Today my friend Ruby and I will be attending the Hands Off! Rally in Salt Lake City. We’ll be joined by thousands of people there and at 9 other venues just in the red podunk State of Utah. Rallies will be held today in hundreds of locations throughout all 50 states in the USA. The link above to Hands Off! Is where you can check to find a location near you. These rallies are meant to be peaceful protest gatherings to tell Trump and Musk to keep their hands off…. you name it: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, HUD, CDC, NIH, NPR, PBS, HHS - a whole alphabet of departments and agencies that affect our daily lives. Oh heck, can we add the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P to it? This Administration Regime is a total clusterF**, or as Bruce calls it, a “Cluster Foxtrot”. It will take this country years, if not decades, to recover from the damage that those two blackguards have wrought in the last 75 days. The world’s trust in the USA will take well beyond our lifetimes to rebuild. It’s a pitiful state of affairs.
Despite the train wreck that this week was nationally, I managed to get some sewing done. Not as much as I’d hoped, though, because I had an HOA newsletter to get out, a dentist appointment (semi-annual cleaning and check-up; no cavities for either of us!), some sewing for a friend (long story that I won’t go into, but I did get a wonderful new houseplant in thanks), lots of errands, and a deep cleaning of my sewing studio. Oy!
The month of April will be dedicated to sewing our RED scraps in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC). I did get to spend some time on Wednesday afternoon sorting scraps and cutting pieces for my RSC blocks this month, and even managed to sew up the easiest ones, the Switchplate blocks. Here are the twelve I finished.
These will finish at 3x5”, and with these twelve I now have a plan to sew a total of 117 for a 13x9 layout that will measure 39x45”. A small child’s quilt. My total so far for the year is 48 sewn. I should hit the halfway mark next month, a good pace.
There was no string sewing for me this past week (See? I told you the world was going nuts!). But in cleaning out my sewing room, I unearthed a bag of 3.5” half-square triangles (HST’s) given to me by my friend Sandy, who is President of the Salt Lake Quilts for Kids chapter, about a year or so ago. I decided to sew them up and donate it back to QFK as a top. I matched the HST’s up into sets of four to make a square-in-a-square block. There are enough HST’s to make 72 blocks at 6.5” each, unfinished size. I managed to get 36 of them sewn, so I’m halfway there. What I’m doing is alternating the prints and solid fabrics in the blocks. The solid is a shot cotton of blue and red threads that make a purple. I have always strongly disliked shot fabrics - I avoided shot silks altogether when I was a crazy-quilter - but this time we’re getting along OK. Here are the blocks so far:
I’ll donate this back to QFK as a top, not a finished quilt. I want these off my plate and I have no appropriate fabric for a backing. I have to say, though, that I have enjoyed the repetition of sewing these; very Zen-like (along with the music of Dan Fogelberg in the background) as I zone out of the world issues and zone into my sewing. The finished top, which I hope to complete this week in time for our QFK workshop on the 12th, will measure about 48x54”.
That’s all I have for this week, friends! I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday, where I’m going to go check out what red blocks the other scrappers have sewn up. Also sharing at Sew Preeti Quilts this week for TGIFF - Thank Goodness it’s Finished Friday! Have a good week!
12 comments:
I have not dared look at my brokerage account balance since I viewed it April 1 (to see the first-quarter results)! He is outrageously insane. Thank you for marching. I have an obligation I cannot not go to.....Meanwhile, you've got a good start on reds for the month.
Love where this is going. Showing your age with your music choice; I'm right there with you!
Thank you for joining a March--I am with you in spirit...
Your donated block piece is just lovely...and the switchplate blocks are looking great too...Stragely enough i haven't done any string sewing this week either...??? What on earth is going on here???;)))
Hope your weekend works out well..hugs, Julierose
Hope the rallies go off without any hitches or interventions by the authorities (although one questions the term 'authority' these days). I rather doubt they will have any effect on the orange man and his cronies - they'll likely think "look at all those people cheering for my wild idiocy"...they're arrogant enough).
Looking forward to seeing what you create for the month of red.
Hurray for you for driving into the city to march. I looked last night and there is even a gathering in our small town, Red as it is!! I’d like to drive down to see the turnout, but I may not be able to convince Mr. Busy. If not, I’m going to,stand on my porch and ‘make noise’!
I find myself looking for matching "inside" and "outside" blocks (same fabrics, opposite layouts) and I imagine its future owner will spend quite a bit of time falling asleep to that game too.
Carolyn
congratulations for attending the rally - I just heard about it yesterday but the closest one is over an hour away and it there are flooding roads and and off and on heavy rain today - I wonder if there will be any that show up for it because of the floods in various places? I will watch the news to see - if the weather had been clearer I was hoping to find someone to go with.
Thank you for marching. I didn't know anything about it un til yesterday, when my daughter said she was marching in Rochester, NY. The weather was crappy this morning with rain and high winds, so I'm not sure what kind of a turnout they had here.
I, too, have been listening to my old favorite, Carol King, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Barbara Streisand, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel among others.
Meanwhile, outside it has been anything but springlike. I have much clean up to do, but we even of snow and temps in the 20's forecast for next week.
Pat
Cathy, I loved Bruce's "Cluster Foxtrot" term, and now we will use that here at our house, too! It's a good way to describe things the way they are now in our country. Thank goodness for mental health sewing! Your switchblade blocks are delightful in red, and the HST blocks will make a pretty quilt, too.
Wish you were closer to me in distance. We would have hugged and cried. I am loving the purple in the economy blocks layout. Dark and intense.
It is interesting to me and maybe to you that a lot of news of any protests is being blocked by main stream media. Some comments and posts come through on YouTube but images of any protests are very quickly taken down. I guess that you also aren’t seeing some of the reactions from ‘the outside.’Many people are taking active action, cancelling holidays in droves, refusing to buy American goods. Not just Canada, but Europe and here in Oz.
we went to the closest protest - it was smaller than last saturday, but i think the missing were downtown at the big one ... i was yelled at by a woman driving by, "how much are they paying you, you f*cking liberal?!?" ... she was probably upset about her 401k, bless her heart ... anywho, hope you are safe and feeling empowered by making a stand
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