Green Everywhere!

I love green. The month of May is always green here in the Salt Lake Valley, and it’s just about my favorite month (along with October). Here’s a view of our street decked out in green. 

Besides the green outside, we are sewing green scraps in May for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. More on that a bit later in the post. 

Bruce and I also decided that when we repaint the master bedroom next month (meaning, when we have it and the living room repainted by professionals), we’re having the bedroom done in a light sage green. The light through the bedroom windows is filtered through trees and there is no escaping the green cast it gives the now-cream walls. So, we’ll just embrace it! We are also getting new window coverings along the back of the house (4 windows). That’s the extent of the major house redecorating projects this year. Except the courtyard. I hired a local couple to come in and help me remove the old topsoil, straighten out the stone edgings on the beds, dig out two old shrubs and spread the new topsoil. So, later today I’ll finally get to visit the garden store to buy flowers for my pots and purchase some more perennial and annual flowers to fill the beds. Maybe I’ll finally have some garden pictures next week! 

But let’s set the Time Machine back to last Saturday when Cousin Kim, Ruby and I went to the Sewing and Quilt Expo. This time the Expo was not very large - I think the major quilt show promoters have long since abandoned this market. But it was OK. The quilts displayed were all from the Utah Quilt Guild. There were scores, if not a couple hundred, quilts from huge king-sized quilts down to small wall hangings. Some were sewn for fun, others for challenges, the whole gamut. I snapped photos of my favorites, and here’s a small sampling. 

My favorite was this Bird Houses quilt. It wasn’t until I was uploading the pictures from my phone to my iPad (from which I write my blogposts) that I read the information tag for this quilt and realized it was sewn and quilted by my friend Bernadette Turner from Quilts for Kids! 

I was so enchanted by the pattern, the critters in the windows, and the rainbow scrap nature of this lovely quilt. Now I want to make one! 

This next quilt was truly stunning. It was not a Halloween quilt per se, but definitely an Autumn Forest, moody quilt. The affixed crystals gave it a magnificent, sparkly presence. 

This little collaged orange tree captured my heart.

And talk about color! This next quilt was just a riot of color pattern and, well, its title says it all - FUN!

And of course I had to take a picture of a kitty quilt! See the mice scampering around the border?

And this bookcase quilt reminded me of the one I did many years ago (see HERE). But the maker cleverly embroidered actual book titles on hers, whereas my book titles were from selvages.

So that was it for the quilt expo. The only thing I bought was 3 yards of a pale pink Kona cotton for the upcoming attempt at sewing a Storm at Sea quilt. 

But with my green scraps, I not only attempted but actually completed 15 green crumb blocks, which will finish at 6”. These, like my string blocks, are going to Quilts for Kids for their kit-making. 

Next I sewed up four Weathervane blocks. 

And then I began putting together the next Rainbow Candies quilt from some old RSC blocks. 

I had enough of the fun multi-colored fabric to cut for the backing of both quilts, plus the sashings. However on this second top, I’ll have to add the green solid as the outer border. But that’s just fine with me. Once I get this top sewn up, hopefully over the long Memorial Day weekend, I plan to baste both the rainbow candy quilt tops and the green column quilt I showed partially constructed last week. 

I would have gotten more sewing done this week, but we spent 2 days at the Huntsman Cancer Center while Bruce had a six-hour infusion done on Wednesday and again on Thursday. Next week and the week after we’ll only have to go one day per week for about 3 hours. The infusions help kill the excess white blood cells produced by his CLL (chronic leukemia) plus fortify him with goodies (my technical medical term) that will help give him some more energy. Unfortunately, during the course of the treatments, he is more susceptible to infections, notably Covid and shingles. Yes, shingles - even though he’s had the vaccinations. They don’t really know yet why those two particular diseases are more troublesome, but hopefully forewarned is forearmed. Bruce always masks up whenever he leaves the house and avoids large groups of people. 

Thanks for dropping by! For those who observe, I hope you have a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend. And for those who don’t observe it, I hope you have a safe and fun weekend as well!