Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016 -April blocks

I have followed the RSC in previous years, and admire so much of the work shown, but never joined in.
In January my scrap strips bins ( especially the 2 1/2 inch strips) were overflowing, so I decided it was time to  get started.
I have never been organised enough to have a blog post ready for Saturday, so today I have finally managed it.
In view of the fact that I wanted to use 2 1/2 inch strips, and that the resulting quilt would eventually be gifted, I decided on Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars for my block.
My goal was to 3 or 4 of each colour.

January's blue with purple was an easy enough colour, but February's Brown with pink was a challenge. I hardly ever use brown, so lots of pink was added. I only managed 2 decent blocks and one paler one,  which will need to be replaced.
March's Purple also proved difficult. I didnt realise how few purples I used. I did have plenty of F Qs of it so I scraped together 3 blocks
April-another one which surprised me. While I have plenty in my stash and had been using a lot of orange in for the Fancy Fox quilt, there was not much in my scrap bins. Again the stash of FQs came in handy
My April oranges

So, here are my 4 months'  blocks

I  am joining in with  up with the  Soscrappy Saturday linky.

Diamond Path ~April One Block Wonder

This month Sandy at Upstairs Hobby Room has an easy but effective block. She has named it Diamond Path.

I thought her blue and white version was very pretty, but decided to do something a little different.
I got out my bin of black and white prints and chose an apple green Free Market fancy  fabric as my contrast.

 I found that the fabrics which worked best had more black than white in them.
I have a lot of sewing planned this month, so chose to just do a 4 block small quilt.
My preference is always a quilt of at least lap size, but the smaller size was achieveable for now.  I did think I hope I had a little time to go back and make a bigger quilt, but that was not to be. April HAS been busy quilting-wise.

Once I had made my 4 blocks, the fun was in choosing a setting.
It came down to the fact that I was only doing a small quilt in the end. I chose the setting whick created the most complete look for the size. I think if I had gone bigger, the stepped setting may have been my choice.

The completed small quilt. It has finished at 31 inches square.

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This design sews up very quickly, would be great for a newer quilter, and is quite dramatic with it's big diamonds. If I had gone back to do another, I was planning on big alternating blue and red diamonds to see how that would look. I think it would be great for a boys bed.

This month I also finished Sandy's Bliss Medallion quilt, in gorgeous Amy Butler fabrics. To view, follow the link or the button on the right hand side.

I am linking up to the Upstairs Hobby Room Linky Party

Bliss Medallion Quilt

I won a prize in Sandy's Upstairs Hobby Room  One Block Wonder Linky Draw- a pattern of hers of my choice. I chose Bliss Medallion.

Our small Facebook group had a weekend retreat, so I decided at the last minute to make up this quilt, as I wanted something straightforward that didn't need intense concentration.
 I have a lot of gorgeous half yard bundles of fabric, which I really need to start using. I chose Violette by Amy Butler. Only 6 fabrics were needed for the larger size.

I did all the cutting the night before we left, and had each set of fabrics in a plastic bag, labelled.
Most of the blocks were made and rows sewn together before the end of our weekend.
It was a quick days sewing to finish the quilt top.

Quilting was with Aurifil 2000  (sand) which matched the background perfectly.
The large corner areas lent themselves to feathers, so big bold ones were done. A feather wreath in the centre block doesn't show- but it is there.   The rest  of the quilting was in rows following the diagonals of the fabrics.

This was a fast easy and very pretty quilt to make. The photos don't do it justice.
This is Quilt No 7 for 2016