Stitchin’ the Blues

Happy Saturday! I’d like to start out by wishing everyone (who celebrates) a Happy Easter or Passover (which ends tomorrow) or Ramadan (which isn’t for another week or so).... or whatever. Since it’s just Bruce and me here (no family gatherings yet), all we’re doing is having a bit of a fancy dinner on Sunday. Yeah, don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually going to fix an entire meal with all the fixin’s. I’ll try not to make a habit of it. 

It was a great week because we got to visit with our friend Terri for an hour or two. She was planning to be in the neighborhood, so we *finally* got to exchange Christmas gifts and birthday gifts from the last few months. We’re all fully vaccinated, and since it’s safe to meet with family and friends (and Terri qualifies as both), we got to talk and laugh and HUG! It was so awesome, and definitely a high point in our week.  

Also, Alfie and Darla got a great order from Chewy this week. After I unpacked the box, they got to play with their favorite item - the empty box!  But they loved their toys, too, and have been crazily playing with those as well. I also ordered and received compostable litter bags, so I never ever have to scrounge plastic bags again. YAY!! 

Another new month means we get another color of scraps to work with for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. To go along with our sunny blue spring skies, Angela has chosen light and bright blues for our April scrap color. Yay! I was almost afraid to go down into my studio for fear that those blue scraps had taken over!! 

Last week I showed you a quilt that I was going to try to squeeze in as a finish before the end of March. Well, I finished it just before dinner on the 31st, so I was able to chalk up 9 quilt finishes in March. It’s just another string quilt, with some solid green and yellow blocks (spring!) thrown in to calm it down a bit. Stipple quilting, usual 42x48” size. Labeled and added to the pile for Quilts for Kids. 

Then it was time to happily change gears from greens to blues. Lots of stuff here to keep me busy for April!  That dark blue/mixed blue pile in the picture below is the scraps from the scrap bin. I sorted out all the darks and put those away for another month. We’re just keeping it light and bright for now. Also, I put away the blue rain/umbrella fabric (extreme right) because that’s yardage and I can always work with that another time or use it as a backing. The large pieces of blue and brown letters (left top) and the blue solid on top of it were a 100% cotton curtain (lined) I bought at the thrift store a couple months ago. There’s enough there to back 4 quilts. 

First I decided to go through everything and divide the scraps into piles of like things. There will be a nautical quilt, a sock monkeys quilt, and a dinosaur (-ish) quilt of blues and browns. I had some smaller scraps of pink princesses on blue and some extra sock monkey fabric, so that’s where I started. After all, what goes better with princesses than sock monkeys? 

I had to pull in some other bits and squares from my stash, but this is what it looks like as I’m finally sewing the top together. It’s going to be called Princesses and Monkeys (or maybe The Princess and The Monkey - like a fable or something?)

I had some light blue string blocks in my stash, but not enough. So, the first thing I did for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge was to sew my light blue strings into more blocks. I made 18 blocks at 6.5” unfinished, and I forgot to get a picture. Dang! Anyway, six of them were added to the ones I already had for the quilt above, and the other dozen will hang out until called upon to serve. Princesses and Monkeys should finish up this week and I’ll start on one of the next quilts in between RSC blocks.

The light blue Momcat and her kittens showed up this week as well. You’ll notice that Momcat and one of her kittens are made of cat fabric!

In the Quilty Orphan Adoption event that Cynthia held last month, I was fortunate enough to win some 9-patch scraps. Here are the eleven 9.5” nine-patch blocks I won. I have plenty of fabrics to supplement these with (I’ve already pulled them, hehe). No fancy plans here - just make more blocks, sash them and sew them into a quilt.  I’d venture to guess that these fabrics are from the nineties through the aughts.

The real challenge is with the larger blocks that were the second part of the lot. These are 12.5” blocks and considerably older and uglier.  There were 14 blocks, but one I just had to throw away because it was stained in several places. The remaining 13 got separated into two groups of six each, with one leftover.

I ended up taking apart the two green and pink blocks in the left group and moved the pinks squares over to the pink/red/blue group on the right. The gold and red block at the bottom was also taken apart, with the gold staying with the left green/gold/brown group and the red moving to the red/pink/blue group. 

Then I pulled some fabric candidates for additional patches for each group. I think I can make enough supplemental blocks for each group, then “sash the hell” out of them (as Cousin Kim and I say...) and get two kids’ quilts as a result. As an alternative,  I’ve also considered making them into Disappearing 9-Patch blocks because making these disappear might be the kindest thing I could do! Stay tuned. It’s ugly, but it will be fun!

We spent one morning this week working out in the yard - cleaning garbage and leaves and debris. It was so good to move and stretch and feel the sunshine. We’ve also gone on some nice walks this week and even had our first Barnes & Noble coffee/book date in over a year! Life is good.