A Couple of String Quilt Finishes

Hello! I’m happy to share that I have a couple more quilt finishes this week. It’s been a long, dry spell for me between finishes. Well, I just looked back and it was mid-June when I finished the last three. I guess it’s not *that* long, but it seems like it to me. But summer is drawing to a close and I feel prime sewing and quilting weather coming around the corner!

As usual, I can’t seem to place blocks on the design board in a level fashion. If the truth be known, I didn’t even hang the design board evenly. But that’s a story for another time!

So, I sewed 30 string blocks in aqua, turquoise, and teal. It’s the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for August, and I’m linking up, as usual, to Scrappy Saturday. These blocks finish at 6”. I give them to our local Quilts for Kids chapter, where they use both string and crumb blocks in sets of 15 to go into the quilt kits they check out to sewing volunteers. 

Maybe you have or have seen some of these prints. There is one interesting print in there that I got at the scrap tables at the last Worldwide Quilt Day in May. It’s a teal background with a sugar skull-like Darth Vader on it in black. Weird! Can you spot pieces of it? There are also some strings of the leftover panda print that I used in the flimsy I showed IN THIS POST. 

I also pin basted and quilted the first two of my quilts-in-waiting. These were both made from 8.5” string blocks, which I experimented with earlier in the year. After discussing it with the QFK ladies, we eventually decided that 6.5” string blocks work better for QFK quilt patterns, so I decided to finish these up myself. 

This first string quilt, which finished at 40x55” has a teal-colored floral print as the constant. It doesn’t photograph well in that it looks much more dull in a full shot.

Up close, though, it really is much more vibrant and happy. I did the standard diagonal line quilting, then stitched a half inch on either side of the seamlines.

The 42” width backing was supplemented by a strip of fabric given to me a couple years ago by a friend. 

The second quilt of 8.5” string blocks is also 40” across, but with only six rows down is 48” in length. Obviously, I pinned both quilts up sideways on the design board.

Oh look, another panda! 

This green fabric was a wider print, so I didn’t have to piece the backing. 

My sewing goal for the coming week is to layer and finish two more quilt tops and to sew up my aqua and teal crumbs. That will finish up my teal scraps for the month. If there is time, I’d like to sew together the Halloween quilt I’ve been working on all year, two blocks at a time. I’m more of a fall person rather than a Halloween person. But I have my reasons for making this one. Back in August of 2021, Cousin Kim and I and Cousin Carrie (Kim’s sister, who passed away last year) and Carrie’s daughter Jenny all took a road trip to Missouri Star Quilt Company. We stayed for a week and attended a fun workshop together. At the time, we all bought identical Halloween quilt panels. Cousin Kim finished hers in 2022, and I had a ball custom quilting it. I really want to do the same for myself. Cousin Carrie loved Halloween, so I know that putting it together and quilting it will bring back a lot of wonderful memories!

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I didn’t know whether I should bother to share these next pictures, but at least for my own personal records, I wanted to (finally) get a picture of our mostly finished master bedroom after the wall repairs, painting, new bedding and art, and new window coverings. When we bought the condo last year, the walls had cracks and small holes in its formerly-almond paint, plus white metal mini blinds at the windows with floor-length lace curtains. The former resident was 99 years old when she passed and had no desire during her last decades to update it. And who would blame her?

But we wanted to refresh and update it for us. The only thing we have left to do is replace the carpeting. I’m not sure if that will be next year or the year after, because our bathrooms need painting and some cabinetry overhauls too. Anyway, here is our bedroom. The color is Sherwin Williams Acanthus.

I was going to ditch the lamps, but once I removed the ‘90’s-vibe tassels from them, they looked so much cleaner that I decided to forego sconces. And this is Darla’s favorite spot - under the ceiling fan! I would like to make a bed runner for the bed at some point. 

And now for Truth in Blogging, the photo below shows the west wall in its real life messy state, our computers, an old IKEA table (used to be in my old sewing room), mismatched desk chairs and papers all over the desk. Just keeping it real!

Yep, that’s my exercise bike there in the corner. It won’t be getting any more use until I’m recovered from my knee surgeries this winter. 

That’s all I have for this week. I hope you’re enjoying the last few weeks of summer. Me, I’m so ready to be done with summer. And it occurs to me that I haven’t even been swimming one time yet this year. I’ll have to rectify that before the pool closes for the season in early September! 

All Jammed Up!

What a wild and crazy week! Honestly, I can hardly remember half the things I did or where the time went. But there were several highlights and lowlights. 

On the weekend, I was able to get some sewing done (photos below). On Monday, I visited my friend Ruby who is staying with her sister Cathy (who’s also a good friend). Cathy just had knee surgery, and Ruby jokes that she’s practicing her nursing skills on her sister so she can take care of me this winter. Haha! I took them a roast chicken and lots of veggies and salads, plus a succulent plant as a get well gift for Cathy. I challenged her to keep it alive longer than I would - about a month - LOL. Ruby and I also went out in Cathy’s garden to pick plums and blackberries. 

On Tuesday I went to Weight Watchers and it was good to see friends again. Lots of hugs going ‘round! That afternoon, Bruce’s older daughter Emily and the three kids came down from Idaho Falls and we got to take them to lunch, show them the condo, the grounds, pool and creek, and get a picture. Our son-in-law had to stay behind for work, unfortunately. Here’s a picture of all 6 of us. The kids knew how to set the timer on the phone camera so we could all be in the photo. 

L-R: Bruce, me, Gunner, Abbie, daughter Emily and Deacon

On Wednesday I made plum jam to go with the strawberry, blackberry, apricot and raspberry jams I’ve already made this season. Two batches of plum jam, and neither one set up. GRRR. I’ll be laid up with the knee stuff around the end of the year (depending on surgery scheduling), so I figured that jam would be a great food gift that I can make now and freeze for neighbors and friends for Christmas. No December marathon baking of biscotti like last year. 

Thursday morning saw us making a trip to Costco to stock up on all sorts of things, and then in the afternoon I played cards with my friends at the clubhouse. One friend had asked us a couple weeks ago (or whenever it was) if they wanted her brand new unused bread maker that had too many bells and whistles. Since mine is at least 35 years old and has long since seen better days, I offered to take it when nobody else wanted it. Woo-hoo! I spent that evening reading the manuals (yes, plural), and I understand my friend’s angst. It will be quite the learning curve, but I told her I probably would get into it this winter when things slow down. 

On Friday morning I had my final eye doctor happointment after having had my right eye cataract removed a couple months ago. The eye is now healed, and the doctor’s skilled incisions helped alleviate the astigmatism in my right eye. The eye exercises and drops, as well as the full healing from the surgery means I can now read again without double vision or “ghosting”. I still have the ghosting a bit while trying to read signs from a distance, but I don’t need glasses for driving or mid-range most of the time. Still, I have a prescription for eye glasses that will better match my eyes now, so I’ll get it filled and maybe it will make me feel more secure reading signs when driving. 

Anyway, after that appointment I went grocery shopping and spent the afternoon “fixing” the unset jam with a cornstarch slurry and boiling the jam in small batches. It’s soft set now, and maybe will firm up more. At least it’s a passable consistency, and it is really delicious. It *almost* reminds me of the amazing plum jam that we had in Kenya back in 2018. I keep checking that Kenyan company, but they still don’t export it to the States. Dang! And with the Orange Idiot levying tariffs on anything that moves, who knows how much a jar of imported jam from Kenya would cost, anyway.

Plum freezer jam with new bread maker behind

Aaand, that brings me to the meager sewing I did get done this week. These are all the RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) blocks I sewed. 

Four flying geese 6” blocks (above) and 12 Switchplate blocks (below) at 3x5” (finished sizes)

Other than that, absolutely nothing was done in the sewing room. I didn’t even have time to sew on a button I need to! (But then, just about anything comes before doing mending, right?)

So, I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This morning is the final round of jam-making for me: raspberry-peach. And then, I’ll clean off my big kitchen island, drag out the big roll of batting, and proceed to start pin basting quilts. If I have the energy. If not, I’ll just curl up and read. Sounds good to me either way!

Have a great week!

Welcome Aqua August!

With a new month, it’s time for another color of the month in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The month of August was declared by our leader Angela to be dedicated to sewing aqua, teal, and turquoise scraps. Don’t those colors make you want to jump into a pool? They sure do to me! 

Well, thankfully my knee is not fractured, and I’m back to walking without assistance after that fall last week. Unfortunately, my orthopedic surgeon says both my “extremely” arthritic (bone on bone) knees need to be replaced. Yikes. I was hoping I could get by without facing that. But, I’m going to go ahead with it. I’ll do my right knee first sometime in late December or January, and then the left knee six weeks later. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll manage. The silver lining (well, beyond the obvious new knees) is that it will probably give me a lot of extra sewing time!

And speaking of sewing time, I was surprised to realize that I didn’t get all that much sewing time in this week. But I do have several things to show you, so let’s get started.

Last week I mentioned that I’d sewn the last two blocks for my Halloween Quilt. But I saved them for this week to show you.

This first block is the third or fourth time I’ve used this same fabric that’s the center section. I got a chunk of it who-knows-where, because I can’t remember all the scrap origins of my stash. (Is this my personal shame, or are there others of you who forget scrap origins too?)

The final block was this simple block below. It has partial seams, but they’re easy. Sewing this block was like sliding into Home for a baseball home run.

At some point in the next couple weeks, I’ll begin assembling the quilt top, which I believe is going to involve some fabric “shims” or coping strips.  And the quilting will be a marathon! But it will be finished for use this fall!

The primary sewing I did for the RSC this week was this aqua Weathervane block. I love that mouse fabric in the center. I buy it from Spoonflower online, and keep ordering a FQ here or half-yard there. I’ve got more still in a quilt kit I’ve made and hope to get to in 2026. 

Oh heck, I remember even making myself a mask out the mouse fabric five years ago during the pandemic.  

The Panda scrappy quilt was webbed and sewn last weekend, and I pieced a backing for it as well this week. This 42x49” quilt top is now hanging in the Sewing Closet of Shame with an ever-growing line of quilts to be basted and quilted. I will be able to start on some of them in the week ahead,. 

Have a great week everyone!