Preparing for Worldwide Quilting Day

One of the things that my Cousin Kim, me, my friend Ruby and her sister Cathy do every year is attend the Worldwide Quilting Day event in the city of Sandy, which is at the South end of the Salt Lake Valley. We’ve spent a good part of the week in preparation, gathering up the projects we want to work on, gathering up finished quilts to turn in to our Quilts for Kids group who will also be there, gathering our donations for the giveaway tables (which take up an entire performing stage area), preparing our food donation (it’s a gigantic potluck), etc. The event starts at 10:00 on Saturday morning (tomorrow as I write this but probably today as you read it). I’m sure I’ll be too excited to sleep well tonight!

But let’s get “business” out of the way first, since I won’t be able to share pictures of the event until next week. I sewed this week on some red blocks for Red March in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Above are the seven Hollow Nine-Patch blocks that will finish at 6” in a quilt someday. I’ve just started these this month because I have so many 2 ½” squares and they need to be pared down. I’ve made them for RSC before and just love their ease and versatility in kid quilts. 

Below are the two Rolling Stone blocks I did in red. They finish at 12”, so I’ll probably end up with enough for at least one larger kid quilt, maybe two. 

I still have my red strings and crumbs to tackle next week, so there will be more red sewing. But for this week, I belatedly decided I ought to work on my scrap challenge quilt. Every year at WW Quilting Day, they make up gallon-sized baggies of scrap “kits”. They are numbered, and you can check one out if you’d like to make it into a quilt, supplementing it with your own scraps. Well, I forgot about it last year until just as we were leaving. So I ran back to the table where these were and all that were left were three very dark and ugly bags of scraps. I selected one that had some bright bits in it, and checked it out. 

Fast forward to this week - *ahem* I’m usually not a procrastinator, but the fabrics were so dark and ugly that I couldn’t justify spending time on it. There were 43 little wonky square-in-a-square blocks (about 2-3” each, I never actually measured). The center was a small bright print surrounded by ugly blues and grays. But there was a piece of a solid bright blue nestled in the bag that gave me an idea. So I pulled out some solid brights and set out adding another round of triangles to the wonky blocks to brighten them up. 

So the above picture shows what I had by Wednesday morning. But Ruby and  I spent Wednesday at Cathy’s house, longarm quilting the wedding quilt for my grandson’s that I’ve been working on. I’ll show that hopefully next week. It’s quilted and trimmed and I just need to bind it, then I’ll need a quilt holder and locale for its glamour shots. But I digress.

Anyway, the bright triangles brought the block sizes up to 5” (4.5” sewn). Set at 6x7, the quilt was still small. So I added a purple stop border and searched my stash for another border and backing fabric. I struck gold! Well, metaphorically anyway, because the border fabric was perfect! 

I quilted it with a simple stipple. The backing was a blue batik that my friend Nann had sent me some time ago, and I also used it as the fold-over binding. The quilt measures 37.5 x 42”. I actually ended up loving it, and will be happy to turn it in! At WW Quilting Day, the organizers do a random prize drawing of the numbered kits that are turned in as quilts. I’m hoping that my kit #16 will be a lucky number this year! As usual, the quilt will be donated to Quilts for Kids.

So that brings my total quilt finishes this year up to three so far, all done this month. And when I get the binding on the wedding quilt, which will be done this month, that will be four finishes! I think my slump is over! 

This was a busy week. We got our taxes done (yay!) and our accountant will be handling both my brother’s 2025 tax return and the estate tax return (after the closing on the sale of his house). He explained the process, and I’m so relieved that I’m in the hands of a great trust accountant, a good attorney and a good real estate agent. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train! 

We are also planning our trip to Arizona in April, so that will be nice. But no sewing for 10 days, so I’ll be playing catch-up again in April. Then there is also my grandson’s wedding (another 2-day trip to northern Utah), and the court hearing (by phone) to be named as Personal Representative of my brother’s estate. All in April. Also, my left knee is going downhill fast, and I don’t think I’ll be able to wait until September to get that knee replaced. I’m thinking now that it’ll be some time in late June. That will mean I can heal in plenty time to enjoy the swimming pool this summer! 

Life is good.