My Studio is No Longer the Emerald City

Once upon a time, about four weeks ago or so, my studio looked like the Emerald City. Like Kermit the Frog had exploded, like a giant Chia Pet had blossomed, like...... oh, you get the idea. That was when I first took out my green fabric and green scraps and green selvages and green sheets and began to work them into sewing projects. Now things are back to normal, the scraps are GONE and the greens blocks have found their places among my works in progress. Here is a collage of this month’s green goodness:

From the top, across:
30 Bow tie blocks (4”)
25 Friendship Star Variation blocks (6”)
16 Plus blocks (6”)

Middle Row:
2 Crayon blocks
2 Selvage columns (although they are turned on their sides and look like rows)
8 Strip blocks, which will be sewn into 2 16” blocks

Bottom Row: 5 Bookshelf blocks (12”).
Not Shown: 2 Geese Migration blocks

In addition to those, I used up all my itty bitty scraps and sewed them into 4 slabs, which then became part of the 9 kennel quilts and one dog bed that I made for Best Friends Animal Shelter this month. Total green blocks for May: 94

Here are six of the kennel quilts using up the various green scraps. They mostly have some donated gold starred fabric on back. Again, these are various sizes, ranging from 12x18” up to about 18x24”. Luckily the animal shelter uses all sizes.

And then here are more three quilts  below; one is turned over so you can see the green starred flannel backing. Those are some old vintage sheet blocks and some kitty fabric (always on the lookout for kitty fabric at good prices) for the other two. I also made another doggie bed from scraps, but didn’t get a picture. However it looks just like the floral one from last month, which you can see in the collage in the post here. So, all told, I took 19 quilts and 3 dog beds to Best Friends this week. That is as much as I took the whole first quarter, so I am getting faster.

And speaking of quilts for animals, one of our local quilt shops had a great sale with 50-75% of tons of bolts of fabric. Even though I arrived within an hour of opening, the lines were already long. But that was OK; everyone was friendly and we chattered a lot in line. I happened to be behind a lovely woman named Jannis. Naturally, everyone talked about what we planned to do with the fabrics, and I mentioned that, among other things, I sew kennel quilts for Best Friends. Turns out, Jannis is another true animal lover. Long story short, as she and her friend finished checking out ahead of me, Jannis generously handed me a cash donation to use toward the kennel quilts (very generous, I might add). I was blown away, and insisted we exchange information so I could send her pictures of what I buy and make with the donation. Or shall I just pass it on directly to Best Friends? Or a little of both? Anyway, here’s a shout-out to Jannis! Thank you once again!!  We are having the Utah Shop Hop next week, and I think I will be looking for bargain kitty and/or doggie themed fabrics to add to my scraps for kennel quilts. I will plan another donation trip to Best Friends at the end of June with whatever I make from those purchases.

In other news this week:



*** I read on Pinterest that vinegar makes a good weed killer, and I can tell you that it’s true! Cheap and non-toxic. I bought a couple gallons and used a sprinkling can to kill off all the weeds growing in our fallow garden beds this year. Easy Peasy.

*** My 92-year-old Uncle Bela (the last surviving member of his generation in my family) died this week. I am so glad I got to spend some quality time with him in 2015 (blogged about HERE).

*** Those darling Mothers Day flowers that I got last week (that looked like a cat) dried out and began looking troll-ish. So, I replaced the “cat” with roses from my garden.....



Finally, my little munchkins Alfie and Darla celebrated their 4th birthday this weekend. They pretended to be mad that I didn’t bake them a cake, but I know it’s not true. Neither one of them will EVER eat any kind of table scraps - not tuna, not chicken, nothing. So here is how they spent their day:

L: Alfie can’t keep his leg still when he gets excited   R: Darla sleeps

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday,