Deep Blue Sewing

Last Saturday I attended another fun meeting of volunteers for Quilts for Kids here in Salt Lake. It was held at a new-to-me fabric/quilting and scrapbooking store called Heartfelt Crafts. They had lots of fabric, but I didn’t take the time to look. Not because I’m being frugal or anything, but because that is going to deserve a separate, dedicated trip there to explore. It will happen soon. At the QFK meeting, I quilted one youth-sized quilt on my Bernina 550QE. Those of you who’ve been following me for awhile know that I’ve named my Bernina machine “Bernadette”. Well, I was having some thread issues and asked Bernadette to please behave herself, forgetting that one of our volunteers is named Bernadette too! We got a good laugh at that, but I’ll just have to remember to not talk to my machine in public!

My primary stitching this week was sewing up blue Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. Our color for June, mid to dark blues, is keeping me hopping. But I got the rest of them all whipped out this week.

First I did three 9” string blocks. This completes 32 of the 42 I need. 

Next came the International Sisters Blocks. I sewed all 8 of these blue Sisters. Half will be for my uses, and half will be for Harambe Humanitarian quilt purposes. That’s why you will see twins of many blocks as I go through the colors to make these.

I also went back to the color orange and sewed some more orange Sisters, and here is the whole group together, having a meeting. I could sew these blocks all day long!!

After all those blocks, my blue scraps were down to bits and partially-sewn pieces, and lots of leftover blue HSTs (half-square triangles) from my Good Fortune Quilt. So, I tackled those first, and out of all those HSTs came these 4 blocks.

They measure about 8.5” each, and will go into the Parts Department until a use comes up for them in a scrappy leftovers donation quilt!

Next up was the crumbs. To me, it’s just so therapeutic to feed in the little pieces, matching sizes and chaining them one after another. Then pressing, trimming, and repeating the entire process until blocks emerge. My goal was go get some 5.5” crumb blocks (in pairs) done and some 4.5” crumb blocks.

There is no immediate plan for the 4.5” crumb blocks, but they may become the center square of future scrappy star blocks. However, there is a plan for the 5.5” crumb blocks. But first, let me show you what emerged.  Eight 5.5” blocks and six 4.5” blocks.

The 5.5” crumb blocks are being sewn into a block that I’m calling Beachcomber. It is based on the blocks in a quilt called Beach Retreat by Kelly of My Quilt Infatuation. Now, I didn’t buy her pattern, so I don’t know how closely my blocks match hers in size. I just liked what I saw on Pinterest and figured out what I want to do. Here are my 4 blue Beachcomber blocks PLUS a column of bitcoins thrown in.

It’s hard to see the white borders on the sides of the blue crumbs because the pictures I take with my little Canon camera are awful. My iPhone does a better job and I should use that instead. (Mental note made).  I went back and sewed up my orange 5.5” crumb blocks into Beachcomber blocks too, and here is what they look like together so far. Each block will finish at 11” square, and this is the new RSC project that I’m working on with my crumbs.

My crumb project from the last couple years, which were first just 6.5” crumb blocks in 2018, and were sewn into 13” Crumbcake blocks in 2018-19, is almost a finished flimsy.  Here is my progress so far. Only the bottom three rows are sewn; the top three are just pinned. I start from the bottom row and work up so that I can let the finished part hang down below the limited space of the design board.

This coming week my goal is to get the Crumbcakes top done, sandwiched, quilted and bound. In other words, finished. And blogged and laundered. I also want to finish the background layer of the bicycle wallhanging. The month-end and quarter-end are coming quickly. And my son Shane has a birthday next weekend (OMG - he will be FORTY!), so there are things to prep for that, too. Yesterday the weather didn’t even break the sixties, so I’m hoping it warms up and we can have a good old fun summer starting soon!

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Saturday at Angela’s blog.