Yellow (Fabric) Journalism

Around here, we love to read. Every evening we each curl up with our reading material of choice (mostly ebooks because we can make the print larger), but sometimes regular print books, magazines, or our e-subscription to The Washington Post. And sometimes, during the day, I even SEW on books. That was the case this week when I made the yellow bookshelf (5, 12” blocks) for my Rainbow Bookcase.

Here are 4 shots, going from left to right (the way we read) of the yellow bookshelf. I think you can click on them to make them bigger.

In this first, left-most shot, you can see some old favorites, “Walk in the Park” and “Flowers are Happy Things”. But look! There’s a Cosmopolitan magazine. And how about that large “Juggling Summer” book? The birdie is hiding on the left side of the book, out of sight. You will soon see why.

Moving along to the right, we can see “Animal Quackers” and a globe, my own wacky pattern. I regret not tilting the globe, but obviously my left brain took over there. The globe is sitting on “My Universe”.

Aha!! Now we see why the bird was hiding. There’s a cat hiding behind the stack of cat (and other) books. After he is done knocking the books off the shelf (a trick he probably learned from Molly), he will probably nap. I think the bird is safe.

And finally, the last of the books on the shelf; poetry, “Li’l Rascals”, and “Madrona Road”, among other best sellers. LOL.

I have always planned to use plain gray to make the shelves and bookcase border, and to find a book-themed print fabric for the back of the quilt. Those plans changed on Friday, and  later in the post you will see why. Anyway, below is a shot of the yellow shelf with last month’s green shelf. Those are 60” wide (plus seam allowance) rows.

In other RSC sewing, here are my 16 Plus blocks. These do not excite me at all, and I am thinking of either setting them on point or mixing with another block (like some rails) to jazz them up. But I think I’ll get through all the colors first before deciding....

I’m linking up to Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Saturday. We would love for you to join us or just stop by for a great fix of eye candy!

This week I finished quilting my Stars and Stripes Quilt. It finished at 62x70”.  This is my 13th quilt finish so far this year.

Here is the pieced back.

I also sewed the remaining four crayons for my crayon quilt; 2 blues, orange and pink. My goal is to finish this one off during the coming week.

I’ve always been a fan of local fabric designer (and son of tole painter Donna Dewberry), JOEL DEWBERRY. Two years ago I was able to accompany the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild (I’m no longer a member) and visit his home to purchase his fabrics at steeply discounted prices.  Last year, I believe he was in the middle of building his new home and they did not have a sale. This year, he made the announcement of his annual sale on Instagram, so cousin Kim and I went today. I’m not kidding you when I say that these are bargain basement prices. The fabric ranged from $1 to $6 per yard; and the more expensive were the home dec weights.

Here is what I got.  First picture; these are my 5-yard cuts (except the pink, which was 4 yards).  That gray wood grain on the left is the new “shelving” and backing for my bookshelf quilt! The print on the left (along with 3 from the next picture) will become an Arizona-themed quilt for my DSIL and DBIL, another of Bruce’s siblings. The two pinks are a planned quilt for a friend, along with the green in the next picture.

These fabrics are all 2-yard cuts, except the 1 yard of gold.  Total: 28 yards of fabric.

My cost? You’d think it would easily be over $200, or at least over $100. It wasn’t. It averaged $3.50 per yard, so you do the math.....  (PS - Kim bought 8 yards for $16).

What a fun week!  My flower pots are all planted and Bruce has run the drip irrigation to them. They are absolutely loving the warm hot weather.  Today I`m going out before it gets too hot to work in the yard. I’ve got roses to deadhead and our front rock parkway to rid of weeds. Then I’ll make a strawberry-rhubarb pie with our garden rhubarb. And the rest of the weekend is sew, sew, sew. Life is good!