gotten done and there are changes but in the midst it all rather seems the same.

Japan had Silver Week last week which is a counterpart to Golden Week in May when there are a number of consecutive holidays.  I think Silver Week included the Autumn equinox, the Respect for Elders Day and the weekend making four days off for school and businesses.  An unheard of extra day was given to the school children of Nikko (and the neighboring city) when a bomb threat was sent to the city hall claiming that a bomb would go off on Wednesday at an unidentified school unless money was exchanged...  The city chose to ignore the demand for money and instead cancelled school for the day.  In our quiet, countryside city of Nikko we have a bomb scare!  Don't we have enough problems with the pandemic and the typhoons?!  So last week only saw me at the crosswalk on Thursday and Friday.

The long weekend gave me time to spend sewing and I put the finishing touches on another quilt and have gotten started on a new one.

This pattern is called Candlelight from the Pacific Rim Quilt Company website.  My friend Mrs. N ordered the pattern and she has been making the same quilt but before she found the fabrics that she had decided to use I had ordered some fabric thinking she wouldn't find any Christmas fabric at the local store.  She did however, so that left me with the left-over fabric I'd ordered.  The summer was so hot that I really needed a hand project I could work on in the air conditioned living room and so I basted this up and went to work on it in the last days of August.  It is now appliqued and quilted and ready for this year's Christmas.

The label I made with an added cross-stitch piece that had been in a Christmas card insert years ago and that I couldn't bear to throw away.

I spent a couple of days last week working on another McKenna block for the farm quilt.  I am getting rather nervous about how this quilt is going to work out...  Most of my design wall is now covered with the 6 blocks I've made and I think there are four more plus border!  How am I ever going to get this quilted when it is all put together?  Should I start quilting what I have now, work on the second half and quilt that later and then try to put the halves together?  Is a huge collage quilt, rather on the stiff side with all that fabric, even going to be maneuverable when it is all together?  I've gotten this far but have sort of sense of dread approaching...

Okay...  Quilting is suppose to be fun.  On to other things.

The weather is cooling off and autumn is in the air...  When looking for something else in the back of my closet I came across a box that I'd marked "Orphan blocks".  Ah...  This is the box where I've thrown trial blocks, things that didn't work out with other blocks, abandoned projects... 

And I pulled out four leaf blocks.  Good glory!  When did I ever make these?  I vaguely recall thinking that a quilt with a lot of these leaf blocks would be pretty and I hand cut and hand pieced these four blocks (I THINK there are only four...  I pawed through the box to see if I could find more but only turned up these...)  But I remember that these were a real hassle to make with all the reverse pieces and points...  I must have given up at four.

In another orphan box (dedicated to triangles) I found loads and loads of triangle blocks probably cut off ends of some project using squares. 

I cannot even recall when I used these colors or for what quilt.  So...  what can I make from a bunch of left overs?  A table runner?  A long wall hanging?  I don't know how this is going to get used but with all the pre-made blocks (and leftover strips were just waiting for me from ANOTHER project!) this flimsy went together in a day.  I will spend next week figuring out how to quilt it.

A final look-through of the orphan block box came up with some leaf borders that I had made for something but that didn't seem to get used in the end.  They seem rather lonely as is and so I think I'll start appliqueing some colorful flowers and get them into a more usable state. 

There is lots more in my orphan block box but I've given it a bit more space for later additions.