Running Hot, Cold and In Circles

This week I have a cool blue quilt finish that hasn’t been shared here before, the weekly progress on my hot-colored quilt top for the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR), and some news (read: whining) about the beginning of the seasonal onslaught of HOA work. 

Let’s start with the blues. No, I’m not going to sing for you. you’re welcome. Blue is the February color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This week I completed the string blocks - 60 of them. Four groups of 15 for Quilts for Kids. The “cools” referred to in the blog title

The blocks are 6.5” square. I love making string blocks, and there is more of that planned for later in the month.

This week I also finished a quilt from scraps I obtained last year. At the 2024 World Wide Quilt Day festivities held here in the Salt Lake Valley at the Sandy Senior Center, they were distributing quilt “kits” made of miscellaneous scraps that were semi-color-coordinated. You had to sign up to take a kit and every kit had a number. They retained a picture of the scraps so that they could verify that you used most of the scraps. We were also free to add our own scraps. The challenge was to use the scraps in a quilt, of any design, and ultimately donate it to charity. Easy Peasy. I do that all the time with my scraps and Quilts for Kids. 

But. (You knew that was coming, eh?). The kit looked charming on the outside, but some of the pieces were totally gag-worthy. Also, two long strips I was given had the selvage edge and little holes (you know, from the reels during the printing process) along the length of them. After trimming that off, about half the length was unusable for a 3.5” width, the minimum piece size I needed. (Clear as mud?) but I included it, along with a couple questionable gray pieces and teal pieces. I added the white and the navy. Here’s what I can up with. 

What drew me to this kit was the cute dolphin fabric and the bright blue water fabric. but the stripey stuff was a challenge. Anyway, the pattern I originally drafted was for 10” (finished) squares, but I had to reduce them to 8” to accommodate the scrap sizes. The individual block pieces are cut: center white strip of 2.5x8.5”, and two side strips composed of a 3.5” square and a rectangle of 3.5”x5.5” pieces. The colored side pieces are flipped on either side of the center white strip. When sewn, it makes the 8.5” square. When the blocks are sewn, they’re flipped horizontally and vertically, like a sort of basketweave pattern. I interspersed 8.5” squares of the dolphin fabric and used almost every square inch of it.

Honestly, I was disappointedly in how the colors panned out. But it’s done, and it will be donated after I check it in at WW Quilt Day to be entered into a random prize drawing. I already have the Quilts for Kids label on it. I quilted it with loops. It measure 40x55”, a decent kid size.

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This week we were also challenged with Round Four of the SAHRR. This week’s hostess was my friend Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts. She challenged us to make sliced blocks. You know, cut the block, insert a strip or turn it or otherwise manipulate it. Clever! 

This is where my hot-colored quilt top started out after last week’s round 3:

And here is where it ended up after I added this week’s round 4:

I knew the top was due for a calmer round free of angles, giving the quilt a bit of an interim frame. I was also going to type here that it would give the eyes a place to rest, but can you really say that about assorted dancing vegetables on a yellow-orange field? Probably not. In its current state, the top now measures 32.5x44.5”. If you’d like to see how the SAHRR quilt tops are shaping up after four rounds (I highly recommend it), visit Wendy’s blog and linky party HERE. 

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Running in circles: New Accounts Payable system for the HOA. Drove across the valley one morning (in single-digit icy weather) to meet the accounting staff at our property management company and be introduced to the new program. Then conducted a meeting at our clubhouse same afternoon so we can train and transition the landscape volunteers to monitor and report issues - relating to pests and landscape - so I can unload the coordination of that onto someone else. It will happen, but now I am in charge of working with Bug Busters (our pest control company) too. That’s in addition to the Treasurer duties and writing the monthly newsletter. And did I mention that we have a legal seminar one afternoon in a couple weeks? Gotta know the governing statutes and where HOA responsibility ends and homeowner responsibilities start (or vice versa). It’s going to be a crazy year, and I’ve all but decided that I won’t run again next year for office. 

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That’s it. On Saturday (either today or tomorrow, depending on when you’re reading this), I have Quilts for Kids, then on Sunday, Ruby and Cousin Kim come over for the Church of Bernina, which is what we call our sewing day. Heaven knows how sewing restores our souls!! Have a great week!! xo