Summer Reading - Books and Book Blocks

You know I love quilts. But I love books too. And if you combine them, that’s nirvana. You may remember the Reading Rainbow Quilt that I finished last year.

Through a year of scraps with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this was a labor of love.

And now, with the Block Lotto, our monthly hostess for June is Nann, and she has given us a fun new block to try called Summer Reading.  You can see her post on the Block Lotto HERE. Her post contains a link to the actual pattern for the block.

Here are the six blocks I made for this month:

As I did in the Reading Rainbow quilt, I added “titles” to three of the books. They are gleaned from my stash of selvages and stitched on the “spine” of the book with a small stitch length for security.

And just to let you know that I love REAL books too, here is my current read. A recent article in the Washington Post had a great list of summer reading titles from various people. When I saw that this book appeared more than once, and read the reviews of this, it became a Must Read for me. I’m about two thirds through, and am savoring every bit. Two thumbs way up!

I’ve got another half dozen on hold. I’m hoping that at least a couple come up over the next month so that I can load them onto my iPad and have some reading to take with me for my Africa trip in July. That’s when I love digital books - traveling without adding the extra weight of physical books. Because except for my personal carry-on, all my luggage weight allowance will be devoted to humanitarian items (toys, fabric and personal care items) for our Kenyan non-profit project. 

Reading Rainbow Quilt Finished!

I am so thrilled that I finished my Reading Rainbow quilt this weekend! It has been 10 months in the works - since we started with purple in January for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Every month I’ve added blocks of books in the color of the month according to a plan I drew out ahead of time.

The quilt was constructed with 5 12” blocks per row. Some rows, like green, orange, and yellow are all one color - because I had more of those scraps in my stash. Other rows combine colors like purple and black, red and pink, and teal and blues. And here and there I tried to add in little whimsical bits of interest; a mouse, a fishbowl, a globe, flowers, etc. All designs were pulled from my warped own imagination except that awesome Laurel Burch cat on the yellow row.

The “wood” shelves are 2” (finished) wide and the outer borders were cut at 3”. Even the back has the same Joel Dewberry woodgrain fabric, except where I had to supplement with a plain Kona gray. My husband Bruce was kind enough to haul a chair out to our colorful flowering pear tree in front. He graciously stood on the chair holding the quilt so I could snap pictures.

The finished quilt measures 66x86”. The batting is Warm & Plush cotton (my favorite), and I used a basic stipple quilting pattern. No surprise there, but there was a method to my madness. Let me show you.

The book titles were taken from fabric selvages. Most of the time, but not always, selvages are woven more tightly than the fabric itself in order to prevent fraying on the bolt. And that is one of the reasons we trim selvages - they will shrink (or not) at different rates than the main fabric. When I sewed on the selvages, I reduced my the stitches on my machine to a 1.0 length - very tiny. That doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be fraying; I fully expect that there will be fraying over the first couple washings to those seam lines.

So that’s where the stippling came in. It was another opportunity to go over the selvages with more stitches, as Alfie points out here...

And here....

And.....whoops!

It appears my Supervisor got a bit sidetracked with the camera strap ....

Now, where were we? Oh yes..... stippling. So, all in all, it seemed to make the most sense and give me the best maneuverability to get everything secured as best I could.

Reading Rainbow will be my own quilt to “read” and cuddle with this winter. It also represents a finish for the 4th Quarter 2017 Finish-Along. It is my goal #3. The link to my list is here. 

Thanks for dropping by! I will show another finish (a pink baby quilt) on my next post and catch you up with my other works in process.

Pink Scraps Under the Needle and a Quilt Top Finish

Hi all, and welcome to the first pink Scrappy Saturday in October. I’m going to link this post up to Angela’s So Scrappy blog for our weekly Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Join us for some great quilting ideas and eye candy! I have so much to share that this is likely to be a long post, but at least there are a lot of pictures. Some things, though, I’ll save for a mid-week post. Let’s get started!

In my September scrappy summary, I mentioned a quilt I’m working on (off and on) that will take about 450 -  2.5”x5” lozenges. These will be cornered with 1.5” white and black pieces (it is a Bonnie Hunter pattern taken from a vintage quilt). The link will take you to her Free Patterns tab, where you can find a couple of posts regarding the cutting and construction of the quilt. Anyway, after finishing most of the cutting (I think I saved about 50 lozenges to cut from next year’s scraps to avoid too many duplicates), I cornered 40 lozenges. Obviously, I haven’t started applying any of the black corners yet....

So let’s talk PINK, shall we?  I had one 8.5” strings block from last year, and it takes 4 of them to make one big 16” (finished) square. And I am going to need 20 squares altogether. So, I sewed up 11 more string blocks to finish up the three large blocks. That gives me 15 of the 18 required.

And then it was time to focus on selvages. My Rainbow Selvages quilt calls for two pink columns; one light pink and one bright, hot pink. Done and done.

And sewn to the other finished columns it looks like this:

All that’s left is one column to the very right of the purples. Originally I planned a black/gray column. But now I think I will add two columns next month when we do dark neutrals. One will be the black/gray and the other will be browns. It will add another 4” of width, which I think this 72” long quilt will need, making it 60x72”. Stay tuned.

And the last of my pink scrappy sewing this week was my favorite - the bookcase quilt AKA Reading Rainbow. I needed two 12” pink blocks to finish up the red/pink row (you can click on all pictures to enlarge).

And since the only thing left for the bookshelf was one dark block for the bottom corner. So, I went ahead and made a black/gray block of books. I LOVE how this one finished, especially that Egyptian fabric (a scrap left over from making boxers for one of my sons when he was a teenager). And it has the perfect title - Timeless Treasure. Is that serendipity  or what?

And then I assembled all the books, rows, shelves, borders, etc. Oh my, what fun!  Here it is hanging on the design wall.

I know it’s not a very good picture, but we just didn’t get outside for a photo shoot.  This one is planned for pin basting on my new tables in the coming week. It will be the first quilted that way, so I am rather looking forward to it. And then the quilting will begin. I’m planning to do just some basic stippling or loops - a basic allover design that won’t detract from the action on the shelves. This quilt is about my favorite ever!  Hopefully I’ll have more to share on this next week.

And I am still making progress on my Autumn Farm Girl quilt. This week I finished up the Indian Corn block.

I’m almost done with the owl block, too, but I will save that for my mid-week post.

Finally, I wanted to share a recent make for my friend Diann of Little Penguin Quilts. Diann and DH Mike were going to join us on our recent Colorado trip for a couple days, but due to a death in Mike’s family, their plans changed at the last minute. So, I mailed this off to Diann when we got home from our respective trips. Now that she’s received it, I can share.

It’s just a little quilted, lined zip pouch stuffed with some little goodies. It’s quilted with a lefty vine motif.

A couple Christmases ago I made dozens of these for gifts, but this was the first one this year. And it seems that I was a bit rusty and could've used a refresher course! The first pouch I made (below) used my first fabric picks and colors.

But, I forgot the lining! OOPS! See the batting showing on the inside in the picture below. Sheesh.

If I had a dollar for every sewing missssssnake I’ve ever made, I’d be wealthy.

Quilting by the (Orange) Book

Welcome back, friends! First, let me say that those of you in Florida are sure in my thoughts as you brace for Hurricane Irma’s impact. Hopefully you have all prepared as best you can and that you and your loved ones (and loved homes, etc) escape harm. If our friend Angela is able to post the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Saturday link-up, I will join in.

And we have not forgotten our Texas friends who are still recovering from Hurricane Harvey. There are many online sites for donating money, services, quilts, pillowcases, kennel quilts for animals, etc. for the multitude of victims in the Southeast. I hope we will ALL take the time to contribute what we can. If you need help finding a charity, please feel free to write me and I will be glad to direct you to some.

And now let’s talk Orange.

This week I started by using orange strings to make (8) 8.5” string blocks. If I have strings left over after all the rest of my blocks are done, I'll make 4 more to sew into another 16” finished block. If not, there is always next year!

And then I sewed up four quick Plus blocks. Originally I wasn’t even planning to use orange in the Plus quilt, but that changed. With these, I have 89 blocks. The remaining blocks for the quilt will be pink and gray, and I will need between 7-18 total of those. The extras will be used if I decide to switch out some of the already-made blocks that I don’t care for.

Next, I got started on my orange shelf of books (5 blocks) for my Bookcase Quilt. Bookcase Quilt - it needs a better name, doesn’t it? Any ideas? Anyway, here are some close-up pictures so you can see the individual titles in case you want to “check them out”!  hahahaha..... get it?  check them out 

So, let’s read across from left to right. Note that you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. Have you read Timeless Treasures or Peak Hour?

Moving along (there is some overlap in the pictures), we find Cool Cats and Helen’s Garden. Naturally, Helen has pumpkins in her garden at this time of year....

And it’s true, I got lazy and stacked all my smallish books sideways. But the titles are easier to read. These little book titles include Diamond Eye, Handmaids and Hello Darling. 

All this reading is making me hot (as in hot flashes, LOL). So, thank goodness I parked my fan on the shelf, eh??

And note that we have the the runaway bestseller Butterfly Bliss. It even has a butterfly on the cover! And even Home for Harvest has an appropriate cover.

And here is a view with the orange shelf just pinned on top of the yellow, green and blue shelves. I haven’t sewn the orange books onto the shelf yet.....

There are three pink book blocks still to sew and add to my two red book blocks; they will they will comprise the top shelf. The bottom shelf will be the 4 already-sewn purple blocks plus one dark-colored book block of black/gray/other dark neutrals. This may come to Colorado for me to work on....

I am starting to cut and pack other projects to take along with me to Colorado next week. One of the things I plan to bring is fabric to make the pillowcases for Sarah’s charity drive over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I’ve cut and packed up 7-8 of those to sew.  And I will probably cut and kit fabric for a half dozen or more Farm Girl 12” blocks. I want to do an autumn-themed quilt. And since I have way too many 12” Farm Girl blocks for just one quilt, I thought I would pull out the autumn-ish blocks, add a few more and see what I can come up with. I have plenty of sashing and backing ready to go, so this is another one that could materialize quickly. Like a quilting hurricane.....

Last December, we purchased four Ingo tables from IKEA as my Christmas present. I have wanted to re-do the tables and arrangement in my studio forever. Anyway, after Christmas came the end of our living room remodel, and then weeks, even months, of the arm cancer scare and operations for Bruce. So we “tabled” the assembly (sorry, couldn’t resist). And then it was summer/garden/family/brother moving in, etc. Finally I announced an assembly date last Monday, and both Bruce and my brother agreed gladly. They had those 4 tables whipped out - from gathering tools to wiping them of dust - in 2 hours flat.

So, here are some pictures of the place. Keep in mind it’s still a work in progress. And also, these are honest, messy pictures. There is ironing to be done, messes to clean up, stuff packed up for our trip, etc..........

When you come down the stairs (above picture, where the light switch is), there are two rooms to your right. The first one (brown) is my office and computer. It's also where I used to store my lace and fabric inventory when I had an active Etsy shop. The second apricot-colored room (above and below) has two easy chairs and is my hand stitching room. In there I keep my batting rolls, and cabinets of embroidery threads, silk ribbons, beads, buttons, books, ribbons, vintage laces, and collectibles such as vintage aprons, vintage clothing, vintage pillowcases and linens, etc. That room is worthy of a post in its own right sometime.

So, as you come down the stairs and look ahead in my studio, there is the design wall on the right. Facing forward (to the left in the above picture) are two bookshelves housing fabrics. On the top of the wood-toned bookcase are two containers of selvages sorted by color and one basket of multi-colored scraps.

In the picture above you can see two of the new tables. My power strip/surge protector comes down from the overhead lights and sewing machines and irons for up to 4 persons can be plugged into it. I just flip off the power strip when I leave the room. The studio is in the basement, but it gets afternoon sun and is delightful.  My big ironing board there is covered with the pillowcases I’m kitting up. Beyond that, in the corner are (1) plastic shelves containing scraps by color and the WIP bookshelf. The door leads out to the backyard. Hanging on the door handle and on the carpet shampooer is the laundry I need to iron!!

As we continue moving around the room, you can see more of the tables and the cutting station that’s set up (green mat).  Behind my sewing chair (that is really for my office, but until I get a new one without arms, I’m using it here) is my thread, treadle machine below the thread, and miscellaneous sewing supplies in the desk and shelves behind my chair. That is the bathroom there behind the door....

Between the bathroom and laundry room (the door next to the hangers) is a plastic bin of fancy fabric scraps (silks, damask, velvet) for my crazy quilting, plus a bookcase of mementos, pincushions and music. The painting was done by my son Shane in high school.

And so we’ve come full circle. Again, sorry for the mess. But honestly, I wasn’t going to clean up just to take pictures and then have to get it all back out again.

If you don’t hear from me next Saturday, it just means that I don’t have internet access at our cabin in Colorado. We are meeting up with Diann and her hubby (of Little Penguin Quilts) and several other couple friends for a long weekend in the mountains. Then we are visiting family for a couple days before returning home. I will update y’all when I get back!

Have a great week!

Rhythm of the Blues

With a tip of the hat to Mary Chapin Carpenter (listen to Rhythm of the Blues here), I’ve been sewing on my blue scraps at quite a clip. That song, with its understated guitar and her great voice and beautiful melody, has been my theme song this week.


The blue selvage column is on the left. Then I sewed together all the columns I could for the Rainbow Selvage quilt. All I have left are two orange columns and two pink columns when we get to those colors. The red column is already done. Oh, and I may add a brown, black or gray column to the very right. Depends.

Next up were my string blocks. I had a couple blue blocks from last year because I started them late in the summer. So, since they’re 8.5” each and will be sewn together into big blocks of 4, I had to make six of them this month.

And here are all 8 together. I still have quite a way to go on these blocks because I only have 4 (resulting in one large 16” block) of most colors. This will continue into next year as I accumulate more scraps and strings.

And then, of course, there are the bookshelf quilt blocks! So many good titles this month! We have that runaway bestseller (pun intended) “Embracing Horses” by Laurel Burch as well as Metro Cafe and Treasure Bay by Elizabeth Miles.
















EEEEEEEK! There is a mouse on the shelf!!  Thanks to my friend Mary Anne for suggesting it. Mary Anne and I used to work together on the staff of the Crazy Quilting Quarterly magazine and still keep up with each others’ doings.

This month I only had to do three blue blocks, so here they are, section by section so you can see them close up.

The blue blocks were added to the aqua blocks from February to form the blue shelf. Then I added the actual “wood shelves” themselves and sewed together three rows:

Yep, we are getting closer to having a finished library. I still need a whole shelf of orange, 3 blocks of pink to finish off the pink/red row, and one block of black or brown to finish off the purple row, which will go beneath the blue row. Progress!

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

Last month it was my intention to dig into my yellow scraps and do a pineapple quilt. Although I did make a start (a lot of cutting), I was only able to finish one block. But the pineapple sewing will continue on the sidelines as I make my way through blue in July. Hopefully I can do one or two per week at least. Here is the first one.

There is no real pattern on this; I just eyeballed it and decided to use 2.5” strips of yellow to make the body of the pineapple and greens for the top. The 2.5” HST’s so far have come from my scrap drawers. I`ll have to break down eventually, though, and piece fresh ones as these blocks progress. I haven’t thought yet about quantity or settings. The pineapples will all be yellow, with the exception of one rogue pineapple that will either be aqua or pink. We will see when the time comes. I’m pretty laid back about this one.

And there is one final project that I haven’t introduced you to yet. But first, a little background.  As I’ve mentioned before, my husband Bruce is in a folk trio with two guys that he’s known since he was a teenager. Yep, back in 1964 they got together and formed the Muddy Gutter Boys, modeling themselves along the lines of The Kingston Trio. They’ve played thousands of gigs over the years. And, they are still friends, as are the wives and all the kids and now all the grandkids. Their gigs aren’t as regular now due to health issues, but we still get together to practice about twice per month. The three couples are Rob (upright bass) and Diane, Mike (guitar and banjo) and Terri; and Bruce (guitar and banjo) and me.  And as of this month, we are all retired. Diane was the last holdout.


Rob has been struggling with his huge upright bass, so Mike, who is a luthier (guitarmaker) in his post-retirement life, decided to make him a smaller base. Naturally, they wanted to amplify it, so that is where Bruce came in with his electronics experience. The group has quite the sound system when they perform. So, Mike and Bruce have been tinkering for weeks on the bass and amplifier as a Christmas present for Rob.

So then Terri and I decided we would collaborate on a big, comfy quilt for Diane. After finding out her favorite colors (another story, too long for here), we searched Pinterest and came up with the idea for a tulip quilt. It looks like others I’ve seen on Pinterest, but I just put together this test block from scratch rather than purchasing a pattern. It measures 8.5 x 16.5” (unfinished). We’ll be using our recently purchased pink and green fabrics as well as plenty of additions from our respective stashes. This is going to be so much fun!


I hope you have a wonderful summer week, full of fun, family and good health!