Bookmarks, Aqua, Family, Garden

This has been a crazy busy week, and all of it wonderful. The stuff of which memories are made. The weather, which started out rainy at the beginning of the week turned warm and dry by Tuesday, and it has been so delightful to work out in the yard and do things outside.

A week ago, on Saturday afternoon, we got to attend DGD Lauren’s cheer/tumbling end-of-year program. I’ve attended them before, but Bruce has always had to work. Now that he’s retired, he got to come along and see it. It’s amazing what the young ladies can do! You may remember that Lauren went with me and her mom to Africa last summer.

And here is my son Ryan, with Lauren and DIL Kim.

Over the next couple days I sewed on my aqua (turquoise, teal) scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I finished lots of blocks.

Four 9.5” strip blocks.

Five 6.5” crumb blocks, which joined those that I’d made last year to complete three 13.5” Crumbcake blocks.

And a column of aqua bitcoins to join the other colors made so far this year. This isn’t all of them, but most. I’m hoping to have enough by year-end to make a rainbow border around one of my RSC quilts.  I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday over at Angela’s blog.

On Wednesday evening, we had a gathering of local Harambe Humanitarian Board members here at our house. We had fajitas, rice and beans, fruit salad and homemade pie for dinner, then set about working on the bookmarks. We finished about 150 (of the 350 we set out to make). Then we had an online meet-up with the other Board Members on Zoom. Here are some of the bookmarks.  

All the fabric is African wax fabric and was brought from Kenya by Marilyn. She has a friend who owns a fabric/dress shop in Narok (the shop I visited when I was there last year), and the friend donated lots of scraps for us.  I did all the graphics for the bookmarks. We were able to get them printed at an Office Max, luckily. Had the tagboard been any heavier, we would have had to go to a real printer. Bruce did the cutting and hole punching ahead of time, while I cut the fabrics with pinking shears. Everything was ready for assembly when the gang got here on Wednesday, so we were able to just talk, work, laugh and listen to music - all 9 of us!

On Friday, Marilyn and OD went up north to Logan (2 hours north of Salt Lake) to Utah State University, where my DGS Easton (Ryan and Kim’s son and Lauren’s older brother) and his fraternity had a fundraiser for Harambe. They set up a couple tables to sell some more African things (the bookmarks, jewelry - ALWAYS the jewelry - sandals and more) for additional funds. Here’s a picture of the gang there. Easton is on the very right (in the blue shuka); Marilyn is the only woman and OD is the only African!  :-)  I can’t tell you how much I love these people!!

It was an amazing success! (There were other youths and tables there too).

We also had two sets of contractors here this week. The first one measured for a new back door and a storm door with screen for my studio. The second was for two new double-paned windows for the front two bedrooms upstairs. Everything is ordered and should be arriving in 4-6 weeks. That completes all the door and window upgrades that we’ve been working on for our home for 10 years! Next year we’ll be replacing all the old INTERIOR doors. We still will have the linen closet expanded this year too, and a couple other small things. More about those as they develop....

And finally, here are a few pictures of the garden. This is way early for much of anything still. After all, it’s only April. Bruce will be planting today (Saturday) while I set up the patio furniture. But the garden beds are ready now. 

I set up the Talavera pottery birdbath that I bought in Arizona last February. There are lots of blooms ready to burst there, and the apricot tree has lost the blossoms and is beginning to bud. Yay!

The tulips are blooming along the grape arbor. The grape vines are awake and beginning to bud. I’ll have to show this same view every month so you can see how they burst forth with abundant growth to shade the patio behind.

Three of our 8.5 garden beds (the .5 is a half-size) are below. You can see the rhubarb. That is another plant that you can practically watch grow! A month ago you could barely see it breaking through the ground. We’ll be harvesting rhubarb in early May!

In the front yard, I still have some daffodils in the front planter under the living room window. It’s a northern exposure, so things are a little slower than in our south-facing backyard.

And last but not least (or maybe it is the least....), I have been working on my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for April. I’m trying to get the quilt top of my Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune quilt top sewn. This week I decided on the size of quilt I wanted and finished sewing all the component parts. Then I got all of the pink/orange blocks sewn together.

Now I’ve started on the green and blue blocks. The first one went together satisfactorily. But the second one gave me fits. No matter how many times I ripped out stitches and re-sewed (three, to be exact), it came out wonky. So I finally took it all apart. I’ll try again this afternoon; sometimes just pairing up different parts helps. 

My goal for the next week is to get the blue/green blocks finished, all of the blocks sewn together and sew on whichever borders I decide to include so I can complete this OMG. And I also want to get some quilts mailed out to a couple of the Hands2Help charities. Hopefully I can get that done and show it all in a mid-week post.

Have a wonderful Easter everyone!

Totaling Teal and Aqua and Turquoise....

Today is the last day of June, and time to recap our scrappy work on the aqua family of colors for the month.

The following collage shows most of what I got done for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. For more colorful scrappy goodness, hop on over to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday blog linky party.

This month I completed:
4 Bowtie blocks
3 Linked Squares blocks
17 selvage squares @ 6.5”
6 selvage squares @ 4.5”
2 Squared Away blocks
13 Quarter Log Cabin blocks
2  “lollipop blocks” @ 6.5” (forgot the picture!)
7 crumb blocks
for a total of 54 blocks

By accident I included the mostly-aqua baby quilt top I made this month instead of the lollipop blocks.

Weight-wise, I gained instead of losing this month. I was up almost four pounds over two weeks, but have lost half of that already. I’ve been so busy that I was not being mindful of what I was stuffing in my mouth, nor have I had the time (or weather) to walk outside as much as I’d like. I finally had a DUH! moment - if we can use the mall for walking in the morning in the winter because outside is too cold, we can also use it in the summer when the weather is too hot. *facepalm*  But the temporary gain was a good wake-up call, and I’ve put the brakes on! No more snacking on popcorn all afternoon. There are so many great fruits and veggies available now. Back to walking - my clothes fit better. It’s hard keeping it all together (imagine me juggling lots of balls) as I prep for my Africa trip - just one week away! - but I can do it.

My last post, by the way, for those of you who just visit for the RSC linkup, showed my finished Farm Girl flimsy and the current garden shots. You can visit that HERE.

DGD Lauren

Today is my son Shane’s birthday but since he doesn’t read my blog (what self-respecting 30-something son would read his mom’s blog, right?), I’ll save the birthday wishes until we head out for dinner tonight at Red Lobster. The choice of restaurant has become sort of a tradition, because his daughter (my DGD London) always loves to look at the live lobsters in the tank, and then she and grandpa (Bruce) name them all.....


And in a few minutes I have a travel training online meeting to attend. We’re getting down to the wire. I’ve started gathering my packing. We got the last of the large suitcases this week but are still waiting on the Tiny Tim’s toys (wooden toys) that we will use to fill a couple of them. We (me, DIL Kim and DGD Lauren) are each allowed two 50-lb suitcases. The toys will fill 20 lb in each of ours. The rest of my suitcase(s) weight will be taken with flannel fabric for the Days for Girls operation in Narok, personal care items, Instax film (like polaroids), and puzzles. On the way home, we can fill them with souvenirs - African fabric and other items bough in the markets.  This cute picture is my DGD Lauren and some of the toys and bracelets she’s made from little colored rubber bands to take for the kids we meet in Kenya. Isn’t that awesome??

Have a great week!

Hooray - Blogger is Fixed

FINALLY!  We are once again receiving comments in our email. YAY! I always love and appreciate your comments and am so happy that Blogger has restored our ability to receive and respond to them. Blogging without two-way conversations is like living in a vacuum, so let the chatter commence!

Last week I said that I’d finished all my regular teal/aqua blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. But that didn’t mean I was finished with the color yet. A few years ago I had purchased a charm pack of Kate Spain’s HORIZON line and I decided that it was time to do something with it, since it was mainly aqua.  So I whipped out some additional scraps and an oatmeal-colored neutral (not my fave) and whipped up this baby quilt top:

After this picture, I fixed that wonky bottom border and then pieced a backing. And that’s as far as I’ll take it for now. It will be a quick process to baste and quilt it for donation when the time comes.

While checking out Pinterest or Instagram (sorry, can’t even remember where let alone who) I saw a great block that used scrappy crumb blocks. Since I’ve been making 6.5” scrappy crumbs all year without a plan, it was good to finally have the perfect plan for them:

I just sashed them with a black 1.5” strip, and they will finish at 13”. So, as time permits, I’ll go back and begin combining the smaller crumb blocks into these larger blocks. Going forward into next year, I’ll make the smaller blocks (or finish up a color) in sets of 4.  With what I have already, they could be assembled into a baby quilt, but I would prefer to go bigger. So, that’s the plan for these crumbs.

And there is lots more aqua inspiration over at Angela’s Scrappy Saturday. Come join us!

And speaking of baby quilts, AB Baby was gifted to my step-daughter Stacy on Tuesday afternoon, just before she left for her OB doctor appointment.  The doctor told her she was already dilated to a 3, and the next day (Wednesday the 20th), she felt achey and unsettled. Then the labor started and WHAM! Baby Evie was born within a couple hours. She came so quick (18 minutes after Stacy got to the hospital), that no epidural was even given. And here is the little cutie herself:

Isn’t she adorable? I love the little cap with a bow that the hospital uses to keep their heads warm!  Mom and baby (6 lb. 13 oz) are back at home and doing great.

The preparation for my trip to Kenya (leaving July 8) is continuing. This week we had another online meeting/travel training. We won’t be taking any blow dryers or curling irons, so I think I’ll get my hair trimmed again just to keep it short and simple. And after price shopping for the required malaria pills, I was able to get them (21 days’ worth) for $50.60 instead of $125+. Our Kenyan visas have been approved, and all our plane flight seating assignments have been secured. Oh, and I got some support hose (YUK) for the loooong flights.

I also prepped some handwork (embroidery) for the long plane flights. Last month when Cousin Kim and I went to the quilt show, I bought a few 8x10 (ish) embroidered designs. This week I cut and stabilized some fabric, then pressed the designs on. This is a new-to-me product by Adorn-it, and one is just supposed to stitch through the design layer. Then the design sheet melts away with a quick soaking. We’ll see how that works - it was an alternative to marking the design directly on the fabric.

All I have left to do now are pull the threads to bring along. My granddaughter Lauren, whom I’ll be sitting with on the flights, loves flamingoes. So I’m hoping she takes an interest and maybe even give embroidery a try. Just in case she wants to, I’m packing two designs and two hoops.  Muahahahaha.  Method to my madness.....


And finally, more work on Groovy Guitars happened.
I had originally planned to do an all red border, but didn’t have enough of the red - or any other single color for that matter. So, the border was constructed of all the colors except purple.

Here it is in all its carnival-like goodness.

All the machine appliqué is complete. I even did all the large round circles on the machine.

All that’s left to do by hand are the 24 small yellow circles (on the blue and red headstocks) and the three small green circles on the small middle-isn guitar.









Here are some close-ups.

My goal is to have the hand stitching done before I leave for Kenya. Then when I return, I’ll still have about 10 days left in July in which to finish the quilt by layering, quilting and binding. My plan right now is to quilt the background in a black stipple. The guitars will need quilting, too, but I’m not certain yet how I’ll proceed there. Certainly I’ll match the thread to the colors. And then just perhaps some shape echoing or simple crosshatch.

Thanks for dropping by!

Still Sewing Stars - and a Tulip Quilt Finish!

Hi friends. I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by. Christmas is only 9 days away!

But let’s talk about quilting first, shall we?  On Thursday Bruce and I went to visit our friends Mike and Terri, who live about 30 minutes away. Terri had finished binding The Tulip Quilt that we did together.  She had sent me this picture of her Quilt Supervisor Trixie doing the final inspection. It passed!

You can see the backing fabrics. The majority of the back is the green and pink and gold floral, with a stripe of the pink and white at the bottom back and in the binding. Isn’t it lovely how Terri curves the corners? She is able to do this with regular (not bias) binding.

There’s also one tulip on the back (not shown) that bisects the pink and white fabric. We used it as the quilt label to put in all the information.  :-)  In the pictures you can see more of the added texture of the looping vine quilting I did. One loop is a heart, and that is a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” kind of thing. Only Terri and I know where it is!

The guys took our picture standing on the hearth holding the quilt. This is officially done and ready for gifting. It looks like all three couples will likely get together sometime between Christmas and New Year.  The com

This quilt is my Finish Along Quarter 4 goal #1. Not my first finish of the quarter, just goal #1. My list is HERE.

And then there are the Friendship Stars. It’s slow going because of my process. With every row I add, I starch (using Best Press) and press most of the seams open. Then I trim each block before sewing them together. There is probably not a single perfect block among the 200+ that I sewed, but that’s OK with me. They are going together well. Look at those fun, happy colors!

I’ve noticed that the busy-ness of the pattern really forgives and hides the piecing imperfections. And that has helped me relax and enjoy this as I put it together. Matching so many seams is pleasant work, and it helps keep everything lined up.  Below is a shot of the right side with the white inner border sewn on. The blue blocks are just pinned for now.

For a galaxy of other rainbow projects and finishes (including other lovely star projects), why not beam over to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday linky party?

I’ll work on the blue round this week, but it will be between so many other things. My regular sewing day with Cousin Kim is tomorrow, and I hope to get a start on Clue #4 for Bonnie Hunter’s On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Along. And maybe get the white border on Starry Starry Quilt and begin the blues.

Today I have a Christmas recital to attend this afternoon for granddaughter Lauren. Then she'll be over on Thursday for a baking day. We’ll be doing sugar cookies and biscotti.  But honestly, I’m marking time by counting the days that my daughter Megan flies in from Seattle to spend a week with us. She arrives next Friday - only 6 days from today! There is so much to do in preparation for her visit and for Christmas.

And argggghhh! Last night I was up until almost midnight, reading. My ebook was expiring in one day, and I made it to the epilogue. I had seven e-pages (about three regular pages) left when it expired. Couldn’t turn the page. So, Bruce and I need to have a coffee date at Barnes & Noble so I can find the book and read the last few pages.  (#storyofmylife)

On Ringo Lake, Part 3

I admit it. I’m struggling to keep up with the clues to Bonnie Hunter’s On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Along. The biggest problem is my right arm. So much repetition makes it throb then go numb (hands, shoulder). Past injuries and carpal tunnel. So I’m doing an hour or two per day and using lots of Ibuprofen. This, too, shall pass. But I’m having fun and loving my fabrics.  Here are the component parts. They’re not all sewn and trimmed yet, but I will get there over the next couple days, before the release on Friday of Clue #4.

Linking up to Bonnie Hunter’s Part 3 Linky Party HERE.

Christmas is done other than baking some biscotti for neighbor and friend gifts. The hardest part was just deciding what to do, hence my late start. I’m going to see if my granddaughter Lauren (13) will have time next week to help me once she is out of school for the Holidays. She’s a gymnast/cheerleader and has lots of friends and commitments, so fingers crossed.   And I bet we will add sugar cookies to the baking list for her family and friends! But in the meantime, I have collected the recipes and will be buying the supplies. I’m excited. Lauren, you may remember, helped me paint Ringo the wooden cockatiel last summer HERE. (Scroll to the end to see Ringo). Over the years, Lauren and I have made pincushions, garden art, sewed backpacks and pillows and made cookies. We always go out to lunch and have a fun time.

The Tulip Quilt is finished, and my friend Terri did a fantastic job with the binding. I will share pictures on my Saturday post.

I hope you’re enjoying the Season!

Sewing in Neutral

I feel that my sewing life has been in neutral this past week. And not just because light neutrals are the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Steve watching the eclipse in our front yard

With my brother Steve living here with us, bless his heart, there seems so much more to do that takes me away from sewing. Like helping him fill out paperwork and chauffeuring him around for Social Security, Teamsters retirement, to say nothing of helping him cancel his AZ benefits and see about Utah benefits (a ‘no go’)..... health insurance, drivers license, etc etc. Calgon, take me away!





But enough of my whining. Steve is here and we do enjoy having him. He has a hilarious sense of humor, loves the cats (and Alfie adores him), and is a considerate, fastidious house guest. He has started us composting, keeps the cars clean, and has planted a late season garden that is doing well. And he, like Bruce, loves my cooking! So it’s all good.

On Monday we all watched the eclipse, naturally. Here in the Salt Lake Valley, we were in the 91% zone. The sunlight became weaker as the eclipse progressed, but even at its peak, it was brighter than you would have guessed for only 9% of the rays coming through. However, it was quite dark in the house when I ran in to get my cell phone. I had to take pictures of the light through the trees (left). I love the crescent-shaped shadows and from other people`s pictures online, I believe lots of us were fascinated with them!  It was a fun late morning event in the ‘hood, and there was even a Solar Eclipse Party down the street at Wheeler Farm (hence all the cars parked on the street).

As far as sewing goes, I did finish the rest of my neutral string blocks. There are 168 of the 4.5” (unfinished) blocks. Ready for when I decide to tackle the Jamestown Landing quilt by Bonnie Hunter next year.

Yep, that’s my funky tomato pincushion in the center. And also yes, I do have lots of other pincushions - all cuter. But they are too cute to use. so they are just on display on shelves in my sewing room. When the tomato dies, I will select a different one down the road.....

This next picture is not too impressive, but let me explain. I have finally started Bruce’s Groovy Guitars quilt, which is a pattern by Robbie Joy Eklow.  This is the piecing diagram, and I decided that if I was going to have any chance of getting this done in any orderly fashion, I would have to color the diagram so I would know which color goes where. This was NOT colored with an eye toward any type of artistic effort - it’s just a quick-and-very-dirty "fill in the blanks” effort for placement purposes. (Yes, I can color better. And so can my 4-year-old grandson). But you get the point, right?

The drawing above is in reverse, because you trace the pieces onto the paper of the fusible webbing, then fuse to the backside of the fabric. Then you flip and fuse it to the background. The background for Bruce’s quilt is solid black Kona cotton. The other colors are the three primaries (red, yellow, blue) and the three secondaries (purple, orange and green). My only changes are that I will make the orange guitar (on the left of the diagram) whole. Same with the yellow/red one on the right. If I still have any sanity left, I may make their headstocks complete, too.

So, what did I do first thing? Fused the orange guitar to the wrong side (left) of the fabric, instead of the right. That’s what I get for changing it to a complete, symmetrical piece. Luckily, I had enough orange to re-do it, and the missssssnake on the black fabric will be covered down the line....

My progress has been frustrating and painfully slow. I have made every conceivable mistake  that can be made. But I am learning! Learning that this will be the LAST EVER fusible project I will ever inflict upon myself. I have a hard enough time thinking in reverse (paper piecing comes to mind), but add fusible webbing, huge pieces, and no instructions (other than basic How to Fuse), and it’s recipe for disaster. My brain just does not work that way!

But so far, everything has been fixable. Except my poor ironing board cover, which I will have to use inside out from now on. But we will just skip that story. I see you shaking your head....

So, I put Groovy Guitars in Time Out for a few days and decided to start on some kennel quilts. I got 2 of them done on Friday afternoon.....

The cats won’t care if they are perfect or not! That gray backing on the top quilt says “You’ve got to be Kitten me”.  It was a remnant I picked up at JoAnn Fabrics.  Two down, a half dozen more to go before the end of the month......


And finally, you might remember that when my DGD Lauren visited a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that we painted a wooden garden ornament - a cockatoo - together. I finally got a picture of it.

MEET RINGO!!!!

He is a handsome fella, isn’t he? For the picture he is sitting on the living room mantel, but his natural habitat is out on our patio. The other side is just more of the same.......  We just used acrylic paints and sort of figured it out as we went along.  Not bad, eh?

That about wraps things up for this week. Hopefully by next week I will have finished the rest of the kennel quilts and made good progress on the Groovy Guitars. If I can survive that monster, I can survive anything.

I’m linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday post for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Hugs and prayers for the safety of our friends and families who are in the path of Hurricane Harvey, due to make land in Texas as I write this.....

Searching for the Neutral Zone

The last week has been fun and busy as we have settled into having my brother Steve come live with us. Unloading, rearranging, cleaning out...... Plus two days this week were also spent tending granddaughters, which was seriously fun but a detriment to my productivity. But we only live once, right?

On Sunday and Monday, I was able to finish up the pineapple quilt top. It will be basted this weekend, after I clean the hardwood floors.

On Tuesday, granddaughter Lauren (age 13) spent the day with me. She is such a mature, delightful young girl. We mostly spent our time painting a carved wooden cockatoo (an old salvage rescue my brother brought me for the patio). We painted it in bright colors, like a parrot, then sealed it. It turned out great, but I have no picture yet.

Then on Thursday, one of Bruce’s days off, we (along with my brother) took all the kennel quilts to Best Friends Animal Shelter up in Salt Lake. One of the dogs wanted to adopt my brother, and one of the kittens wanted to adopt my dear husband. I had to put both feet down. We all walked out with misty eyes. And that is why I sew kennel quilts instead of volunteering my time, and also why I will take the quilts in by myself in the future.

After finishing the pineapple quilt top, the only other sewing-related thing I did was to pull my light neutrals. I can’t wait to work with them. I am in serious need of zen sewing time! So, even with this meager contribution, I am linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Since neutrals won’t work for my regular RSC blocks, I have another plan. One of the quilts I have wanted to start for awhile is Bonnie Hunter’s Jamestown Landing. The link will take you to one of her posts from 2015 where you can see the quilt made of blues and varied light neutrals. I may use both blues and greens for the colored portions, but for this month I plan to move full steam ahead on all the neutral strippy blocks.

Yesterday (Friday), granddaughter London came over, as well Cousin Kim’s two granddaughters Zoe and Trini for their final summer play date before school starts in 2 weeks. The “twins” London and Zoe were crazy girls all day. Our poor cats Darla and Alfie will probably need therapy!

In the morning we took the girls to Michael’s to buy craft supplies: Play Doh, foam crowns to decorate, wooden face masks (kittens) to decorate, scepters/batons, and more. They decorated their crowns and masks before lunch. After lunch, Trini (who is 12) watched the younger girls swim and play in their kiddie pools and break occasionally to play with Play Doh out on the patio. For three hours, they were busy outdoors. Kim and I got to relax and read indoors. We finished the day with my son Shane and Bruce joining us after work; pizza for all 8 of us.

Today, I recover and clean house. The pineapple quilt will be basted sometime this weekend, and then I can Sew Like The Wind next week.

Sewing a Yellow Brick Road

This past week has been so crazy busy, but delightfully so. It started off with Memorial Day on Monday. Bruce worked at the museum and I worked out in the yard. On Tuesday I basted my flag quilt (picture later in the post), but I had to clean the floors first, of course. I also stopped in at at 2 local quilt shops and spent the $20 (plus $5 of my own money) that was given to me last week by Jannis for the kennel quilts. They are pictured here, and the plaid (2 yards) is a flannel. The rest will mix and match nicely with my existing gold-starred backgrounds and other assorted cat-themed fabrics in my stash.

Wednesday was daughter Emily’s visit with her kids, as they are moving to Colorado this weekend. It’s hard to see them leave, but at least we will be visiting them in September.

Then on Thursday was my grandson Easton’s high school graduation. They held the ceremonies about 40 minutes south of us down in Utah County (in Orem, next to Provo). Let me tell you that someone screwed up badly when they set up the bleachers in the auditorium. I am all of 5’5”, and my knees were jammed into the seat in front of me. Plus the seats were all inclined forward. It was torture, literally. I lasted an hour before I had to get up, creaking and numb, to stand in the aisle instead. As soon as Easton was handed his diploma, I was OUT OF THERE. But the freeway onramp was shut down due to an accident, so I had to kill some time. Can you say SHOP HOP???  American Quilting was right a few blocks away, and so naturally I had to visit. They had a great sale room where fabrics were $4.99 per yard. And they were part of our annual Utah Shop Hop, which ran from Wednesday the 31st to today, June 3.

Finally, on Friday my sweet friend Terri and I officially went shop hopping. We visited five stores and had lunch at Gardner Village.  I’ll show you my treasures momentarily, but first, let’s talk Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I am linking to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday, so hop on over to see all the rainbow goodness. Our color for June is Yellow!

    

So, here on the right are my two “yellow brick roads”. Actually they are the gold and the yellow columns for my selvage rainbow quilt.  On the left, they are stitched in color order with last month’s two green columns and the teal column. That should give you an idea of what the quilt is going to look like. There will eventually be 2 orange columns, a red and 2 pinks on the left of the gold, and then a blue, 2 purples and one other dark neutral - either brown or gray - on the right. A total of 14 columns.

OK, so here are my Shop Hop treasures. I still get occasional commissions as a lace broker, and this week my biggest client placed an order, so part of it funded my fabric purchases (shopping spree!) and the rest went in the savings. Yay!

Above: Free patterns from each shop, plus collectible pins. I bought 4 yards of the crayon fabric to use as a background for the crayon quilt I’m making. Then the blue cat fabric was in the sale room at American Quilting.

In the picture above, the green is much brighter/richer than the picture shows. It’s 4 yards of flannel for an autumn quilt I’m planning.  The stripe is a large piece for the back of Bruce’s guitar quilt, which I am busy planning out. It will begin this summer. The floral will just go in the stash and the Christmas fabric (I’m such a sucker for holly fabrics) will be pillowcases or a quilt back or something. Oh, and the wild blue one is another Tula Pink "Tabby Lane" fabric, the last one I wanted for my next personal cat quilt, whenever that happens.

Kaffe Fasset fabrics, above: Only the FQs along the top were purchased during the Shop Hop. The Layer Cake (also in the top row) was an order from Missouri Star Quilt Co, and the yardage was from early in May when I took advantage of a sale at one of the LQS’s.

   

The above pieces and FQs are random purchases, but some are intended for future projects. And I couldn’t resist the Florence Flamingo pattern. My DGD Lauren loves flamingoes (who doesn’t?) and may get a quilt for Christmas.

Finally, here is my in-progress Flag Quilt. I am just doing “organic” wavy lines. “Organic” here means not measured; random. Once it’s washed, who will notice or care?  I’m about three quarters done, so it will finish up this weekend and I’ll have a full reveal next week.

So that, my friends, was my week. Last year for the RSC, yellow month was later in the year and I started and made my yellow crayon and yellow strip blocks. So, after I do the yellow bookshelf and assorted other smallish blocks for this year, I may start on an all-yellow quilt. I have been planning a pineapple quilt for awhile, so we’ll have to see how that goes. I may finish up my crayon quilt instead, or my Farmgirl quilt. So many choices!

Have a great week!


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