Sew Much Fun!

Last Saturday, we  had a “double header” with family. On Saturday morning, we went to son Ryan and DIL Kim’s house to visit with Grandson Easton, who was home for 3 days over the Independence Day holiday. You may remember that Easton is in the Navy, stationed as an officer in South Carolina studying Nuclear Engineering. We had a lovely couple hours over brunch. The only picture I managed to get between all the laughing, talking and eating was this one of Easton with their family cat, Emmett. They have one other fluffy elderly cat named Bella, but she was in hiding.

Then in the late afternoon we took my other son, Shane, and granddaughter London out to dinner to celebrate Shane’s birthday. Shane’s pick is always Red Lobster. London is on the brink of becoming a teenager, but she and grandpa Bruce still have a lobster naming tradition to maintain. The restaurant has a tank of live lobsters. But none of us chose Levi Lobster or any of his friends this year. After eating, we came back to the house and checked out the garden. Our blackberries are ripening, and there were several ready to munch on. Yummy! 

On Monday I harvested all my snap peas. The only reason they lasted this long is because we had a cool, wet spring. We’ve been enjoying them in stir-fry’s and as snacks. I also harvested the last of my rhubarb and have chopped and frozen it to make compote later (and possibly a rhubarb-blackberry pie!)

So this week I really dug in to reduce my purple fabric scraps since purple is July’s color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I found a purple scrap that I’m absolutely nuts about and made two elephants. I may have to keep this pair, because I love them so much! I can always figure out something to do with them later, like a wall hanging.

I’ll be making at least a half dozen more elephants next week. Next I decided to knock back all the strings. First up for those were 12 bullseye courthouse blocks:

After I made these, I quickly made two more of these blocks in red, so that I’d have enough to combine the red, purple and pink courthouse blocks for a flimsy. Here they are slapped up on the design board. I was tickled that the colors worked out so well for alternating dark/light blocks as well as consistent diagonal color stripes.

These blocks finish at about 7” each (-ish), so I may need to add a border along the sides. I’d love to find a print that combines the three colors, but that’s not likely to happen. And I haven't even thought about a backing yet.

Speaking of backings, that reminds me of a wonderful box of scraps and yardage that I received this week from my friend Nann. She often comes upon great sales, thrifting deals and fabric destashes and makes it a regular practice to “share the love” with some of her quilty friends.

So these are some of the treasure Nann gifted to me. She knows about my sewing for Quilts for Kids, so there were many kid themed backings, yard and half-yard cuts and generous scraps. In fact, many of those scraps pictured in the bottom right of the collage picture have already been cut up into Zipper block pieces for QFK quilt kits. Thank you for your generosity, Nann! Your gift will help me (and others) to help comfort kids in need.

Now let’s get back to our regularly-scheduled scrappiness, because I’m not done yet. It was another HOT week, so There was a lot of time spent in my cool sewing studio. In fact, I cleared out all my purple strings. First, I made these rich purple string blocks (6.5”, unfinished size). 

After I photographed these 25, I sewed two more. That gave me 27, which when combined with the 3 purple blocks I had left over from last year, were enough to make two 15-block kits to be used with a print fabric for a QFK kit. I love that I can pass on the blocks in 15-count batches and they get paired up with other cut fabric blocks into a patchwork kit for members to sew into a quilt.

The pastel purple strings were handled separately this year. I divided them into red-purples and blue-purples and made four blocks. I tried to make them the same so they could be laid out in a pattern like this. I don’t know why I did it, but it was a fun exercise. Here they are with the blue-purple to the center.

Then I rotated them so the red-purple was in the center. If these blocks look funny, it’s because the paper backings are still attached. 

So, that was fun, and I did four more in a similar vein. But then things fell apart because there just weren’t enough scraps to continue playing that game. So, I just finished up the rest of the 15 blocks with a mix of the warm and cool strings.

The final project for the week was to take these scraps 

and sew them into this quilt top:

Do I love it? No. Will it suffice? Yep. And it is square (straight), even though it looks wonky pinned up on the design board. The purple and orange check print will be on the back, along with another remnant of fabric. I’ll show it next week when it’s finished.

My goals next week are to have at least two kids’ quilts finished, plus a half dozen elephant blocks and  the bow tie blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (Purple July continues!) 

Have a good week, friends. I’m off to the garden to smother squash bug eggs in Vaseline. The fun never ends here!