Finally - Some Sewing Time!

Oh my gosh, I have missed my time at the sewing machine! Not just a few random minutes here and there, but several hours of uninterrupted sewing, cutting, pressing, organizing scraps and planning. And it finally happened this week! It was so much fun; relaxing with music and no commitments over my head. I had two whole afternoons this week to sew, along with the usual sporadic bursts of time. 

First I sewed up all my green strings into 20 blocks of 6.5”, unfinished. I forgot to take a picture of them all laid out, but that’s OK. All through the year as I’ve been sewing string blocks, I’ve said I didn’t have plans yet for them. Finally, I just decided to once again - because I’ve done this in years past - safety pin them in batches of 15 for Quilts for Kids. They match them with fifteen other 6.5” fabric blocks, and put together kits with fabric for two borders. They’re actually fairly popular with some of our chapter members when they’re available. But I digress.

So, here they are with the other batches of 15 blocks per color that I matched up. I’ll donate them at our October QFK workshop. There are 120 blocks total, representing most of the string blocks made this year. Except the white/cream ones; they were left over from last year. For the other colors, I guess there weren’t enough to make a 15-block set.

Next I decided to organize my brown scraps. I cut lots of strips in 3” for a project I’m mulling over, as well as 2 ½” strips. I pulled out 2” strips for zipper blocks if they were long enough, but otherwise they went into my string pile. Take a look. The tomato pincushion is for scale.

Sewing brown string blocks will be my project for the coming week. That is, after I finish up the It’s a Jungle Out There top, which only needs two more seams.

The rest of the checkerboard blocks are sewn together and just need to be attached after another black horizontal strip. I just ran out of steam yesterday. But here they are, pinned up to the design board for this afternoon’s sewing session!

****************

Our neighbor Andy came over on Wednesday morning and painted our accent wall. It took us longer to tape it off than it did for him to paint it. It looks wonderful and is what I was aiming for. 

Anyway, the furniture is back in place and I’m on the hunt for wall things. I’ve pretty much decided to move in our big living room clock over the couch, but I still need a nice floor lamp and some plants. So the before and after pictures will wait until that’s done. Maybe I should stop sewing and start shopping, LOL. But I will show a couple little vignettes of the remodel.

Counter corner with charcuterie board and fruit bowl.

This dining area window with new shutters looks out onto the courtyard. The little table was gifted to me by my friend Maureen. One of the extra dining chairs resides here when not in use.

It was a relatively quiet week except for the wall painting and the housekeeper doing a deep post-remodel cleaning. Bruce even worked on the cabinet he’s assembling for the office nook in our bedroom and I cleaned and reorganized the garage of packing boxes and garden stuff. We’re getting ready for the coming cold months. 

I still have to get a plumber in here to move the stop-and-waste valve from the crawl space up to the main level. My car needs servicing this week, we have dentist appointments. But for fun, we’re taking a drive in the mountains (in a convertible!) to see the fall color and have a picnic with friends. Life is good!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Autumn Arrives, Thank Goodness

Here in the Salt Lake Valley, we’ve had a nice cooling down as autumn takes charge. Those miserable days of 100+ temperatures (Fahrenheit) are just a memory. The days now are pleasant and the evenings are coolish. We plan to get out in the courtyard to put away furniture, cover the barbecue, and pull the annuals. Also, the contractors have finished the kitchen remodel and are no longer using the garage as a staging area and/or workplace for painting or cutting things. So we’ll also take time today to reorganize the garage and find storage for the leftover materials like flooring and tile. And now that all my china and cookie jars are unpacked and displayed, we will knock down all the packing boxes to store some of them and recycle others. 

I’m not ready yet to show Before and After pictures of the remodel, because one accent wall has to be repainted. After all the paint samples I got and weeded down and fretted over, I ended up going way off base. The color is too light and has yellow undertones. Totally my fault. My friend Joan has a guest bedroom with the best sage green walls, so I picked up more paint samples, went to her house, and I was able to match the exact shade. Turns out it was Sherwin-Williams Sage. How it got eliminated before, I don’t know. Our neighbor Andy has volunteered to paint the wall for us - he enjoys painting and helping others. I’m going to swallow my pride and take him up on it. 

I need to get cortisone shots in my right shoulder again, which I regularly do about every 8-9 months. If I like how the accent wall turns out - and I know I will - I can paint the little entry wall in October with a decent shoulder. 

So, at least I have quilting/sewing things to post this weekend, unlike last week. I did attend a Quilts for Kids workshop last weekend and taught another volunteer how to piece string blocks. It was good to see old friends after our summer break! Now that the cooler weather is starting, I’m feeling a powerful (nesting?) urge to sew. This past week I was also able to make 4 batches of jam in two mornings: two raspberry, one peach (that didn’t set and is now “peach sauce”) and one raspberry-peach. 

Oops, I got off on a tangent there! So let’s check out the green scrap blocks I did this week. As a refresher, I’m focusing on browns and greens this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. We only had one green month in January of this year, and green is one of my biggest scrap colors. So, I’ve opted to do more green to complete needed blocks for this year’s planned RSC quilts. In October I’ll focus on black and gray. 

First I completed two more 12” (finished size) Scrappy Star blocks. One is light, one is bright. 

Here’s a photo of the two new green blocks matched up with their brethren from January, olive and dark.

I now have 19 out of 20 blocks complete. Next month I’ll do a final block in blacks/grays. 

Here are three more Color Sticks blocks. 

I’m working on green string blocks for next week, in hopes of making some discernable progress with green scraps. Oh, green! In my scraps, on my walls, in my eyes! I love green!! It’s also my brother’s favorite color!

My friend Nann sent me some batik Scraps (thanks, Nann!), and I’ve been busy this week sorting them into colors and sizes for cutting. I’m going to match them up with more of my African fabrics (both my own and those from my friend Wanda) to make another quilt for myself kinda-sorta like the It’s a Jungle Out There quilt (see 2 posts ago). There was no progress on that this week. But I do plan to make a concerted effort to work on it this week because it’s for my doctor who’s retiring and (see above) I need those cortisone shots. THAT will light a fire under my butt!

Couldn’t resist sharing this campaign sign I saw. Yeah, I’m a crazy cat lady and proud of it! Besides, the cat looks just like our Darla!!

My finger (rotary cutter accident) is mostly healed and doing well. Bruce is doing great, and life is good! See y’all next week or on YOUR blog! 

September to Remember?

This has already been an eventful September, one I’m sure will stay with me for the rest of my life. And we’re just hitting the first week mark! But I’m doggedly remaining cheerful (if not naive) as I work through this. Do you remember an old musical (and book) called “Stop the World - I Want to Get Off”? (1961). I was only a little kid when it came out and I never did see it, but the title has always stuck with me. It pops into my head now and then when the going gets rough. But I’ll share more about the ups and downs this week at the end of the post. That way, it’ll spare those of you who are just here for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks. 

September’s colors for the RSC are dark neutrals. I believe next month may (or may not) be the same, but regardless, I will be working on them for two months. There’s brown, black and gray scraps that are threatening to take over my sewing room. In addition, I need more time to work on my green scraps this year. Usually we devote 2 months each to the greens and the blues, but when we did greens in January, I was getting the old house ready to put on the market and did not do justice to my scraps. So, in September I hope to focus on brown and green, and then in October I’ll focus on black and gray. At least, that’s the plan. 

So here are the three blocks in brown that I sewed up *last* month, when I mistakenly started on the wrong color!

Two Color Sticks blocks (pattern by Cynthia Brunz)

And one Scrappy Star Block (courtesy Julie’s Quilts and Costumes)

All the blocks for the It’s a Jungle Out There quilt top are now sewn. I’m beginning to sew them together and will try again this week to finish the top. But this past week was a real sewing bust for me as I had an accident involving a rotary cutter.

Sometimes the plates we’re spinning or the balls we’re juggling just come crashing down and we have to rethink what and how much we are doing. It’s a recurring issue for me, taking on too much, getting overwhelmed, crashing and burning (figuratively speaking), then rinse and repeat. So, on Sunday, while Kim and Ruby and I were sewing and cutting fabric, listening to music, gabbing and laughing, I sliced the tip of my left index finger and fingernail off with a rotary cutter. Not paying enough attention. Being too much Tigger and not enough Owl. 

They took me to the Instacare where the doctor was able to get the finger to stop bleeding. Then it got cleaned and bandaged (nothing to sew back together as it was gone) and I was sent home. The fingertip will grow back. My self-confidence may not. It’s going to be a slow, deliberate process.

And then came The Intervention. Kim, Bruce and Ruby kindly lectured me to take on less responsibility, relax more, pay attention/be more mindful in the present. And they are right. I’ve given my notice to the HOA Board that I’ll not be running for an office in November. I will make more time to relax and do things I enjoy. I will no longer multi-task (talking on the phone while cooking, laughing and joking when I’m rotary cutting, daydreaming when I use my curling iron on my hair). Paying attention to what I’m doing. What a concept! 

***************

Only minor progress on the kitchen this week. The flooring (baseboard) trim was installed. The painting begins on Monday. The hood fan was never ordered from the manufacturer by the supplier we bought it from…they had a change of management and it fell through the cracks. But our general contractor got on it and they put a rush on it, so it should arrive and be installed sometime between Wednesday and Thursday of next week if all goes according to plan. This was the first real glitch in the process (well, other than Bruce and I getting Covid and having to postpone everything for a week). 

Bruce had two visits to the VA hospital this week - various clinics there - as part of the screening and exam process for getting benefits. Eventually. And he has two more next week - one at the VA, and one at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. I’m trying to get him to eat without being reminded and to eat high protein foods as his doctors have stressed. He’s getting better about it, because I told him I will not babysit his food intake. And he feels lousy when he doesn’t eat enough and/or properly. Cause and effect. Duh.

The kitties had to go to the vet yesterday, and since Bruce had his own doctor appointment, I had to take them myself. It was an epic battle. The cats managed to open the bathroom door (where I had them stashed while I got ready). I have no idea how they did it. Then I caught Alfie again and put him in their carrier in the back bedroom while I hunted (chased) Darla. When I got her and took her into the back bedroom, the carrier was empty and Alfie had busted out of the carrier, which was heavy duty plastic and made for two cats. There were eight locking clips that he managed to thwart! I found him hiding under a bookcase and eventually got them both into the carrier securely. Talk about Little Rascals! I couldn’t use the carrier handle to transport them, but rather had to pick the whole da** thing up by the bottom and wrestle it into the car. Smooth sailing from there. They got their exams and shots and clean bills of health. But we have to buy two new individual carriers. Oh, and change Alfalfa’s name to Houdini. 

Today I’m going to make a couple batches of raspberry and raspberry-peach freezer jam. My son Ryan and daughter-in-law Kim are coming over for dinner tonight. It’s a belated birthday celebration for her as she was in Italy last month for her birthday, and we had Covid. Should be fun! Then the rest of the weekend will be devoted to relaxing and sewing. Life is good, especially when you pay attention!