Goodbye Beautiful May, Hello June

It’s been a great week here in the Salt Lake Valley. I hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day. Ours was quiet, but nice and restful. 

Tuesday was a gorgeous day, sunny and bright. That is, until I changed into my swimsuit and coverup. The clouds came out to threaten, but I walked to the condo pool a block away anyway. The wind came up and all the cotton from the cottonwood trees began falling and swirling like snow. By the time I’d sat and talked with friends at the pool for about 15 minutes, the surface of the pool was entirely covered with cotton! But I wanted to get in anyway, so I did! I just splashed and cleared an area for me to immerse up to my neck and paddle around for a few minutes. Then I called it good, got out and dried off, donned my shorts and coverup and walked home with the friends. Two hours later, the sun was out again and the cottony wind abated. I hope my next pool foray will be more successful, hehe. My friend Karen said it took her two hours to clean/skim the pool when I saw her later that evening as I was out walking. 

On Wednesday, Bruce and I drove up to Ogden to visit my friend Pat and her husband Eddie. I hadn’t seen them for about 8 years, and Bruce had never met them. Pat had a load of fabric to pawn off donate to me and Quilts for Kids, my friends or whomever could use it. The fabric, in a half dozen almost full tubs, came from her twin sister who no longer quilts due to health issues. 

L-R: Bruce, Cathy (me), Pat, Eddie

So, on Thursday, my friend Ruby came over and we spent about four and a half hours sorting through the fabric. My plan was that anything I took for myself would be primarily things that would work as quilt backs for my kids quilts, or small scraps in colors I was getting low on. I also ended up keeping a quilt that just needs to be trimmed and bound (and donated), a set of blocks ready to be sewn together, and green scraps that may potentially match a quilt I’m planning for another friend (story on that to come in a couple weeks). Oh, and fabrics for more potential kennel quilts. But my storage space here is limited. So, for everything I do end up keeping, the plan is to remove from my existing stash (and donate to QFK) an equal or greater amount of fabric. 

Ruby took several in-process quilt tops and block sets that were clearly not intended for kids. She also took some yardage and lots of precut squares in sizes from 2.5” to 10”. I had recently shown her an easy way to make 4 half-square triangles from 2 blocks of equal size, so she wanted to match up some of the squares to try that method out. She’ll take what will work and return the rest so they can be passed on. When her stuff was taken home, I snapped this picture of the remaining fabric. Down to 3 tubs and a few piles! 

Much of the fabric is too dark or too thin or just wrong for kids quilts. That’s what those three tubs in the foreground are. Cousin Kim will go through those on Sunday, then the remaining fabric, probably 2-3 tubs full, will be donated to my friend Bernadette who works with several other quilting charity quilt groups, like Project Linus, guilds who make placemats for Meals on Wheels, retirement homes and the like. No scrap left behind!!

So anyway, I haven’t made a start on my June Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks yet. Angela has called blue for June. We usually divide blue into two months; darks/brights one month and lighter blues another month. But this year Angela wants us to just go for it with all the blues together and I’m up for the challenge! I did get my blue scraps all sorted and made a list of all the blocks I need to sew in June, so I’m ready to jump in with both feet!

I did finish up the last of my pink scraps and made eleven crumb blocks that will finish at 6”.

I also sewed up a column of pink scraps. Here are the five columns I have made so far this year.

I’m going to sew two blue columns this month, and the width of at least one of them will be a couple inches wider for size variety. 

Here’s a recent pic I snapped of the brilliant red of our Japanese maple, the green of the other landscaping and the blue of the sky. 

And one picture taken as I looked up, mesmerized. 

What can I say? I love color. And so do all the quilters who participate in Scrappy Saturday and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So why not follow the link and come check it out? Until next week, be safe and be happy!