Adiós y Vaya con Dios

I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand

Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand

Life is good today, life is good today

From “Toes” by Zac Brown Band (2006) 

Ah yes, that’s been my theme song this week. The mood sums up how I feel about the new Administration, but the title of this blogpost (and the most remembered line of that same song) is probably way more charitable than I’d care to be with the fat orange guy. Anyway, wasn’t Amanda Gorman’s poetic recitation at the Inauguration just amazing? It gives me chills that someone so young can craft words that evoke powerful images and send chills up my spine. 

Well, the new Administration is off to a running start, and I’m about ready to stop running with pink and finish up. It’s all good. This is what I got accomplished this week.

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC), I finished up my last two pink quilts that are child donation quilts for Quilts for Kids. That’s makes my total 6 for Pink January, and I am DONE (done, I say!) with pink quilts for this year! 

This quilt of 6” string blocks and other miscellaneous 6” blocks (or pieces of fabric) finished at 42x48”. I quilted it in hooks and swirls.

The backing and binding were from a chunk of yardage that my friend Angie sent me last fall. They are cute little dolls that would’ve made a cute quilt in their own right, but I was well and truly running out of backing fabric!

And the final pink quilt was made from 4” squares (finished) along with some solid pinks for accent. This quilt measures 40x48” and was quilted with vine-y loops. 

As I mentioned, I was running out of backing fabric possibilities, so this was a real hodgepodge of three width-of-fabric bits I had left.

And the other pink sewing was just re-doing some of these square-in-a-square blocks (and adding a few) so that I had 16 edged in white and 16 edged in black. They measure 4.5” in their unfinished state. Originally I had started with 25 white ones. But I have way more black scraps, so after a bit of unpicking and some additional sewing, I feel that these have more potential as I move forward with other colors.

As usual, I’m linking up all my scrappy pinkness to the Scrappy Saturday post at Angela’s blog. Come see how others in the RSC are whipping their pink scraps into shape!

I am working on a table topper to join in the Table Scraps Challenge, which we will reveal next Saturday. But all I’m going to show you is a little peek. It does have a bit of pink shirting in it, as you can see. The full reveal will be next Saturday (after it’s quilted and bound). 

You may recall that last week I showed my center block for the Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR). I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate.

Well, the first border was called by Chris and it was piano keys. How could I resist? Yep, I got sucked in. First, I sewed a 1” green stop border around the center block, then added 1.5x2.5” piano keys. I also wanted to add more of the third color (a salmon that you can see in the two green floral prints) so it wouldn’t get lost. They became 2.5” cornerstones. 

The block now measures 18.5”, which may be a little large at this stage of the game. But I can always skip a round or alter/downsize a round, so there’s that. I’m sure this will end up as a gift quilt anyway, because it’s so far a bit too matchy-matchy. But we’ll see where it goes! I’m going to link up to the SAHRR Round 2 Linky Party. 

And finally, I sewed three more of these Wishing Ring blocks from the floral fabric for a total of four blocks. I’ll just sew these until I run out of fabric, then add soft-colored blocks as well. No plans other than to just enjoy the process.

In the coming week I hope to baste and quilt my Zipper quilt so I can count is as a January finish. And if there’s time, I may do another (NOT PINK) kid quilt for Quilts for Kids. I’ve got to go make a delivery of quilts to them because I have about 14 quilts here that I’ve made (and some that I’ve just quilted for others) and I’m out of labels. 

Have a good week, and be safe out there! The virus is still raging. Let’s just sew!!!