Fourth Finish for August

Thanks to some quick work by my friend Ruby and her longarm quilting machine, I was able to finish up the Fan of the Library quilt. You may remember that I had planned to quilt it myself on my Bernina 570 (“Nina”), but a bobbin sensor went out and the machine was stopping every few stitches. I took her in for repairs at our local quilt shop (they are the #1 Bernina dealer in the US), and they will have it for about four weeks. Why so long? Because with it being Back to School time, they are busy servicing the sewing machines for all the school districts. So, good thing I have my Brother back-up machine! 

Anyway, after Ruby brought back the re-quilted quilt, I trimmed and bound it, so it will come with me to our Quilts for Kids (QFK) workshop tomorrow, Saturday, where it will be donated with about a dozen other finishes from the last couple months.  Here I tried pinning it up on the design board. 

A close-up of the quilting. 

I thought I’d try getting a better picture of it outside, but then I remembered they were spraying all the lawns in our condo community for bill bugs. So, I had to settle for the courtyard deck. Luckily, the quilts  all get washed before being presented to the kids. 

While I was out in the blazing heat courtyard, I snapped a picture of my Greenstalk garden planter, blooming happily away in the filtered light of the Japanese maple. The area behind it used to be a shade garden, but we lost the shade when they took out our big tree last month. So, it’s cleared out for now and I’ll be replanting some different things this fall and next spring. 

Shopping for plants is, for me, second only to fabric shopping! 

With my trusty Brother machine, “Bob”, I sewed a batch of 15 crumb blocks that will finish at 6”, to be used like the string blocks in quilt kits that QFK distributes. 

The final blocks for my purple August were these simple and quick Switchplate blocks. 

With the purples cleared away, it was time to start on sewing together an old Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. These are my oldest UFOs, and were one of my blocks from the 2021 RSC. The were 4.5” unfinished size blocks that looked like this. 

So this week I began sewing four of each color -  two green with white trim and two green with black trim into 8.5” blocks. Once all the colors were all sewn into bigger blocks, pressed and trimmed I started playing with them up on the design wall. Here is the first layout. 

Hmmm…. Looks a bit chaotic. Bruce said “It looks like the inside of my brain!” (He has ADHD). 

Then I turned some blocks 90 degrees, and this is what appeared. Bruce said “Much better! It looks like the inside of your brain!”

I’ll take it! So, this will be the layout that I’ll begin sewing together. 

But first, tomorrow morning is our QFK workshop, and I usually just bring along string blocks to work on for that. We are having a big family gathering later that evening for the August birthdays of my daughter-in-law Kim and my granddaughter London, who will be turning 17. London is coming over at 3pm and we’re going shopping at the mall. Then her boyfriend and the rest of the family will join us for dinner at Red Lobster (London’s choice). She still loves naming the live lobsters in the tank with grandpa Bruce! I’m looking forward to it all!

Have a great week! Life is good.