Some Fun Quilt Finishes for Quilts for Kids

It seems that all I’ve done this week is layer up finished quilt tops, quilt them and bind/label them. Seriously, we had a lot of wet weather (no complaints about the snow or rain or slush - we need the moisture), so it was the ideal week for me to stay indoors and finish working on my green scraps.

Last weekend, Cousin Kim and I basted three quilts - (1) her Christmas quilt, which I have yet to do the quilting on, (2) my Stay At Home Round Robin quilt, which took For.Ev.Er. to quilt, and will be shown on Monday when I do a special blog post to link up to the finishing post at Quilting Gail’s blog, and (3) the Ballerina quilt (later in this post). And then on Thursday I basted up two more green quilts and got them quilted.  Without further ado, let’s get started.

The Ballerina quilt, made with fabric sent to me by Angie (almost every last inch of which was used on the quilt top) measures 40x45.5”. I knew that if I cut up the pieces, I’d have to supplement them with something and nothing in my stash worked. So, simple it is!

It was backed with a perfect chunk I had in my stash - a piece I won in a giveaway a few years ago. I quilted it with a basic stipple. 

Next were the two quilts that I called Outer Limits (-Vertical and -Horizontal) last week. First up is Outer Limits - Horizontal.

This one finished at 40.5x46.5” and was quilted with a small loopy design. The back was pieced from the width-of-fabric remains of three green chunks I’ve been using throughout the month.

Finally, we come to Outer Limits - Vertical. This one actually turned out better than I’d hoped. It measures 42” across and 49” down.  By this time, I could see the real progress I made in clearing out my green scrap bin!

To “reward” myself for finishing, I actually used a piece of green yardage that’s been in my stash for a couple years - no piecing! Another quick stipple, and this one was done, too. 

So that brings the total of March’s green quilts finished (all small quilts for the local Quilts for Kids chapter) to six. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s final March progress posting.

And here is a quick roundup of the green RSC blocks I did this month.  If my count is correct (and it is because I have to keep track on a spreadsheet), there were 94 green blocks made this month. Yeah, I have no life outside of sewing in these Covid times. I admit it, LOL!!

But wait, there’s more!  This may be the last link-up of the month for the RSC, but I have another top sewn for QFK that I may finish before month-end. We’ll see. Here it is in all its stringy glory. I decided to combine green and yellow string blocks with the multi-colored blocks to spice up the colors a bit. I have so many string blocks (Linda - I promise to do a count and let you know how many, LOL) that I figured I’d better get busy and make a string quilt. I even prepped a backing for this, so it’s ready to be basted/quilted/bound - a process that takes me about 2 hours or so.

My multi-colored string bin has filled up again. It’s not overstuffed, but it is near the top. Time to make more multi-colored string blocks. But first I’ll wait to see what color Angela calls for April for the RSC. If it’s a color that I don’t have a lot of scraps and QFK projects for, I can add in a few of my own projects, like the string blocks or assembling another RSC quilt top or my Wishing Rings. So many projects and never enough time.

This week I won some plaid scraps from Linda at Cynthia’s Spring 2021 Quilty Orphan Adoption Event.  And then Erin at My Patchwork Life had lots of blocks she was giving away, and I won lots of 9-patch blocks there too. Thank you, ladies! All the scraps and blocks will go towards jump-starting future kids quilts for Quilts for Kids. 

I have to show you this t-shirt I ordered for Bruce that arrived this week. We love it!  (If the Bruce on the t-shirt had one less arm, it would match my Bruce perfectly. It really is an eerie likeness!)

Bruce said to tell you that Alfie doesn’t really drink coffee - unless it’s when we’re not looking.

This weekend I’ll be working on quilting Kim’s Christmas quilt and sewing together this wall hanging for Harambe Humanitarian. The purple fabric (African) was given to me by Sally a couple years ago. I’ve used lots of it to make International Sister dresses and there was enough to do setting triangles for this wall hanging and two more.

Eventually, whenever I can focus a week of time, there will be a total of 8 of these wall hangings. This is just #3.  Each wall hanging is slightly different, using various African (or African-esque) fabrics for dresses. The complexions and setting triangles will vary and the backings are/will be one of two styles of large African mandala panels. I’ll show more detail on this one as I complete it in the next week or two.

And don’t forget to come back on Monday for the final post of the Stay at Home Round Robin, where we will all share our finished quilts! See you then.

Two Finishes

It’s been a good week all around. The vegetable garden is all planted, and Bruce even got the drip irrigation lines set up for our front walkway flower pots. I have some pictures of the pots later in this post. We also spent an hour yesterday morning digging out the overgrown side yard on the west side of the house. The grass and weeds love it there in the flower beds! We have a ways to go to get the beds in shape, but we’re pacing ourselves. We’ll get there, but I’m sure not enjoying it like I used to ten years ago. Every spot on my body aches!

I finished up the quilting and binding on my second double-sided wall hanging for Harambe Humanitarian, the non-profit organization on whose Board I sit. Let me show you that finish first. This wall hanging has the International Sisters blocks on one side and an African mandala print on the other side.

The fabrics are all African prints except the plain white and the complexion fabrics. It measures approximately 28” x 48”.  The picture below shows both wall hangings completed so far. Two down, six more to go over the course of this year. They will be sold for Harambe fundraising purposes, and these two are already spoken for.

The hanging sleeve is on top so that it can be hung either way. Both of these use the same mandala print on the back, although I have a couple panels that will be different in future wall hangings. 

Harambe Humanitarian is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We are working with the Maasai tribes of Kenya to provide menstrual supplies for girls and young women in order to keep them in school. We also provide menstrual and health education for girls, plus income opportunities for women. Also, we’re in the process of setting up a library for the community in the Tenkes area of the Mau Forest .

This month we’re doing an online fundraiser (the pandemic has put a crimp in our revenue stream) to purchase more menstrual supplies and educational materials. I would love for you to check it out. You can visit Harambe Humanitarian on Facebook or our website.  The fundraising site is here at SafePad Kenya (scroll down to the May 15 post with the picture of the four girls in white). Asante sana! (“Thank you very much” in Swahili). 

* * * * * * * 

Although I didn’t get this dark green “Creature” quilt finished this week, it is a finished flimsy that’s been basted and is waiting for its turn to be quilted in the next week. Also basted, but not shown, is the garlic knot Rainbow Scrap project.

However, I did finish this blue and pink quilt, polishing off lots of leftover fabrics. 

I haven’t given this one a name; it’s a donation quilt going to Quilts for Kids. It measures 40x50”. I used the leftover blocks on the back, which helped stretch my chunks and pieces to fit.

Our friend Terri came over last Monday and brought lunch from one of our favorite delis. The three of us spent a lovely couple of hours out on the patio talking and laughing. We maintained our 6’ distancing, of course. Terri brought four cute quilts she’d made for Quilts for Kids as well as some kennel quilts for the Best Friends animal rescue. I’ll add those to my collection to deliver hopefully sometime this summer. Thank you, Terri! xo

I’ve had a hankering to start a new quilt lately. I’m holding off until I get a few more of my UFO’s finished up, but I couldn’t help doing a fun fabric pull. I’ve got a couple ideas floating around in my head (along with all the other detritus that floats around in there), and these bright pieces are chunks  and fat quarters that seem to play well together. This could be a fun June project, so stay tuned.

We interrupt this blog post for a message from Her Royal Highness ....

Um, never mind. All Darla really wanted was some attention from her loyal subjects.

Oh, and I mentioned some pictures of the front flower pots. I’ve taken lots of pictures of the flowers and garden over the last week. For now, I’ll just show the flower pots and save the rest for a separate blog post in a few days.

The pots were planted a couple weeks ago? It’ll  be interesting to get pictures of them in July or August when the flowers grow and fill in. But they still offer a lot of refreshing, fun color even now.

The pot below is the new one we bought when we were in Arizona in February.

Here’s a different view. I still have annuals to add to the walkway bed around the rose tree. All in good time! It’s been raining like crazy here for a day or two, so that won’t happen until next week.

Have a wonderful week, and stay safe!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

September Monthly Goal Finished

I'm thrilled that I've finished my September project for OMG - One Monthly Goal. YAY! That means I get to link up to Patty at Elm Street Quilt's finished goal link-up post. This makes the ninth month running that I've completed my goal.

My September goal was to finish up the two-sided wall hanging made of African fabrics. It will go to Harambe Humanitarian as a fundraising item. We're working toward getting the books we've collected over the last 2 years in the US send over to Kenya. They are going specifically to Tenkes, where we are building a library in the Mau Forest region of the Maasai highlands. 

Anyway, here is one side of the wall hanging. It is made with African fabrics (except the white background and complexion fabrics) using the International Sisters pattern adaptation by my friend Preeti.  Because the blocks finish at 10" and are set on point, it only takes 8 of them with setting triangles to make up one side.  The quilt measures 28.5" x 42x5".

Here is a close-up of some of the quilting. I wanted the Sisters and their dresses to pop, so the quilting was basic stitch in the ditch, some outline quilting in the setting triangles (fabric courtesy of my friend Sally), and then some micro-stippling in the white background areas.

The hanging sleeve was made to come out on top so that the quilt could be hung from either direction. The second side is an African mandala-style panel. Sorry it looks wonky; you can see it is just pinned up to my design board for these pictures.

And a close-up of some of the quilting as it shows up on this side.

Over the course of the next year, I plan to make another half dozen of these 2-sided wall hangings. All will have an African mandala fabric side and an International Sisters/African Queen size. However, the dresses of the ladies may not all be authentic African fabric. We'll see how that plays out.  This wall hanging was also Goal #10 on my Finish-Along List, which you can see HERE.

I've got most of the cutting done for Punkin' Patch, using Bonnie Hunter's pattern from her book String Frenzy.  I'm only doing 16 pumpkins (a 4x4 setting with a green postage stamp border) so it will be a fall wall hanging instead of a quilt.  I'd like to get this one done and hung up within the next week or so. I'm itching to get out all my autumn decorations!

TGIJ - Thank Goodness it’s June

The ark we’re building is coming along nicely. Bruce has decided that a cubit is roughly equivalent to a rock (as in “whiskey on the rocks”) and we’ve been measuring our drinks with those in mind. Our ark(s) look suspiciously like our bicycles, however, and that’s probably a good thing. The weather is finally forecast for some days without rain this week. Looks like we may be pedaling instead of paddling in June.

This week was a crazy one again, and I am dead pooped. The Utah Shop Hop (quilt shop visits all up and down the Wasatch Front) has been going on, and I am the designated driver. Not because we drink (except coffee), but because Guy Smiley (our car; don’t ask) is much more youthful than Cousin Kim’s car (which is, sadly, nameless).  I have to show you a picture from one of the shops on the Shop Hop, the theme of which was Fairy Tales this year. This was a cute display at Little Red Riding Hood’s place.
 

It didn’t seem as crowded to us this year, and we only visited about half the shops we usually do (and that took two whole days). However, the bargains were good. One shop had FQs at 10/$20, another had them 6/$13.50 and still another had them for Buy 3 get 1 free (at $3.50 each, so that was 4/$10.50). Normally I don’t go wild with fat quarters, but since I’m looking for some fabrics to use on some of the collage quilts I’ll start working on soon, that worked out well. Plus, there’s always that one fabric you can’t resist, you know?

Also, last night we attended the first outdoor concert of the year at the amphitheater at Red Butte Gardens. I wanted to go last summer to see Jackson Browne, but he was scheduled there while I was in Africa). This time we went to see one of Bruce’s longtime favorites, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. And we got lucky; the rain held off until we got home (late).

It’s not a very good picture, and you can see some of the lights and smoke effects on the stage. But it was really fun and a great concert. Next time we’ll know to bring our own wine.

On the sewing front, I sewed up three new-to-me blocks, the International Sisters. These are the three I came up with. They are so easy and much larger than I anticipated (unfinished size is 10.5”, and they will be set on point like this):

The middle one is a Kaffe Fasset fabric, and the other two are from my (authentic) African fabric collection. I plan to make these in mostly (but not wholly) African fabrics for a quilt for myself. I also want to begin making these from some of the other African-like fabric that was generously given to me by my friend S (I need to ask her if it’s OK if I mention who she is and the generous gift she sent me). They will be used to make wall-hangings (back to back with some authentic African fabric from Kenya) to make double-sided African wall hangings as a funding source for Harambe Humanitarian.

I love these blocks so much!!

And, as always, I have to tally up my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the month. I’m linking up (late) to Scrappy Saturday and also to Oh Scrap! on Sunday.

So, in addition to the three International Sisters blocks, I made all the blocks you see in the picture above. I’m not going to list them all because I know you don’t need to read all that. The blocks for May (sometimes a “block” is a row, a chunk) numbered 79.

I also finished two quilts in May (see my Quilts 2019 tab just below the blog header) and am about two thirds done quilting Good Fortune. I expect that will finish in the coming week and be my first finish of June. So now I’m gearing up for a Blue June (medium to dark shades). Bring on the scraps!

But first let me catch my breath and get a good night’s sleep.... AAAAAAND just as I go to post this, I hear the rain starting again....

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!

April Showers Bring Aqua Scraps

It is showering outside (really!), and the newly-tilled garden beds are loving it. Bruce has fertilized and prepped all the drip irrigation lines. We are ready to plant, and it will start in a couple days with the cool weather crops like lettuce, spinach, peas. The rest will follow in a couple  more weeks.

Inside, April brings aqua (aquamarine, teal, turquoise, blue-green, green-blue; whatever you want to call the variations) for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I’m linking up today to our weekly RSC Scrappy Saturday blogpost at Angela’s blog where you’ll see showers of scrappy ideas!

As usual, I kick off my scrappy month by working with selvages. The piles of selvages only seem to keep growing, despite my best efforts to use them.

First up are the selvage 4-patches. I sew 4 of them together like this to make one big block that will finish at 16”. So far, I have done one of each color of the month.

The tentative plan with these is to have nine of these blocks sewn together into a 54x54” quilt. To that I’m thinking I'll add a 4” border of multi-colored bitcoin blocks. The bitcoins are made when all my other larger scraps have been used up and only tiny pieces remain (in other words, near month end). With four months’-worth of blocks under our belt at the end of this month, I should be able to set these out on the design board then to see what it looks like and determine whether it’s a viable plan.

The next selvage project is a row of selvage tumblers; selvages alternated with tumblers of the same color. Since it makes an un-photogenic long row, I like to show the row with its rainbow neighbors like this:

These three rows are actually sewn together now (and look wonderfully wonky as the selvages aren’t totally straight). The red row isn’t connected yet because I will have at least one (maybe two?) rows of orange to add between it and the yellow.

I also sewed cracker blocks this week. Here are the nine that I finished.

Our friends OD and Marilyn and their son are visiting again from Kenya. Marilyn is a Utah native who met/married OD from Kenya. They come about twice a year for several weeks each time to visit family and friends and to manage their non-profit Harambe Humanitarian. They also lead small groups of friends and interested parties on Kenya visits/tours/safaris.

This past week, Marilyn and family came to visit Bruce and I for an afternoon. I’ve been asked to be on the Board of Directors for Harambe, and I am thrilled. Our main goal over the next year is go find a way to get the books we have in storage (current count, between 16,000-18,000) to Kenya. Anyone have a shipping connection? We will be building a library up in the Mau region (Tenkes; see my post HERE) for the Maasai community.

After a house and garden tour and lunch, we went down to the basement studio to work with the Kente cloth (and the other African fabric scraps) that Marilyn brought. We will be making two types of bookmarks to add to the myriad Kenyan things that they bring over every trip to sell at pop-up shops to raise funds. The picture above shows some of the bookmarks I made later in the week with this cloth. These are just the first style of bookmark. The second type will be of tagboard printed with an African proverb and have a snippet of cloth glued on, like these that Marilyn found in Kenya.

We already have sourced, ordered and received the tagboard. The fabric is ready to go. Yesterday at the pop-up-shop (we conduct several of these over the course of Marilyn and OD’s stay) we selected the font style and African proverbs. Bruce is now working to add some of my graphics (original or copyright-free) to the program so we can begin printing them out. We’ll be having a workshop here sometime in about 10 days to add the fabric, punch the holes and add the twine or fibers. Our hope is to get about 500 of these made to sell over the next year. The price point for all of the bookmarks will be 3/$10 (or $4 each).  We’re even talking about setting up a Venmo or Etsy shop for these and other Kenyan goodies.

And to top it off, we’ve had some more friends donate their African fabric, and I’ll be designing and making some African (and African-themed) quilts and wall hangings over the next several months to raffle off (or just sell) at some yet-to-be-determined library fundraiser. So, life here has been full of New and Busy and Exciting.

Life is so much more fun in retirement!!