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!