Finishing Frenzy Interrupted by Turkey!

Well, apparently I cannot keep up a breakneck finishing pace for more than three weeks without pausing to enjoy some refreshment, LOL. This week’s guest star was Tom Turkey, with supporting cast of cornbread dressing, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie. YUM! But it was all carefully prepared and consumed within my weight loss plan, so it’s all good. The bonus - and truly the best part of the week - was seeing family again after several reclusive weeks. Let the Holiday Season begin!! 

While I didn’t get as much done in the studio as I’d hoped, it was still a pretty good week. Here we go.

My friend Ruby asked me to show her how to free motion quilt. After she watched me quilt a little quilt a couple weeks ago, she was ready to try on her own. So… she quilted this cute patchwork quilt that I assembled from 25-patch blocks sent to me by Catherine in New Jersey (no blog).  I showed all the blocks back in June HERE. You can read the backstory there, too. 

Isn’t it cute? Ruby practiced her stipple and did a great job. Then I bound and labeled it. It finished at 39x49”.  Here’s the pieced backing.

Catherine had sent more 25-patch blocks. The two brown ones are already pieced into a quilt top that I will show next week as a finished quilt. Sorry, I didn’t get any photos before hanging it up in the To-be-Quilted line.  There were several pink blocks as well, and they’ll be used in a quilt the next time we visit our pink scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC).

Speaking of the RSC, my other finish for the week was my Crumb Tumblers quilt. Making crumb-pieced tumblers, alternated with solid-pieced tumblers, was one of my 2022 RSC projects. This month I added a brown row at the top and a gray-to-black row at the bottom to give it proper length.

Again, this was quilted in a stipple, which is my preferred pattern for string, crumbs and wherever there is a lot of small piecing. The finished size is 40x48”.

Both of the quilts are for Quilts for Kids. At this time, I’m totally out of QFK labels, so I’ll be making a trip over to my friend Sandy’s house (our chapter President) to deliver about a dozen finished quilts, five quilt kits and to pick up a couple dozen more labels. 

The next pic is the quilt top I put together of brown strings and scraps. It’s basted and next in line to be quilted.

And these are the remaining bullseye courthouse quilt blocks that were another RSC project for this year. This will be the 3rd and final quilt from these blocks. Right now, they’ve just been arranged on the design wall, waiting to be sewn into a top. 

That’s it for the quilting, but I do have one more share. This week was Cousin Kim’s birthday. As my gift to her, I bought her a cute blue bowl and filled it with chocolate and a gift card to Beans and Brews. Then I used a plastic plant saucer (the kind used under a planter to catch water) to make a lid. It was tied on with twine.

Next came the fun part. I went out to the yard and foraged any potential decorations, such as cypress, rose hips, holly, coneflower heads, berries, colorful leaves, dried hydrangea and even a dried rose. They were then hot glued to the plastic top to make a dried arrangement. No paper wrapping - yay! 

Best of all, she loved it!!

Have a great week. Linking to Scrappy Saturday/Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Oh Scrap! 

Quilt Finishes and Blackberries

July has been busy, hot and purple this year. I’ll get to the last of my purple sewing momentarily, but since I’ve got a lot of pictures to share, we’re going to get right down to business here, starting with blackberries. Blackberries are really dark purple, you know. And we have a very prolific bush to prove it. 

Look at the size of some of the berries!  We’ve been eating them for most of July. Purple was certainly the most appropriate color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for July for me. And the Rainbow Vegetable Challenge too! (Hehe - I just made that up …)

There’s been blackberry jam, blackberry shortcake, a rhubarb-blackberry pie (so yummy!) and lots of good ol’ plain sweet blackberries just to snack on by themselves.

We baked with them, froze them, shared them and we’re still not done. Well, almost, but not quite. 

And now raspberry season is here, so I see more fruit in my future. 

OK, *now* we can talk about sewing. Last week I showed the first four of these Little Brick blocks designed by Sylvia of Treadlestitches. At that time I had two blocks going in one direction and two blocks going in the opposite direction. I decided I’d make them all with the same orientation, so I corrected two of the first ones then a sewed up seven more for a total of eleven. They’re 6.5” blocks (unfinished size).

And then I finished up two purple crumb placemats. Um, exCUSE me, Mr. Cat!

Ok, this is better.  I’ll be linking up with Joy’s Table Scraps monthly Linky party (I typed “tinkly" party first, hahaha!)

Last Sunday, Cousin Kim and I changed up our usual sewing day. Since she was dog-sitting for her daughter’s family, we sewed at her house. The easiest thing for me to pack up to sew was my multi-colored string bag.  I made sixteen 6.5” string blocks before we switched to puzzle-making!

I continued my personal string party the next day, making 17 more, for a total of 33.

Next it was time to get serious about quilting the four small-ish quilts waiting in line. And boy, were they ever nagging me to quilt them!

First up, the quilt top made with the red, pink and purple Bullseye Courthouse Steps blocks that I’ve been making for this year’s RSC. Julie K of Julie’s Quilts and Costumes sent me the coordinating fabric for the border as it needed to be widened just a bit.  Thanks again, Julie! 

There was enough of the fabric to use (with red and purple inserts) for the back and binding, too. I just love how this quilt turned out. It measures 39x48.5” and was quilted with a basic stipple.

Next up was the Purple Windmills quilt. The dotted fabric (a scrap of an oldie designed by Kate Spain) was the color inspiration for this quilt. I noticed that she is a designer/seller on Spoonflower, and this fabric is now available again from her there. Notice that I snuck in some old selvage scraps in white.

Purple Windmills measures 40x48”, and was quilted with a basic vine loop design. The backing was a 2-yard piece that I picked up a couple years ago in Nucla, Colorado (verrry rural) at a consignment store for $2.  

Then I decided to tackle the two tops that Julie sent me to finish and donate. We agreed that a Ukraine charity was most appropriate, and they will be donated to Wrap Ukraine with Quilts (by Hello Cottons) in early August. 

This first quilt was my favorite. It measures 39” square, and Julie’s piecing is immaculate. I decided to quilt it a little more densely than I usually do, so I made a little loop in every square. I was able to quilt all the yellow squares in one continuous pattern, with yellow on top and in the bobbin. Then I did the blue squares in one continuous pattern, but had to backtrack once to get a few missed squares when I lost my concentration. For the blue squares there was blue thread on the top but I stayed with the yellow on the backside. 

Julie’s second Ukraine quilt, also a stunner, measures 48” square. I had ordered special backing for this, but when it came it was turquoise instead of dark blue. So, I reverted to Plan B, which was a lighter blue backing. 

I’m afraid I didn’t do this quilt justice with the basic stipple. Hopefully, the eventual recipient won’t care.  :-)

By then, my brain was pretty much fried for the week. I did manage to sew the elephants and border fabric for the pink, purple and green elephant flimsy. But then I ran out of week. 

It may be a couple days, but I’ll update my Community Quilts tab and my 2022 quilts tab to add all the July finishes. Today, Saturday, we’re going to clean up the patio - blow it off and put things away. Shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. There’s also the pull of the Farmer’s Market and the in-season raspberries. Then we may head over to Barnes & Noble for a coffee and book date. 

Life is Good!

Just Sewing and Gardening

Sewing and Gardening - my week in a nutshell. It’s been a great, hot week, although it started out with some wind, rain and temps early spring-like. I was even wearing my fuzzy socks. But the wind brought temps that reached into the 80’s and then the 90’s. Yikes! No complaints here as long as we can get our gardening and errands done before noon and then spend the afternoon sewing - or for Bruce, puttering in his workshop. 

I know most of you are visiting the blog for the quilting part, but I’m going to mix it up a bit and show some more garden pictures first.  You know I’m a big fan of roses, but I didn’t show you all of them last week (nor will I show them all this week), but I do have a few more that are blooming their little hearts out now that I wanted to share.

This one is along the back wall with the two climbers we have. It’s not a climber, but that’s OK. I’ve tried so many things in this spot that didn’t take (mostly clematis - they hate me), so I’m thrilled that this one is thriving among the irises.

I did show this rose bush (below) last week, and although it’s past its prime now I wanted to show it again with the delphinium that started blooming. I lost two of my delphiniums this last year, so they are on my list (along with echibeckia, veronica, and hostas). But every time we run to the big box nursery, we’re getting bags and bags of mulch, and I forget. 

This week we got all the pathways in the vegetable garden laid out with cardboard (a great, natural weed barrier) and fine bark mulch. It looks so nice! I went out to take a picture of the finished project yesterday, but the wind had been so nasty that the rose petals were half gone. A mess.

The rose bush below is one of my favorites (yeah, like we all have favorite children - each and every one). It’s at the curved bend of our front walkway steps.

The little rose tree in one of our front walkway beds. So happy!

Well, that’s enough for now. I had more garden pictures, but between my iPhotos and Blogger, some photos keep being sent to the wrong place on my computer and the editing isn’t showing . Ugh. At least the sewing studio pix that I’ll be using will be OK enough unedited. So, let’s move along, shall we?

I did piece two elephant blocks this week, but I’ll save them for next week when I show the final eight ellies. Hopefully I can get them all pieced into quilt tops to share next week, too. So this week was instead devoted to strings.

Fifteen navy string blocks at 6.5". These will go to Quilts for Kids as-is to use in assembling a kit with matching fabric.

Thirty-six dark and bright blue string blocks (also 6.5”). These, coupled with the few I had left over from last year will go to QFK for use in three quilt kits. 

Once I was done with those, I started on a pile of dark blue and dark green QFK donated scraps I’ve been collecting since last year. This pic was supposed to be turned, but my photo editor is just not seeing the edits. 

After doing some quilty math and pulling out a few additional scraps, I did a few test blocks. That ugly, mushy one on the bottom left was my first effort. It did not make the final cut, but went to play with some new friends in the block orphanage. 

Here’s the final flimsy, with borders added. It measures 42x49”, and I love it. I love these little challenges that I give myself. It keeps things interesting!

The backing is prepped and I’ll baste it during the next week, along with the HST quilt I showed last week. And hopefully I can get them both quilted too. 

Behind the scenes I’m also quilting up some community quilts for Jo at Jo’s Country Junction Community Quilt program. They will also go to our local Quilts for Kids program. More on that when I get a batch finished up. And then next week will also be Elephant week! So I’ve got lots to sew, baste, quilt. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in my sewing studio!

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

Summertime Blues

Well, I’ve been staring at a blank screen for at least 10 minutes, trying to figure out how to start this weekly blogpost. What’s happened this week that’s exciting in my life? Um, not much. And that’s OK really, because the best part of this last trimester of my existence - especially in summer - is the little daily things that weave themselves together into good times and memories. Like a Barnes & Noble date with Bruce, but stopping to get some frozen yogurt first; delivering kennel quilts made by me and my friend Terri to the Salt Lake Best Friends Shelter (and meeting an awesome orange male tabby named Curtis); getting the patio furniture set up finally and spending time reading out there; seeing the garden and flowers growing (pics later in the post); sleeping with windows open, ceiling fan on and kitties on the bed; homemade root beer floats. And I even got some sewing in!

Let’s start with blue scraps. June’s color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) is dark and bright blue. I have so many blue scraps! In my work with Quilts for Kids, I’m one of the suckers volunteers who prefers to sew with scraps. So, while yardage donations go to the Board members who make up the quilts kits to be sewn by volunteers, I (and one other woman) take the donated scraps. A lot of the fabrics and scraps are adorable, but many are dark and dreary, which is why there is never a shortage of dark blue, dark greens and browns here. 

This week I sewed four blue elephants. The pattern I use is Stomping Ground by Wendy Sheppard, and each block finishes at 10”.

But wait, there’s more! Sort of. I’ve done all the cutting for the other 8 blue elephants I’ll be making this month. This will give me all the blue and green elephants I need for the first two elephant quilts. I’ve got everything all planned out and cut (even the sashing), so I just need to find time to squeeze them in!

Moving along, I also sewed some framed four-patches. I had 20 four-patches in mixed blues from last year and decided to frame half of them in dark blues this month and the other half in light blues when we get to that month for the RSC.

And then while I was doing all that cutting and sorting of blue scraps, I prepped then sewed these 12 Bullseye Courthouse Steps blocks:

I’ve also got the three quilts planned that I’ll make with the various Courthouse blocks for this year. But first I’ll need to finish all the colors of course!

Last week I showed you a bunch of cut (scrap?) triangles that were given to me by our QFK president, Sandy. After studying several layout possibilities for the 64 half-square triangles (HSTs), this is the layout I decided upon. Our chapter of Quilts for Kids doesn’t particularly care for square quilts, so instead of using all 64 blocks in an 8x8 layout, I used 63 in a 7x9 layout. Here’s the front, and it measures 42.5x54.5”.

I did not have a really good backing for this, but finally settled on this OK-ish orange stripe that has been in my stash for almost 10 years. Too bad the brown in it isn’t navy instead! The extra block was pieced into the backing along with some smaller leftover HST’s of a print fabric that had all the colors of the front together. This is just pinned up here, but it will go into the To Be Basted pile.

A very generous woman in New Jersey named Catherine (great name!) contacted Mari, who ran this year’s Hands2Help effort, saying she had blocks to donate. Mari contacted me and asked me if I’d want them for Quilts for Kids (heck yeah!), so she put us in contact with each other. This week Catherine’s package arrived and these are some of the lovely blocks.

These stars and low volume blocks (only 16 out of 30 are pictured here) are just gorgeous! I will probably make a quilt of just the stars blocks and use the low volume four-patches for Happy Blocks in another quilt or two.

Also included were 20 blocks of 25-patch pastels that measure 10” each. Actually, there were 21, but one will either get used for the back or go into an orphan quilt. I am so in love with these blocks!! They’ve been added to the pile of finished blocks to be sewn into quilts when we take our RSC break in the last part of the year. I think there are four quilts’ worth of blocks there to be sewn up.  Thanks so much, Catherine! You’ll be seeing these again in a few short months!

I finally snapped some garden pictures. Usually I’m much earlier and more prolific in my garden picture-taking, but this is a drought year here in Utah (and most of the West), and we’ve kept our lawn watering to the recommended once per week. Up until the last ten days, the spring was very cool with plenty of rain, which really helped ease us through part of April and all of May. But now the heat has set in. It got up to 90 degrees (F) yesterday. We do water our veggies daily with drip irrigation, and I sprinkle my flower pots and flower beds by hand every evening. The grass is very dry and ugly, so keep that in mind as you view these pictures. We are planning to spend a couple hours today pulling weeds and spreading mulch in the beds around the plants and shrubs to help retain moisture.

Backyard: Chihuly rose

Closeup, Chihuly Rose

Backyard: miniature yellow rose bush, Boomer’s grave (right)

Blackberry bush (foreground), Grapes beyond that 

Climbing Roses on back wall, veggie beds in foreground (weeds in between beds!)

Front Yard: Daybreak Rose, the very definition of “laden"

Front window planter: miniature rose and Talavera orb

Some front walkway pots just planted

Another front yard rose bush. Can you tell I like roses?

Brunnera

This was the maple tree that was partially felled by our Thunderstorm From Hell last July, then finished off in a second storm in August. But you can’t keep a good tree down. It’s sporting lots of new growth and we’re hopeful that it will continue to grow and recover.

Just another flowerpot

We’ve decided that we’re going to rip out the grass between our front walkway/driveway and the house. The picture above shows the area I’m referring to. We (meaning me) just came up with the idea this week, but Bruce is totally onboard. We’ll replace the grass there with xeriscaping and the sprinklers with targeted drip irrigation. We are going to get bids for the work to be done by a professional, although I get to come up with some plant choice ideas. Anyway, I’m not sure if this will happen this season or next - it will depend on the cost and the landscaper’s timing. After all the remodeling we did this spring, to say nothing of the bed we bought (which should be gold-plated given what we paid - have you priced adjustable beds lately?), I’m thinking this project will likely happen next year. But that’ll give me plenty of time to do some plant research and shopping, hehe. 

Have a great week! Linking up to Scrappy Saturday.