Happy Summer Days

Happy Saturday!  

The International Sisters quilt, which I dearly love, is finally finished and photographed! When my friend Ruby was over to sew last weekend (along with Cousin Kim), she happily agreed to be my quilt holder. She is way taller than Kim or me, and has one more arm than Bruce (wink). 

Without further ado, here are the “glamour” shots … and I use that term verrrrrry loosely. 

It was necessary to take the photos in the shade of a tree, so correcting the color to warm up the “blue” shade hopefully presents a more accurate color depiction. And if not, I think our brains can adapt. 

International Sisters is a free pattern drafted by my friend Preeti, who with permission from the original maker of a block called African Queen, used her talent to bring this lovely maiden to the masses. You can find Preeti’s post HERE.

The block name of International Sister was suggested by me, and Preeti thought it was a good fit. She had used so many varied fabrics for dresses, hats and skin tones, that these lovely ladies can easily represent our friends and sisters worldwide. In fact, as I was making these blocks, I named most of them. Names like Malala, Rosa, Coretta, Greta, Winnie. Come to think of it, Preeti and I are in there too. Hint: we’re the “twins” sporting Kaffe fabric.

Preeti also had several extra blocks with gray background colors that we both felt detracted from the Sisters. So when she sent those blocks to me, I carefully unpicked them and restitched them with the consistent Kona White I had been using. So my Sisters and some of Preeti’s Sisters are all chilling together. That makes me very happy!

Several of the Sisters are wearing African fabrics, and several are dressed in fabric donated by friends (thanks, Sally!) I quilted the white sections in a smaller stipple. The dresses were each quilted uniquely, and less densely to allow them to pop a bit. I had several close-up photos of some of the dresses, but they’ve disappeared from my photo gallery, so dang.  Finished size is 56x70”.

Here’s the back. These were some of the fabrics I bought while I was in Kenya about five years ago (at the same time Barack Obama was there!). I’d been saving it specifically for this quilt back. 

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My sewing focus this week was on beating back my red strips. To that end, I sewed 54 red string blocks that will finish at 6”. 

In the bottom right corner are the blocks left over from last year, so I will have enough blocks total to put together four 15-block bundles for our Quilts for Kids kit assemblers to pair with other fabrics. 

Speaking of Quilts for Kids, our workshop last Saturday was so delightful. I can’t tell you how many sweet friends came up to tell me how “cute” and skinny I looked. And then when I went to the Nordstrom Anniversary sale, the sweet young personal stylist helping me kept saying “cute” too. Of course, she gets paid to be nice, right? But it made me wonder if “cute” is code for “sweet little old lady”. LOL. Oh, and it was near tear-inducing when I kept having to size down in the clothes I tried on. I now have a beautiful basic wool blazer in a single-digit size!  

Next week I’ll recap my July weight loss highlights, goals, medical benefits and, well, we’ll see…

But getting back to red, the July color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I also completed the top of my Red Ribbons quilt (a free pattern from Jordan Fabrics). It is perfectly square and flat, although pinning it to the design board (sideways) tends to distort it and make it look wonky. It’s not!

The backing is prepped, and I hope to spend today in a quilt-basting frenzy! There are at least 7 quilt tops that need to get layered up, and I’m going to put on some upbeat dancing music and see how many I can knock out in one afternoon! Wish you could be here joining in the fun!