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.

Hands 2 Help - A Simple Scrappy Quilt Tutorial

Hi all! And welcome to Crazy by Design! Mari, who is hosting the Hands2Help quilt drive this year, asked me if I’d be willing to share an easy quilt tutorial with you. By now most of us quilters are probably familiar Hands 2 Help, with the long-running annual drive in the US and Canada to collect quilts for worthy children’s (and other) charities. More about this wonderful quilt drive can be found HERE.

In the past eleven years, H2H has been hosted by Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict. However, due to personal health reasons, she was not able to host it this year, so my friend Mari of Academic Quilter stepped up to the plate. This is the twelfth year of quilters coming together!

Today I’m going to share with you a simple quilt that is used in Quilts for Kids chapters throughout the United States. You can visit the national QFK website or our local (Salt Lake) chapter website to get the pattern.  OR you can just read along here instead if you like, because I’ll show you AND give you lots of alternative ideas to use up those scraps and whip out a cute kid quilt in no time!

First, let me show you what the finished quilt looks like (my variation):

Those who are familiar with my blog know that I love string blocks, and since I always have lots of those on hand, I decided to use 15 of them in this quilt. All the blocks are cut at 6.5” and finish at 6” in the quilt. Now, string blocks may not be your thing, as they are time consuming. So let’s back up and insert some other alternatives for those contrast string blocks.

This is the same quilt pattern, sewn with two alternating fabric squares; 15 of the blue print fabric and 15 of the white print.

Or you could mix blocks; plain and nine-patch, plain and crumb blocks, plain and four-patch blocks. 

Here’s a quilt with several colors of string blocks that match the main fabric.

Or find a fun 1-yard cut of fabric in your stash that has lots of contrast color possibilities, like the bright cat on black fabric shown below.

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So, let’s get to the basics of the pattern. This is the fabric you will need:

1 yard main (feature) fabric                                                                                                                                                             15 blocks @ 6.5” unfinished OR 5/8 yard of alternating fabric                                                                                                         ¼ yard (NOT a fat quarter) of contrast fabric for inner stop border

Cutting:

Cut your main fabric into three WOF (width of fabric) strips measuring 6.5” wide.  Subcut those strips into 15 blocks measuring 6.5” square. There will be leftovers.

From the remaining main fabric, cut four WOF strips at 3.5” wide. 

From your alternate 5/8 yd piece, cut three WOF strips at 6.5” and subcut into 15 blocks at 6.5” OR use 15 blocks (crumb, four- or nine-patch, or string blocks) at 6.5”. If you have some ready-made blocks in your stash, this is a real time saver!

From the contrast fabric, cut four WOF strips at 1.5”

Top L-R: 15 Main fabric squares, 15 string blocks, Four 3.5" WOF strips
Bottom: Four 1.5” WOF contrast strips

Sew your 6.5” blocks together in alternating fashion, five blocks across by six blocks down. At this point it should measure approximately 30.5 by 36.5”. 

Add your 1.5” contrast strips first to the sides, then to the top, trimming to fit. Add the final main fabric 3.5” borders to the sides and top and trim. That’s it! Just add your backing, quilt and bind.

Another time- and fabric-saving tip that we use in many of our Quilts for Kids quilts is the fold-over binding. The best tutorial I’ve found for this easy and quick method is here at Cluck Cluck Sew.  And do remember that most, if not all charities prefer a machine-sewn binding. Charity quilts are often subjected to frequent launderings.

Quilted, bound, labeled and ready to go!

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial! Please let me know if you have any questions! 

Wrapping Up Pink April

I got my final pink blocks quilts done just under the wire - yesterday. There are three quilts, but you’ll  only see two of them today because one will be introduced tomorrow for a Hands2Help guest blog post.  More on that later in the post.

First I sewed up the Bear Paw blocks that I wanted to get done for the month. There are two at 6.5” and five at 3.5”. 

I also sewed up more string blocks - another 30.  These will go to Quilts for Kids for use in kits. And that is another hint about my blog post for tomorrow; I’ll be showing the “kit”, pattern and finished quilt that used some of my original string blocks made earlier this month. Plus ideas and variations.

With those out of the way, I could concentrate on finishing up the pink scrap quilts I had planned for the month. Last week I showed this pile of potential:

Well, after some fun playing on the design board with the various pieces, this is the result:

My only regret is not using a brighter pink fabric to pair with the selvage half hexies. But I wanted to use scraps instead of cutting into yardage. And I used every bit of that pink and white stripe  except a couple small crumbs that will get used up next year. 

All the pink selvages are used, and most of everything else you see in the quilt is gone other than a few crumbs or small squares. I quilted it, as usual, with a simple stipple. The quilt finished at 38x46”.

I broke down and decided to use some of that wonderful Tula Pink background for the backing/binding. I’d buy a bolt of that stuff if I could find it! 

I thought I’d shown a picture of the following little quilt in process somewhere along the line this month, but I sure can’t find it. Oh well, it’s finished now. For some reason I thought the “kit” I’d assembled last year had more pink in it, but it’s really more green and lavender. But whatever - as long as it gets finished and passed on to Quilts for Kids, it’s all good.

The plaid cheater fabric in the center panel as well as the lavender squares have been sitting around since last year. Back in October I got some of the pastel plaid scraps and the owl print, and that was enough to go to the stash to pull green scraps and those dang pink selvage squares. 

Somehow, it works. Again, it’s quilted in a stipple, which I always like to do when there are selvages involved so I can backtrack over areas that may need to be tamed. 

This little pastel baby quilt finished at 36.5x42”. It’s very soft and cuddly. The backing also used up a lot of fabric chunks, although I think I have a few skinny strips of the black and white giraffes left. 

So, that wraps up Pink April! Be sure to visit Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog to see all the scrappy pink goodness before Angela calls the new color for May! 

We’re still in rainy weather mode here, so our garden is not yet planted. The drip irrigation is all ready to go, but we had “frozen mix” in the weather forecast for yesterday (didn’t happen), so we’ve put off planting until the 10-day forecast shows no more freezing temps. It will happen (I keep telling myself.....)

Be sure to drop by here or at Mari’s blog tomorrow for my guest post for Hands2Help. And have a wonderful week!

Hands 2 Help 2021

This year I’m participating once again with Hands 2 Help, a great online charity quilting drive organized by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  I’ve participated for several years in the past, but I think I missed out last year (pandemic?). 

But here I am in 2021. As I do ongoing charity quilting for the Salt Lake chapter of Quilts for Kids, I have chosen them as the charity I’m contributing to for Hands2Help. However, I don’t feel it’s fair to count ALL my charity quilts for purposes of this challenge, so I’ll only be showing the ones I’ve completed in March, April and May of this year - the months of Hands2Help. 

First, here is a collage of my quilts finished in March. You may notice that many of the first batch are in green - that’s because I follow along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every month, and use that as a guide to finishing some of my donation quilts.

Seven Donation Quilts, March 2021

For more information about these or any of the quilts, check out my “2021 Quilts” tab at the top of the blog (or just click the link I gave). All my quilts are listed with names, measurements and dates finished.

Next up are the six donation quilts I completed in April 2021.

Six Donation Quilts, April 2021

and finally....

Eight Donation Quilts, May 2021

That’s 21 donation quilts. I should mention that the quilt (wallhanging) in the bottom right of the above picture (the International Sisters pattern) is actually going to Harambe Humanitarian, a nonprofit organization here in Utah and Kenya that provides menstrual supplies and training for young girls of the Maasai tribe. This is the third (of 8 scheduled) quilts of mostly African fabrics that I’ve made for them for fundraising purposes.

I hope you’ll check out the 3rd and final link-up of finished quilts at the Hands2Help link-up at Confessions of a Quilt Addict. The world is a small place and any way we can help others is a wonderful thing.

A Busy Week

The deed is done. The carpet is installed in our basement office, my studio and the stairs leading down to the basement. Whew! I paced myself over the 10 days prior to last Tuesday’s installation date to move all my fabrics (and tools, WIPs, and accessories) to the spare downstairs bedroom. The drawers from the office desk, plus all the office supplies storage, closet storage and the CD storage (which looks like an old library case) were moved over that time as well. Then, last Saturday we had to move two large and VERY HEAVY bins of food storage (a Christmas gift from my son Shane a year ago). The first bin we slid to the three little steps leading down to Bruce’s laboratory, and let gravity do the work. For the second one, Bruce wanted each of us to grab one side handle and lift and carry it. I know how to lift with my legs instead of my back, but I used my right arm and re-injured my neck and shoulder (we ended up sliding it down like the first bin). I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome too, so even just overuse of my arm and shoulder can aggravate my neck. I was down for three and a half days days nursing my neck with a heating pad, ice, Ibuprofen and Tylenol. Lying in bed offered the best relief for a couple days, but by Tuesday I was up and moving. I’m almost back to normal now, just using Extra Strength Tylenol. Yesterday I went grocery shopping, mopped floors, did a load of laundry and made 3 pints of strawberry-rhubarb compote, so it was  a very good energy day.

Regarding the carpet, though, I don’t have any pictures yet. It’s a medium-toned gray/taupe, very plush and thick carpet. But it’s not really done. They are coming back on May 13 to install the coving, which is basically carpet baseboards. It had to have the edge finish cording (or whatever it’s called) stitched to it first. Once that is done, I’ll take pictures. And yes, I’ll have to move my fabric again so they can move the bookcases out from the wall to install it. But there isn’t really anything heavy for us to move (they do it), so in the studio it’s business as usual - and anything that isn’t needed can stay in temporary exile until mid-May. 

So let’s move on to more Quilty things, shall we?

I did get my two Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts quilted and finished. These were the windmill (Twin Sisters) blocks I worked on for RSC2020. First is the gender-neutral quilt (darker colors, no pink).

It was quilted with a viney loop and backed with a polka-dot backing fabric from Connecting Threads. 

The second quilt had the pinks, pastels, florals, etc. - more girly. 

This had the same backing as the first quilt. Both quilts measure 42x48” and will be donated to Quilts for Kids. I’m also participating in Hands2Help again this year, and these quilts count for that. When we wrap up the H2H drive, I’ll do a recap post of my charity quilt donations. But for now, I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

On Thursday and Friday I decided to tackle those ugly pink and blue nine-patch blocks that I won last month. I thought I’d do a Disappearing 9-Patch, but I wanted to add a white (actually an off-white) into the mix. Then I discovered the Double Disappearing Nine Patch. There are a couple ways to do a DD9P, but this is how I did mine.

Start with your 9-patch and cut it into four even quadrants. 

Measure your resulting squares and cut four white/background squares and one colored square the same size. place them to make another nine-patch, like below. 

Sew together the “new” 9-patch, then once again cut into four equal quadrants.

Arrange your quadrants in any manner  you like!

So now I have 8 of 12 of the original blocks sewn and chopped, and this is what I’ve got so far. The blocks at this point measure 8” and will finish at 7.5”.

I’m going to set them 6 across by 7 down so that I’ll have six leftover blocks. I’m thinking there are at least 4 blocks (from one original 9-patch block) that will be too ghastly to include on the front. But they’ll end up on the back and I’ll be done with them! This quilt still won’t be a “looker”, but it will be a serviceable donation quilt.

Before that finishes up, however, I’ll be getting a start on my Red May RSC blocks. Here are some of the things I plan to work on in the merry, merry month of May.  My red scrap bin runneth over. It’s sitting on some red orphan blocks.

Two more prospective red kid quilts: alphabet and bees.

And finally, some red and navy large HSTs for another yet-to-be-designed kid quilt. 

Our May is starting out much better than last year. Last week we passed the one year anniversary of Bruce’s arm amputation. Who’d have thought he’d be playing guitar and banjo this year? We’re celebrating his birthday (Monday) with his favorite; mud pie from Baskin-Robbins. We’ve invited some of the family over to help us eat it. There was no way to order just one piece each for ourselves, and death by chocolate is not an option.