A Fabric Bomb Went Off...

On Monday morning, I was able to return to the estate sale mentioned in last week's post. The sale was over, the family had given their blessing to donating all the remaining fabric to Quilts for Kids, and I had a clean, empty vehicle to haul it all away with.  If I'm being honest, I was hoping there would be more of the Vast Fabulousness of Unbelievable Quantities of Quilting Cottons left. But beggars can't be choosers, as they say, and there ended up being more there than I initially thought. Luckily, after struggling up the stairs from the basement sewing room at the estate sale with my first hand-truck full of bags and bins, I had help from some kind gentlemen with the last two loads.  

When I got home, I had to cart it all downstairs to sort because Bruce is still under doctor's orders not to lift more than 10 pounds.  I wish I'd gotten better pictures, but this was the beginning of some of the sorting - dividing things by fabric type and by color.

QFK doesn't use holiday fabrics (Christmas, patriotic), nor do they use flannels for backs. Those were sorted out. Also, as I was packing up while still at the estate sale, I tried to filter out obvious pieces of clothing (possibly to be robbed for fabric?) and knits and bottom-weight cottons (canvas, duck). But there were still some of those in there as well. So, besides the keeper fabric, I had a thrift store pile and a pile for others (friends and other charities) to go through.

That was a happy occupation for Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday was our sewing day (me, Cousin Kim and Bonnae). After they were done with the flannels and holiday stuff, the remainders went into my thrift store pile or the QFK pile (flannel bolts for some members to take to other charities).  Anyway, after all was sorted, there were over 100 yards of usable cotton fabric (that's where I stopped counting) for QFK. Plus there was a box of large batting pieces to frankensew together, a large box into which I'd sorted just fabric strips, and a bagful of cut or cut/sewn quilt blocks that could make an additional four quilts.  A great haul at a great price - FREE!  I dropped it all off at my friend Sandy's house on Friday. She's the president of the Salt Lake Quilts for Kids, and the wife of my former boss Fred from back in the day when we both worked for the same health insurance company. Small world!

Now my back is out after all that lifting, and my right shoulder is just dead sore. I'm living on Advil and trying to take it easy. My annual mammogram was this week, too, and now I need to make an appointment for my annual physical. My guess is that I won't be scheduled in until October, but at that time I hope to see what can be done about my hands and arms and shoulder (carpal tunnel surgery? more arthritis meds? body transplant?)

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I did manage to get some sewing done on the rest of my purple Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks so that I could share them this morning with Angela's Scrappy Saturday linky party.

Six strip blocks; three at 9" and three at 6".

Two beachcomber crumb blocks (will finish at 11" each) and a row of purple bitcoins.

This coming week I plan to work on an International Sisters quilt/wall hanging for Harambe Humanitarian. It's my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for September. I've also been cutting out some orange and gray scraps to make an autumn wall hanging. More about that next week.

Finally, just to show you that some things never change....

Alfie appears to be resting up for the Big Party, but really he's just depressed. He heard that Smitty and Sadie would be passing through town. And since Alfie and Darla got some fresh new catnip this week, the cats had been planning a party together along with Molly and Buddy flying out from Oregon to join the festivities. However, it appears that Molly and Buddy have been put on the TSA no-fly list due to an unfortunate incident the last time they flew. No, the incident didn't go viral or even get widely reported, but there are TSA agents who may be scarred for life. The party is in dire jeopardy.