Oh look, a flock of red cranes/swans. They look a bit confused. Or maybe they're on the look out for kittens and cats. It turns out I have quite a few red fabrics with cranes, but I thought making cranes from crane fabric would be a bit like feeding chicken to chickens. If you want more red, check out more contributions to the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, then gain an appreciation for the workhorse half-square triangle (HST) over at the HSTeria quilt along.

I'm getting a jump on tomorrow's rainbow scrappy challenge by working on the red swans/cranes today. Plus these blocks qualify for the HSTeria quilt along. Each month, I never quite remember how the crane is made, so I pull out one as a guide. I'm making four red cranes facing right and four red cranes facing left. I've selected all of the fabric and cut strips for all the cranes. But at this stage, I keep the confusion to a minimum by constructing only the cranes in the right facing formation with a yellow crane as our guide. When I am finished with these, I will move on to the ones in the left formation.

Precision in piecing is not my strong suit. I'm more of a statistician than an accountant. And fabric tends to be forgiving or at least obliging. But at this small scale for the Omigosh quilt, there is less room to maneuver when the finished squares are half inch and the finished nine patch is 1.5 inches.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that my nine patches were rectangular. That's the same nine patch in both photos...its 2 inches on one side and 2 inches plus one eighth on the other side. (Some of my seams are not quite a quarter inch). As I was sewing I saw things were off and figured it would all work out. But instead of easing, I had a fabric fight.

Happily, because the fabric is so beautiful, we can't stay mad at each other for too long. (Well, I guess I can't speak for the fabric...)

Omigosh I'm feeling cranky. It's amazing how quickly inaccuracy amplifies when using a small scale. And as far as tiny work goes, the Omigosh quilt is rather forgiving. But apparently not forgiving enough. I do have to take some time and figure out why my nine patches are rectangles. Is it my cutting, sewing or ironing?

Seriously? I take one day off from the sewing room and come back to find another litter of kittens.  Blue, this time. Tommy has passed out in a dead faint. Or maybe it's his beauty sleep. It's hard to tell sometimes. Tommy was so disappointed that he couldn't give away kittens, that I suspect he is going to start trying to let them loose in the woods.

Here's a red mouse to join July's scrappy rainbow challenge. Finding fabrics for red mouse took quite a while. Some reds start looking orange and, of course, value can be tricky given the slippery slope toward pink. The value can't be too dark or the mouse's black eyes and nose won't stick out--an important cuteness requirement.

Here is my contribution to Vicki W.'s HSTeria quilt along. The center square is 1.5 inches finished and the squares within the diagonal four-patch are half inch square finished. Omigosh, what was I thinking?