The Eyes Have It!

On Thursday I had a cataract in my right eye removed. YAY! My vision is still blurry, as I was told to expect, but in my follow-up visit on Friday, everything looked great. There has been no pain and only minor discomfort on the afternoon of the surgery. And other than a few annoying restrictions, it’s been smooth sailing. I’m officially able to drive again beginning today, although I’m not allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds or bend down to pick things up (or do any gardening). I’m mindful of keeping my head above my shoulders as instructed, so deep knee bends get things done in a pinch. Well, that and Bruce helping out. I have another post-op re-check next Friday.

So, ahead of the procedure on Thursday, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday preparing for my forced downtime. I did the weekly grocery shopping and hauled a load of stuff to the Goodwill store. I had originally planned to participate in our community-wide yard sale today, but realized I really didn’t have that much stuff AND I wouldn’t be able to unload it all anyway. So a preemptive donation was the best solution. But the most fun preparation during those two days was pin basting four quilts all on Tuesday afternoon. 

I didn’t snap photos of all four, but I did snap a picture of the one I haven’t shown you yet. This is a large lap quilt donated by my friend Susan L in Iowa. It will go to our local women’s shelter because it’s more appropriate for that in addition to exceeding our Quilts for Kids size limits.

After completing the top, Susan wasn’t enamored by it, so she sent it to me to complete. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed basting this one. The fabrics are not my usual style or colors (I try to do bright kids quilts, after all), but it was fascinating to me to study these interesting fabrics and how they were combined. It’s such a peaceful, low-key quilt, which I’m sure will be greatly appreciated by a woman in the shelter! 

I also basted the two Rainbow Candies quilts and the green column monstrosity quilt from last month. Anyway, here’s the first quilt finished; finishing the other three are my highest priority for the coming week.

This is Rainbow Candies II. I ran out of the sashing fabric (since it’s the sashing and backing for both of the candy quilts) so had to add the bright chartreuse outer border on this one. I quilted it in quick loops and it finished at 42.5x51.5”. Below is the backing and label.

Last Sunday, when Ruby, Kimmie and I were sewing (have I told you that we call it The Church of Bernina?) I finished fifteen of these Switchplate blocks. They’ll finish at 3x5”.

Here’s something else I haven’t talked about or shown. Beginning last March when several of us attended our local Worldwide Quilting Day event, I began sewing multi-colored string blocks in an 8.5” size.  I usually sew them at 6.5”, but my string stash had (has?) been multiplying faster than I can deal with. I figured the larger size block might eat up strings faster. The jury is still out on that, because before I knew it, I had enough strings for two kids’ quilts. 

This is not a sewn top; the blocks are just slapped up on the design wall. I have another one just like it with a small navy and white print as the “solid”. Both will finish at about 40x56” - a good size for a kid. And I can use a 42” wide backing when I machine quilt them eventually. I can get 4 solid blocks from an 8.5” WOF strip. With a little piecing of WOF leftovers, it takes about 34” for the solid accent.

But I’ll be going back to my 6.5” block size. Quilts for Kids has a lot of solid fabric donations, so from now on I can just turn in 6.5” multi-colored string blocks (in groups of 15, like I do for the solid-color string blocks) for them to put into kits for other sewists. 

I think that’s about it. Bruce wants me to take him to the grocery store to get some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, his favorite. They didn’t have them when I shopped on Wednesday, and he’s going through cookie withdrawals! 

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Have a great week!

Another May Comes to a Close

May has been a lovely month here in the Salt Lake Valley and in my sewing room as well. Plenty of sunshine outside and sewing progress inside. It’s been fun working with green scraps, and I was able to finish the last of my planned Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for the month. Let’s dig in. 

Green is a color I have a lot of, so I decided to make 8 Paint Chip blocks this month instead of the usual 4-6. These are just 8.5” blocks sewn with 2.5” squares and an occasional 2.5x4.5” rectangle thrown into the mix. The pattern of colors and neutrals, at least for me, is deliberately varied. Here are my green blocks for the month.

I love playing with the different greens like mint, olive, forest, etc. and coming up with different blocks within a given colorway. Admittedly there are some squares that could be at home in a different block, but overall it seems to work. 

Here are all my Paint Chip blocks so far for this year.

Naturally, I’ll keep going. I’m going to need a total of 48 blocks. Right now there are 28. I may go back and do a couple more pink and yellow, but we’ll see what the scraps yield with the other colors first. I’m just having fun and enjoying this process. It’s such a simple block. I only saw a single picture of an unnamed block like this on Pinterest last year. I have no viable link for it, nor any idea of what the original creator’s plan was. So this has been a fun romp through colors and patterns for me. 

That finished up my green blocks, so I moved on to the 12.5” Halloween blocks. I’m trying to do two per month through August. At that time I’ll have enough to assemble a quilt top around my chosen panel. This month, I inadvertently chose two rather similar blocks in that they both have black and neutral little four-patches in the corners (different sizes, though). They won’t be placed next to each other in the quilt. 

In June I’ll be doing the third and fourth bat blocks for the corners and will show everything together at that time. 

I didn’t get any quilt tops finished this week, although Rainbow Candies II only needs a few more seams to attach the rows together. That will be done today. 

My friend Susan L from Iowa sent me another lovely quilt top to quilt and donate. I did get a backing made for it, so that will join these candy quilts (and my green column quilt top) to be basted early this week. Four of them, yep. Hopefully I can get those done on Monday and Tuesday (just the basting part, not the quilting and binding. I’m not *that* delusional)  because Wednesday is an all-day infusion for Bruce - the last one, thank goodness - and on Thursday I have my right eye cataract removed. Not sure what Friday will bring except another eye doctor post-surgery appointment for me, so I’m not planning any activities that day. 

Last week at the quilt expo I bought some pale pink Kona fabric, so here are all the fabrics I’ve gathered for my grandson’s Storm at Sea wedding quilt. I still think I’d like to replace the one second-from-left with something a bit more green. And that steel blue may be jettisoned too. Or instead. But it’s better to have more colors to play with, even if I have lots of leftovers. (Muahahahaha!)

Cutting for the Storm at Sea will begin in June after I finish the four quilts mentioned above. 

With the long weekend last week, I was able to get most of the work done in the courtyard for this year. I hired a wonderful hardworking couple for a few hours, and they came on Friday to dig up two old shrubs, limb up the Japanese Maple, haul out the old bark mulch, straighten out the stone flower bed borders and spread the new topsoil. 

On Saturday I went to the garden center and bought lots of annual flowers and a couple tomato plants. I planted them in my flower pots, my revolving grow tower, and in the beds. And I finished planting all the perennials except for some ground cover. I think I’ll go back sometime soon to get a few more annuals to fill in this year until the new perennials grow and fill out the beds more

The brunnera from last year is quite a bit bigger than the two I added this year (with broad silvery-green leaves), but they’ll catch up in a year or two. The hosta in the back corner is a new addition as are the delphiniums, calla lily, astilbe and groundcovers of lamium and ageratum. 

I like adding pots into the beds for height and color. The white pots are filled with my amaryllis bulbs, and they’ll enjoy the summer outdoors until it’s time to bring them inside in late summer and begin prepping them for the winter. 

The photo below is the same basic view only shifted up so you can see the tree canopy. 

Looking at the tree and beds from the other side. 

It’s a small courtyard, but I love making it my own. And aren’t the edging pavers nice and straight now? They looked like crooked teeth before!

I decided to leave the barberry bush above because I do enjoy its color and height. We have a new blue patio umbrella to set up as soon as our family members come get the older white one and its little table. It’s too heavy for Bruce and I to move, and the big umbrella opens like a small rain umbrella - you have to push it up and place a pin through the pole to hold it up. It takes both Bruce and I to open and close it. With Bruce only having one arm, it’s just not practical. So we bought a big new blue umbrella with a crank mechanism. Who’d-a thunk?

This year I took one tier off my vertical planter because the top tier was too high and heavy for me to lift in place. So there are only four tiers and the top water reservoir. I’ll fill in more of the planting pockets with annuals, but maybe not all of them. I don’t want to worry about having to rotate it all the time, so I may keep sun-loving petunias on one half and shade-loving impatiens on the shade side. We’ll see. I want to rest, not work, this weekend! I took these pictures early in the week, and it’s already amazing how much these white petunias (a first for me) have grown since these pictures were taken. 

Here’s a different view of the same bed. 

Below: tomatoes, roses and lilies reaching for the morning sun. 

Have a good week my friends. I’ll meet you back here next week! 

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! 

Green Scraps, Continued

This week I didn’t get much sewing time in at all. On Saturday after my Quilts for Kids workshop, the family gathered to celebrate Mother’s Day at my son Ryan’s house. My daughter-in-law Kim and I were the special mothers, but we also celebrated belated birthdays for Bruce and my granddaughter Lauren. There were a lot of gifts exchanged! Ryan fixed his special birria tacos. He even made the dipping consomme’ to go with it. Yum!

Sunday was a quiet day at home, just the way we like it. The weather was still nice (ahead of the storm due to arrive on Monday), so I spent the afternoon working out in the yard. I’m still waiting for our garden handyman to come - he’s been very ill with an infection but is finally on the mend. He’ll be digging up a couple barberry bushes for me, removing the top layer of old soil and bark mulch, and straightening out all the stone edging between the beds and the patio. Then we’ll add a fresh layer of rich topsoil. But in the meantime I had purchased some perennials I needed to plant, so I did; two rose bushes, two more brunnera, some astilbe, a hosta, some lady’s mantle. I planted two of my Mexican Talavera pots with a few annual flowers as decorations for the Cinco de Mayo luncheon and took those up to the clubhouse. Once our yard guy completes his heavy work, I can go in and plant my perennial groundcovers and showy annual flowers. Hopefully I can get some pictures by early June. Oh! We bought a new blue standing patio umbrella to set up too! 

Monday was filled with meetings; Tuesday was Weight Watchers, the annual Cinco de Mayo luncheon at the clubhouse, and a CT scan appointment for Bruce. Wednesday was an eye appointment for me so they could measure my right eye in preparation for my upcoming cataract surgery, and then we went to Costco to order eyeglasses for Bruce. I got in a bit of sewing time that evening and spent it making a couple playing card holders.. You may have seen these before; they’re made two compact disks layered with a piece of batting and a cute fabric that’s gathered on the inside. Then they’re held together by a cute button on either side, sewn through the center to make it all sturdy and tidy. They make holding a handful of cards soooo much easier!

Here are the two I finished this week, and then I have two more to make next week. First, a top view.

And the side view where you place the cards in. 

On Thursday morning I did laundry and errands and then played cards at the clubhouse with my friends. The woman I made the warm floral card holder for was so tickled! She’s recovering from a hand surgery, so it helped alleviate her cramping hand while holding cards. Friday morning was my annual physical (all is fine, but he says I need a bone density scan done), and I did the grocery shopping. FINALLY I got to do some sewing in the afternoon. Green is the May color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I set to work.

Eleven flying geese blocks. These will finish at 6”.  I also did one 6” string block because I was going to add a column of strings to the green scrap quilt I’m making. But then I decided to save the string blocks for Quilts for Kids instead. However, I did get another column of green blocks sewn. Here’s the mess pinned to the design board. You may notice that I cannot pin evenly to save my life. But no matter - this is still a work in process and things will be getting shuffled.

The snowball column on the left will move to a different spot and the cross-like blocks will have ivory spacer strips sewn between them. It was necessary to add the darker sashing strips between columns to make sense of the mess. It was looking so “one-note” and bland until I added them.. The pink checkerboard block bugs the heck out of me, and so does the block above it screaming for attention. I’ll move that column over to a side and see if that helps. If not, I may rework those two blocks.

This morning, Cousin Kim and Ruby and I are going to the annual quilt expo here in town. So I’d better get moving!! 

Green Springtime

Hello friends, how was your week? I think it’s always fun to arrive at Saturday, when we scrap quilters can share our weekly playtime results with scraps. In May, we are working with all shades of green for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

It had been a couple weeks or more since I’d sewn any string blocks, so that was my primary focus for my sewing time this week. You know, scratch that sewing itch! I truly wish I could’ve had more time to sew and foregone all the doctor appointments, errands, shopping and chauffeuring as well, but yeah… no. Life doesn’t work that way. But on the bright side, I’ll be having a cataract removed in a few short weeks, I bought a couple dozen luscious perennials to plant in the courtyard, and I’ve got loads of strawberries in the freezer just waiting to be made into jams and strawberry-rhubarb compote. 

The week started out with me tackling my largest string pile of all the colors - greens. It ended with 52  6.5” green string blocks. That will give me three 15-count batches of green strings to take to Quilts for Kids this morning, along with the red ones I sewed last month. The extra seven will either go into the Orphanage to wait until next year or may find their way into a green scrap quilt I’m working on for Green May. 

Once the green strings were sewn, I began piecing together the first of the Rainbow Candies flimsies. My original plan was to sew all the blocks in the same orientation. However, I messed up when I sewed row 2, so I had to pay extra close attention as I sewed each subsequent row to maintain the pattern. And paying attention is not my strong suit. But I actually like it better! I think alternating the direction adds more movement to the top. 

I’ll sew the other blocks into the second Rainbow Candies top this next week, sewing gods willing. 

I’m sewing 48” columns from my green scraps. The column on the very left, given to me as 4-rail blocks, are about an inch short. But I have a couple more strips of those fabrics to even it out. It’s been fun  planning out this green top, and the tentative plan is to make it 40x48”. But I’m toying with the idea of turning it 90 degrees making it a 48x54” quilt of green rows! We’ll just have to see what the fabrics determine!

It was a crazy-busy day yesterday (Friday), and I wasn’t able to sneak any sewing time in until almost supper time. In my sewing room as I waited for the chicken to finish baking, Alfie joined me feeling very needy for attention. So when he insisted on helping me plan out my two Halloween blocks for the month, who was I to argue?

Alfie, helping

I’ve got to get moving along this morning. Quilts for Kids starts soon. I’m already packed up but it will take me about 25 minutes to drive to this month’s location. Later this afternoon and evening, we’ll be at my son and DIL Kim’s place where my son Ryan is cooking birria tacos. We are belatedly celebrating my granddaughter Lauren’s birthday (last month), Bruce’s belated birthday (last week) and Mother’s Day for Kim and me. The whole fam-damily will be there. 

Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who celebrate. Have a great week!

Giving Scraps the Green Light

Green gets a green light in the sewing room this month. May is not only green outside (it’s so beautiful here in the Salt Lake Valley in May!) but we’ll be working with our green fabric scraps inside for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge all month. And I’m down for it!

But first I wanted to finish up the quilting and binding on the two quilts I basted last week so I could put them down as April finishes. And I did. But it’s hard to get pictures when you only have a one-armed Quilt Holder (my hubby Bruce had an arm amputated due to cancer from Agent Orange in Vietnam). And it’s also very bright outdoors, so we had to find some shade or dappled sun so I could snap some pictures. Given the results of these photos, I think I’ll be taking the photos indoors or on cloudy days from now on.  But I’ll share these photos now, for better or for worse. 

This string quilt pattern came to me from my friend Nann of With Strings Attached, who thought it up. Big thanks (and hugs) to you, my friend! 

The backing is green with a bright insert that seemed to fit the vibe of the quilt. As usual, I quilted this string quilt in a basic meander/stipple. I always feel that’s best for coverage in a string quilts. The working title for this quilt was “Nann’s Strings”, but its final name is “Nann’s Heart Strings” because of the very recent passing of her husband.  Nann, what a wonderful companion and caregiver you’ve been to Stevens. May this silly little quilt also give comfort to someone else - all because of you! 

The second finish for April was this purple diamonds quilt. I absolutely could not get the color accurate with my iPhone camera. It’s less of a red-purple and more of a blue-purple. But that’s OK, I guess. It’s done and will be heading off to our Quilts for Kids workshop next weekend. 

I had just enough of the purple fabric to finish the backing and binding. That is, with the addition of the little bit of blue in the back. 

And then - green sewing! Fifteen Switchplate blocks that will finish at 3x5”.

And here they are with all their friends that I’ve sewn this year. We haven’t quite reached the halfway point with these yet, but they’re shaping up.

I started sewing the side sashing to the Rainbow Candy blocks. But of course I sewed the second row bass-ackwards from the first row. No problem, I thought. I’ll just flip the row. Um… no. It’s still the wrong orientation and then the two greens would be neighbors. So I will be alternating the direction of the candies every row. 

I’ll continue with this during the week, as well as sewing its twin with the other half of the candy blocks. And I’ve pulled out all my green strings for some nice string piecing this week too. I loves me some mindless string piecing (key word there being “mindless”).

This week was another doozy. Sometimes I just want to run away to a nice tropical island, lay under a tree sipping Margaritas and napping. (Who’s with me?)

Anyway, we sold our second car this week, but it entailed a lot of phone calls and running around. It was three days of chaos, then done. And I even remembered to promptly cancel the insurance on it. My friend T is coming home from the hospital today, YAY!! We are so relieved, I can’t even believe how much her illness has worried us. But one of our neighbors passed away this week. Another friend, Joan, had her daughter visiting from Connecticut, and they invited me over for lunch one day, then sent me home with cake for Bruce. 

My grandson Easton is getting married next April. Right now Easton and his fiancé Madalyn live in Connecticut (yes, a lot of Connecticut people in this post, right Julierose?) and he is in the Navy. His mom, my daughter-in-law Kim, and I talked about colors and theme for their wedding quilt. So, I’m going to attempt a Storm at Sea with a Snail’s Trail block variation in the center of some blocks instead of the large square-in-square economy block center. This is my inspiration photo from Pinterest:

I have an Accuquilt Storm at Sea die, which I can use for all the diamonds and small economy blocks (I’ve checked sizes) then I’ll piece all 36 of the 6.5” Snails Trail centers separately. Right now, the hunt is on for a line drawing to color up so I can figure color placement and yardage amounts. We have a quilt show coming to town in a couple weeks, and I plan to buy the needed batiks it all at once. This quilt has been on my bucket list for years. I hope I’m finally capable of pulling it off. If not, there’s always simple patchwork to fall back on!

Have a great and relaxing week!

Basting Quilts and Sewing Red Scraps

Not much sewing happening here this week. I was busy with a lot of HOA business; monthly Board meeting, preparing the May newsletter for publication, and delivering safety pamphlets (furnished by our local police department) to the residents. It was nice to get out, walk in the sunshine and visit with friends. And I got to meet neighbors I hadn’t met before. Several homeowners in our 72-unit condo community are only here in the warmer half of the year. 

But there was some sewing, so let’s get to it. First up, I sewed five Paint Chip blocks.

Next, I tackled the red crumbs and came up with a few 6.5” crumb blocks.

Pretty slim pickings, eh? Nothing was done on the wrapped candy quilts, but I’ll start them in a week or so after I quilt the next two quilts that I basted this week (only one of which I remembered to snap a photo of).

Here is Purple Diamonds (above) on my kitchen island, about to be pin basted. I also pinned up my Nann’s Strings quilt. My goal is to have those two finished for next week’s post. 

I was one of the lucky winners in the Stay at Home Round Robin’s prize drawing this year - first time in four years of participation. But who’s counting, right? I won this beautiful Island Batik bundle of 20 fat quarters! It’s called Shadow Blooms. 

Oh, have I got plans for these! Thank you so much to the ladies who help run this sew-along. I can’t wait until next year!!

Here is Alfie (Sir Alfalfa) living his best life:

Not much else going on here. This morning Bruce has agreed to accompany me to our favorite nursery/garden center, where we are going to pick out some annuals and perennials for the garden. I also want to find some nice leaf mulch or rich compost to amend the soil in our courtyard. I’ve got to remove all the dang bark mulch first and hopefully the pinkish scalloped stone borders (circa last century). But the soil level is higher than the surrounding courtyard walkways, so that may require some work in the form of digging and hauling dirt or replacing the borders with a more neutral stone border. I also want to get lots of little potted flowers and veggie starts for the Greenstalk vertical planter too. 

Greenstalk vertical planter, photo from 2024

Last year I planted seeds in the Greenstalk, which didn’t do well with the light patterns in the courtyard and the deep planting pockets. Plant starts that rise above the top edge will capture more light and will make a big growth difference - at least I hope so! And I’ll be pruning the tree, too. 

T, you’re still in my heart and prayers. Get better soon!! 

Linking to Scrappy Saturday and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.