I’ve Got Nothing!

It’s been a crazy week. I’ve been so busy and frazzled, that I didn’t get too much done in the sewing room.

***Warning, rant ahead! ***

We had doctor appointments, meetings, running here, going there. I hate that the HOA work grows like the scraps in my sewing room. I hate that I have to go to multiple stores to find basic coffee creamer. What’s up with that? I hate that everyone (friends, family, acquaintances with a question) wants to talk to me - on the only free afternoon I have - and they call or text or both to just chat (normally I love that), but after everything this week, I wanted nothing more than to be alone, to be still, to recharge my batteries and just be away from anything involving decisions or responsibilities. I’m craving some quiet time. 

And then…. Here’s what the next several days look like: this morning I need to be at the fabric store by 9:00 for a BOM class (Block of the month) with Ruby. After that, her sister is driving us up to the Capitol in Salt Lake City to participate in the No Kings Day. Ruby’s car is already parked up there for us to return home in after the rally. I really didn’t want to go for myriad reasons, but… Ruby. I intend to come straight home and not make it a Girls Day Out. Sunday is sewing day (Church of Bernina), which should be fun and relaxing. Monday is our monthly HOA Board meeting but, gee, I have to miss it (she said, dripping with sarcasm) because I have to drive Bruce up to Bountiful (40 minutes by freeway) to a doctor appointment. Oh, the housekeeper is coming on Monday too, which is a good thing. Who has time to do housework? Tuesday is shot - Weight Watchers in the morning (I enjoy that) and a trip to the VA with Bruce in the afternoon. Maybe by Wednesday I can relax and have some time to myself. But I know I’ll get calls, issues to research and writing assignments after the HOA meeting. I’m going to have to develop a spine and say NO to any more projects. I may just shut off my phone. Calgon, take me away!!

***End of Rant***

What I did do: 

I sewed 30 string blocks. But they aren’t pressed or trimmed and there is no picture. Trust me on the count. I’ll have a picture next week (plus hopefully another group to show). 

I quilted and trimmed the two Little Bricks quilts, but they still need to be bound and labeled. Again, no pictures, but there will be next week. 

I pulled out the blocks for my next quilt top - Paint Chips. They were one of the block sets I sewed this year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here’s a picture of them pinned on the design board.. I will get them webbed and sewn into a top on Sunday.

And here’s a gratuitous picture of Herself - Miss Darla, rolling on the floor showing off her beautiful tummy furs. I love all her orange undertones. 

And that’s it. I’m actually writing this on Friday night, and since I have to get up early, I’d best haul my buns off to bed. I am tired in so many different ways! But I’ll be back to my ol’ cheery self next Saturday, with lots of eye candy to share. I promise. Have a great week! 

Halloween and Christmas in the Same Week

Welcome to another weekend! My goal today, if the weather cooperates and the rain holds off (80% chance of rain), is to winterize the courtyard - store or cover all the furniture, dig up the remaining annuals, and blow out the leaves. Once that’s done, the day is mine! Or if it does rain, the day is mine anyway so I can read or sew and the yard work can wait until Monday. 

This past week I was a sewing demon! I decided to make all the Christmas fabrics and strings I recently sorted out just go away. And of course, by “go away” I mean sew them into string blocks. And that’s precisely what I did. I sewed and sewed until they were all gone except a small number. As I was nearing the end of them, I decided to pull out any that were non-Christmas (or could pass as such, like solids and plaids) and add them back into my regular scrap stash. In the end, I sewed 59 more blocks (6” finished). When added to the 4 test blocks I made last week, they totaled 63 blocks. They will eventually (maybe later this year, maybe next year) be sewn into a little Christmas quilt that will measure 42x54”.  

These are just pinned up on the design wall for proof of life! They’ll be taken down and stored away for later. That brings my total of string blocks sewn into September and October to 273. My goal is to reach 600 by the end of the year. My pace is steady. Next week I’ll go back to the multi-colored strings.

Some string blocks up close

The real excitement for me in the sewing room this week was to finally finish up the Halloween quilt I started in January. I needed to make 16 blocks to surround the center panel, so I sewed two per month through August. In September I assembled the quilt blocks and panel into a top, pin basted it and began quilting. This week I finally finished the quilting and binding, and it’s now done and ready to use.

I ran outside to photograph it as the light was quickly fading. The final quilt measures 50x72”.

These backing is (mostly) a print from Janet Wecker Frisch.

I didn’t get any photos of the quilting I did on the squares, but that’s something I may do in the next week. 

My next week sewing goals are to quilt three small kid quilts, web another couple sets of Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, and sew 30-45 string blocks. 

That wraps things up for now. Next week I have a couple quick meetings, a luncheon, a doctor appointment to drive Bruce to - and the rest is fun time. I plan to make the most of it!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Time Out

Another busy week here, and not so productive on the sewing front. While I did sew some on Saturday and Sunday, my machine was having a hissy fit on Wednesday. After rethreading it about 632 times due to thread breaks, I gave up in frustration. I’m not sure if it’s me or the machine that’s in time out, but last night I finally started at Square One with my machine: I thoroughly cleaned it, changed the needle (including the size), grabbed a fresh new spool of thread, and crossed my fingers (my four steps for solving machine problems, short of throwing it out the window). It’s now behaving, at least on the test scraps. Later today it meets my Halloween quilt once again, and they had better get along. 

And just to make sure that my machine knows it had better behave, I introduced it to a new machine companion: a Pfaff Grand Quilter 1200. It was given to me by my sweet friend Pat who lives in Ogden. 

I’ve known Pat for several years - we actually met through the online game Hayday, where we both play in a Utah group (that also has members from Texas and South Africa). We first met several years ago when we had a group luncheon together. We have talked on the phone regularly since then. Last year she and husband Eddie invited Bruce and me up to their beautiful 15-acre property in the hills above Ogden, about an hour’s drive north. That’s when she gifted me (and mostly Quilts for Kids) several large plastic tubs of wonderful fabric that had come from her twin sister in California. Last week Pat called and told me about this machine that her niece had found at a thrift shop for $12. Did I want it? (Ummm…. Is the Pope Catholic)? So she and Eddie actually drove down here on Thursday and brought the machine. It was so delightful to see these special friends again. It was a too-short visit.

Pat’s niece had printed out an owner’s manual from online because there wasn’t one with the machine. The machine even came with a rolling travel case that was a match to the one I’ve had for 20 years that has recently developed a hole. I’ve not yet used the machine because I’m still reading the manual and familiarizing myself with it. It’s straight stitch only, with a generous harp (throat) space. Thank you so much, Pat!!  Guess what I’ll be doing today?

I did get some sewing done this week between other obligations. First I sewed 15 string blocks, which brings my String Frenzy block total to 210. I started at the beginning of September and my goal is to stitch 600 string blocks (if I have that many strings!) by the end of the year. So even though I slacked off this week, I’m still on a good pace. 

Then I spent a fun morning going through all my Christmas fabrics, sorting the keepers from the give-aways. I unloaded pieces (most under 1/3 yard) that were not ever going to be used by moi. I’m just not into cutesy blue prints from the nineties, but Cousin Kim is. Win/win. Anyway, I want to make a string Christmas quilt, like my friend Julierose. I think it’s masterful the way she subtly added in non-traditional colors and non-Christmas fabrics. So I wanted to sew a few test Christmas string blocks to gauge how many blocks I think I can get out of my scraps (although I can supplement the fabrics as Julie did). 

Here are my first four blocks (6” finished size).

I think I like them! While sorting my fabrics, I also drew out a quilt plan for a quilt for my daughter and cut out all the pieces! But before I could change my mind, I bagged that would-be Christmas “squirrel” along with the sketch and put it back with my remaining Christmas fabrics on the shelf. And then I texted her that she was getting a new Christmas quilt in 2026! HA! That’s how you keep Christmas squirrels in check!! And then I had another squirrel showdown. I found a table runner I had stitched together last year from 2.5” Christmas squares. 

Anyway, that tiny squirrel wormed its way under the needle, and 8.27 minutes later it was quilted. I still need to add binding and I don’t know when I’ll do that. But anyway, I got a tidy fabric shelf out of the morning, as well as a nice pile of strings to sew into blocks, a table runner quilted, and a quilt kit cut out for next year. 

And then I switched to sewing on my Halloween quilt. I did not finish it this week as September turned to October, but I made progress. First I stitched the remaining portions of the center panel. The predominantly black color makes it hard to see much of the quilting. but hopefully this photo will give you an idea of the freeform quilting. It’s fun, but very time-consuming. 

After that, I moved on to a couple of the surrounding blocks. I got the corner bat blocks quilted before the thread started breaking. Sometimes it was the top thread, sometimes the bobbin. After fighting with it for about fifteen minutes, I just gave up and decided it was Timeout Time. I figured a couple days apart would do us all good. I cooled down, the machine got the spa treatment I mentioned above, and the quilt has been “hanging out” here. 

Today we will all try again, with the Pfaff standing by and looking eager for her chance in the spotlight. “Her”? I guess now that she has a gender, she should have a name. Something that starts with the F sound to alliterate with Pfaff. Fern? Fiona? Fannie? I think… Fannie! Pfannie Pfaff. 

The only thing I got done after that was some more sorting through sets of finished RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) blocks to decide what would be my next project after I finish the 3.5 quilts that are already sandwiched and ready to be quilted. I found a few cut bright fabric squares and fabrics to cut more. I quickly measured and counted up the cut blocks, figured a basic size and pattern for a kid quilt, and cut out the remaining needed blocks from some of the fabric. The rest of the fabric got put away and I had another empty project box. I threw the blocks up on the wall, and voila! This little squirrel project will be quickly webbed and sewn into a top, then put away with its backing until I get to it later in the month.

Oh! The RSC project I selected for the next project (after those 3.5 quilts are quilted) is the group of Paint Chip blocks. 

That’s all from here for now. I hope you all have a nice week. 

Squirrel in the Strings!

This week a “squirrel” got into my sewing room and so my sewing plans for the week took a bit of a detour. That means there was absolutely no quilting on my Halloween quilt, which puts it at the very top of my priority list for the next few sewing sessions until it is finished. But in the meantime, there are a few things to share.

My daughter Megan called and asked me if I’d sew a couple little kitty quilts for their new furbabies, Laszlo and Nadja. The kitties are named after two “funny vampires” in some TV series that Megan and Ted watch. 

Nadja and Laszlo (with crossed eyes)

So, naturally, I dropped everything to start on these, and a squirrel was born. But before I began sewing, I needed to sort through all the cat fabric and scraps that I was given last year when my friend Pat was destashing. (See that post HERE). I had a whole drawer of cat fabric, much of it cut into squares (4.5”, 5”, 6”) and 2.5” short strips. The rest was large chunks and yardage. It was a great way to spend a morning. 

Once I picked out squares and matching fabrics, it was quick work to plan out, stitch, and then pin and quilt the two little quilts. The binding was just the back folded over. 

Both quilts are in the neighborhood of 24x24”, although the pink one for Nadja is a little longer because that’s the way the fabrics worked out. 

Nadja’s quilt is in hot pink and a variety of bright squares. The batik on the back rather looks like paws, but I think they’re just meant to be dots. It’s purrfect anyway!

Laszlo’s quilt in blues and greens fits perfectly with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s colors of the month, a redux of blues and greens. 

A scrap of batik (thanks, Nann!) on the back for the win!

So those will be packed up and sent off to Megan and family, along with an older human-sized quilt, Starry, Starry Day.

Once the squirrels were vanquished, I did sew 15 multi-colored string string blocks and 23 brown crumb blocks. 

Strings and crumbs

That brings my string block total up to 195. I didn’t take a picture of them all pinned up in groups on the design board because I already took 60 brown string bocks (4 sets of 15) and matching boy’s football fabric to Quilts for Kids to make into quilt kits.  I figure it’s better to get them out into the world sooner rather than later since it is football season. I’ll still be counting them toward my total goal (600 blocks by year end), even if they aren’t here. 

Yesterday afternoon I was able to pin baste three little quilts in order to get them moving along. You may recognize them.

Bright Animals Strippy

little Bricks Pastel

Little Bricks Bright

These will await their turns under the needle until after I finish quilting my Halloween Quilt. My goodness, October is next week! 

This morning I’m headed off to a very sad funeral. Our former neighbor Doug, who lived across the street from us in our old house, passed away last weekend. He was only 61 and died in his sleep. His daughter Mary, the youngest of their 4 children, used to work for me after school when I had my Etsy shop. They are such a wonderful family and Doug and Lynda were just beginning their lives as grandparents. In fact, Mary is now married and pregnant with a grandchild that her dad will never meet. 

There will definitely be some calming music and quilting when I get home from the funeral. Have a good week everyone!

 

More Strings and Things

Hello friends! Welcome to another weekend (hallelujah!). It’s crazy that even when you’re retired, the weekend always seems to be the best time to relax and spend time with family and friends. And this is going to be a great weekend. Later this morning I head to the closest fabric shop to me (five minutes away), where our monthly Quilts for Kids workshop will be. I have five of my own little quilts to take, as well as about 11 from my friend Ruby who started quilting quilts for them on her longarm. 

The fabric store, Nuttall’s (a local chain of 4 stores from along the Wasatch Front), is also where I agreed to accompany Ruby last night, along with her sister Cathy, as well as Cousin Kim and niece Jenny to a year-long quilt class. We will meet once monthly, but from now on we’ll be going on Saturday mornings. One big happy group of family and friends. 

This past week I didn’t work on my Halloween quilt at all, but I will be focusing on it heavily this coming week. I’ll be able to get a lot of sewing time in, and I’m looking forward to it. I did, however, sew the remaining Little Bricks blocks into a quilt top, and made a backing for it. The one I did last week was in pastels, and this one is all brights. These were also blocks that I did for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge back in 2023, so they are sufficiently “aged”, LOL. 

So now I have three more little quilts waiting to be pin basted, and I’d love to get them done in the next week. But I do have a lot of batch cooking planned for the week. I do it (batch cooking) to some extent every fall. But with me facing knee surgery in a couple months, I’m particularly interested in making ahead and freezing lots of dinners. This week I’ll be focusing on lasagna and chicken enchilada casserole. The following week I’ll make chili and start on some soups. After that, I’m not sure. But I’ve got time.

And then there were the strings. Lots and lots of those. First there were three sets (of 15 blocks each) in brown, to finish off all those. My brown scrap drawer is breathing a sigh of relief!

And then I did two 15-blocks sets of multi-colored strings.

I’ve started pinning the sets up on the very left area of my design board to keep track. I’ve now completed  180 blocks of my goal of 600 blocks by year-end. 

And yes, I know I need to take a lint roller to my design board. That will be the first order of business when I get back to my sewing room after my Quilts for Kids workshop today!

Darla was rolling around on the floor by my chair yesterday morning, meowing away and generally just being a happily little girl. I couldn’t resist snapping some pictures. She is usually so refined and elegant, but she is still a cat, and sometimes a girl just needs a good back scratching. She also has a very fine and fuzzy tummy, and you can easily see the orange undertones of her coat. 

Tomorrow for our weekly “Church of Bernina” sewing day, Bruce’s daughter Stacy will be coming down (she lives about 40 minutes away) to hang out. She already knows Kim, of course (they are actually true cousins) and she knows and really likes Ruby too. We’ll chat all morning and have pizza for lunch. Then Stacy will probably head out and Kim, Ruby and I will sew away the afternoon. 

That’s it for me this week. I’m off to QFK - the car is already loaded up. Like I said, it’s going to be a great weekend. I hope yours is too. 

Better Late Than Never

Oh man, I was so sick last night and this morning (nothing major - just something bad I ate) that I couldn’t even begin to think about doing a blog post until almost this (Saturday) afternoon. But I’m here now.

This week, my sewing time was grabbed in bits and chunks and a brief hour here or there. My first priority was to get my Haunted House Halloween quilt basted. And I did. No pictures of the fully pinned quilt, but here’s a quick shot of the spiderweb, which was my first quilting priority.

I’ve also started stitching on the house and tree branches, but there’s not much to see yet. I will do a more thorough job of picture-taking next week. My goal is to get this done and bound by the end of the month so that I have all of October to enjoy it. 

Naturally, I did some string block (6.5”) sewing. I got 45 done this week - three groups of 15. As you can see, I did one group of brown strings. I have plenty brown strings left to sew at least one, and maybe two, batches of 15-block strings. Then I’ll pair them with matching novelty fabrics and donate to Quilts for Kids for kits. 

For my “Fall Finishing Frenzy” this year, I’m keeping my string blocks until the end of the year. My goal is to do 600 by December 31, and I want to see how tall that string pile will be! In the meantime, I have 105 blocks sewn so far, and I’m pinning the sets up on my design board to keep an easy tally. I’ll show a picture of that next week as well.

Finally I had time to tackle the Little Bricks blocks that I made as part of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks back in 2023. I made one entire kid quilt with green blocks back then, but I have enough blocks to make two more little quilts. I laid out, then webbed this first top of mainly pastels. 

The Little Bricks blocks pattern comes courtesy of Sylvia at Treadlestitches. They measure 6”, finished size. Next week I’ll sew together the bright Little Bricks blocks. Then I can sew up a backing and have three more little quilts to layer up and finish. 

*********************

That’s all I have sewing-wise from here. but I have to take a moment to comments of the shooting that took place this week here in Utah. 

It’s so gut-wrenching when another horrific shooting takes place, especially when it’s in your back yard, so to speak. (My daughter graduated from UVU and we are familiar with the campus). While I had no agreement with or anything but disdain for most of Charlie Kirk’s beliefs, I certainly believe in his right to express them without fear or retaliation. He was a human being with an adorable little family, for heaven’s sake. Then some whack-job just snuffs him out because he could - he owned a gun and possessed a lot of anger. This type of slaying will continue until and unless we realize we have to put sensible controls on firearms. The type and quantity even allowed should be limited, ownership should be strict and registered, and penalties for abuse need to be swift and permanent. But I’m just one helpless voice shouting into the wind. 

PS - my comments on the blog are no longer being sent to my email (this just happened out of the blue). I didn’t realize that I’d even had any comments on last week’s post until I physically checked the blog. Does anyone know how to correct this? 

Slinging the Strings

It seems the heat has finally broken here in the Salt Lake Valley. Autumn is on its way. This born-and-raised California beach girl who has loved summer for decades once denied that summer was over (jokingly) until the last leaf fell from the big pear tree back in our last house. And that was in January. But now I’ve become a bigger fan of autumn. Let the celebrations begin! Give me falling leaves, cooler days, and pumpkin spice. It’s not sweater weather yet by any stretch of the imagination, but next week is our Closing-of-the-Pool community party, and I’m bringing Caramel Apple Salad. Yum. Have the leaves started turning color yet where you are? They haven’t started turning yet here in the Salt Lake Valley, but they have up in the mountains. It won’t be long!

As my blog title suggests, I was playing with strings this week. But it didn’t start out that way. I couldn’t resist sewing one of those quick Strippy donation quilts of which I cut out five kits, if memory serves. It took me less than 30 minutes to sew up. 

I let the fabric strips (all width-of-fabric) dictate the size and number of strip panels. These scraps came from my friend Wanda. Here’s a better closeup where you can appreciate the vibrancy. 

I had to just sew one up quick, but made myself move on to something else once the top was sewn. I’ve begun my Fall Finishing Frenzy. I have some loose goals. First I’d like to sew 600 string blocks between now (beginning of September) and the end of the year. Since I safety pin them in groups of 15 for Quilts for Kids kits, that would be 40 sets of 15. It’s an ambitious goal, and honestly, I’ll be happy with anything over 418. That was how many I sewed in 2023, and I started those in October. I didn’t do string blocks in the fall of 2024. 

In addition to strings, I’d like to finish up at least a half dozen of my RSC block sets into quilts. But first I’ll work on my Halloween quilt for this year. I’m planning to baste it this week, just have to finish a couple seams on the backing. Maybe that will happen on Monday or Tuesday. 

But I do have some string blocks (6.5” unfinished) to show for this week. Sixty of them. I love that little mouse in the corner of the block in the bottom left stack. Do you recognize any fabrics you have or have worked with in the past?

After I baste my Halloween quilt this week, I plan to switch colors on the strings and sew up a bunch of brown blocks. I’ve got a few fabrics that I can pair them with (like football 🏈 fabric), and they’ll make a couple cool boys’ quilts. 

That’s all I’ve got for this week. I am anxious to see if you all have begun your finishing frenzies. Have a wonderful week! Linking up to Scrappy Saturday/Rainbow Scrap Challenge.