I’m Baaaack!

After three weeks of hell (ever had a knee replaced?) I’m finally well enough mentally and physically to start returning to regular routines. That includes my weekly blogpost and participation in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s Scrappy Saturday. I’ve got six more weeks of physical therapy ahead, but I realize how much I need and appreciate that. My left knee is still painful and uncomfortable, but I know it gets better. I’m off the heavy drugs and am using a walker probably for another week or ten days. I can do light activities in spurts of 15-45 minutes, then I need to just lie down, elevate and ice the knee. I’m hanging in there. But thank heavens there are no more knees left for me to replace!!

In my last post about three (four?) weeks ago, I showed you a load full of scraps that were dropped off to me by our Quilts for Kids chapter. Here’s a refresher for you:

I’m proud to say that over my convalescence, I was able to go through all these scraps and get them sorted by color and size. I did have some help from Cousin Kim and Ruby one morning to finish off the green-lidded bin, but other than that, it was all me. My string bin is overflowing once again, and I have two new bins (in addition to one I already had) for 2.5” strips and lengths. One bin is for WOF (width of fabric) strips, another houses 2.5x4.5” chips, and a third has the 2.5” width strips sorted into 6.5 and 8.5” lengths. I have a lot of squares of various sizes in still another bin, and am further sorting other chunks down into bricks of varying sizes. If scraps or strings were a predominantly one-colored piece, they went into my RSC scrap bins. But if it was multi-colored or there were lots of duplicates, they joined the multi-colored string bins or pre-cut size bins.

There were also at least 2-3 block sets in the boxes and bags. One set needed a couple seams to finish the last three blocks, which I did. Then I sewed them into a top, made a back, and it is in my lineup of flimsies that Ruby is quilting on her longarm for me. I’ll show those quilts upon completion. Another set of 12 blocks were Dresden blades. They weren’t quite 90 degrees, so I added another blade to each and can now trim and machine appliqué them to a background. Sorry for the lousy picture.

These bright and dark saturated arcs will be appliquéd to a neutral tan background squares. I’ll add a border to bring it up to a larger (older kid) size, like 50-something by 60-something inches. I have a great print I bought from Missouri Star Quilt Company for the backing. It’s a print of library books and matches these colors perfectly. 

Here are the sixty (4 sets of 15) strings I’ve sewn over the last three weeks from the QFK strings: 

No, there’s no hint of a dent in the string box, so I’ll happily stitch away at these for the remainder of the year!

Another idea I had was to use the 2.5x8.5” strips with 2.5x4.5” black accents. Here’s the mess up on the design wall. The first three columns are webbed vertically; my goal is to finish webbing the top this week. It only used (less than) half my longer strips, so I’ll do another one in sets of three strips with white accent bricks of 6.5”x4.5”. 

Another project I’ve started from the scraps - because my attention span is all over the place - is these dark and light potato chip blocks. Cousin Kim just recently finished a flimsy of these, and I believe someone in the RSC (Sara?) is doing these too. 

They’re a good thing to sew when I don’t have the energy or stamina to put in some real thinking-type sewing. I’ll just let them accumulate for now. 

And finally, I did bind this little quilt that I sewed before the surgery. Ruby quilted it for me. I fell in love with the little bonnet girls when I saw a smallish chunk of it in Ruby’s stash. Then, before we went to the Worldwide Quilting Day event in March, Cousin Kim brought over a sack of fabric donations to take there. In the sack (because I had to look through it, right?) was another piece of the same fabric. Between the two pieces, I was able to eke out these blocks and create a simple and sweet little quilt. The pink is not as bright as it looks in these pictures. 

The backing was a soft green print, and after I backed this quilt, I sewed a Strippie top using the remainder along with some green and purple accents. That quilt is in the To Be Quilted lineup. More (many more, actually!) to come.

I’ve missed you ladies! I’ve tried to comment on a blogpost here and there, but mostly I was lucky just to manage my daily affairs for the first couple weeks (with a lot of help from Bruce, the family and a few  special friends) . 

Have a wonderful week! And join us at Scrappy Saturday to see what other quilters are up to!