Happy Summer Days

Happy Saturday!  

The International Sisters quilt, which I dearly love, is finally finished and photographed! When my friend Ruby was over to sew last weekend (along with Cousin Kim), she happily agreed to be my quilt holder. She is way taller than Kim or me, and has one more arm than Bruce (wink). 

Without further ado, here are the “glamour” shots … and I use that term verrrrrry loosely. 

It was necessary to take the photos in the shade of a tree, so correcting the color to warm up the “blue” shade hopefully presents a more accurate color depiction. And if not, I think our brains can adapt. 

International Sisters is a free pattern drafted by my friend Preeti, who with permission from the original maker of a block called African Queen, used her talent to bring this lovely maiden to the masses. You can find Preeti’s post HERE.

The block name of International Sister was suggested by me, and Preeti thought it was a good fit. She had used so many varied fabrics for dresses, hats and skin tones, that these lovely ladies can easily represent our friends and sisters worldwide. In fact, as I was making these blocks, I named most of them. Names like Malala, Rosa, Coretta, Greta, Winnie. Come to think of it, Preeti and I are in there too. Hint: we’re the “twins” sporting Kaffe fabric.

Preeti also had several extra blocks with gray background colors that we both felt detracted from the Sisters. So when she sent those blocks to me, I carefully unpicked them and restitched them with the consistent Kona White I had been using. So my Sisters and some of Preeti’s Sisters are all chilling together. That makes me very happy!

Several of the Sisters are wearing African fabrics, and several are dressed in fabric donated by friends (thanks, Sally!) I quilted the white sections in a smaller stipple. The dresses were each quilted uniquely, and less densely to allow them to pop a bit. I had several close-up photos of some of the dresses, but they’ve disappeared from my photo gallery, so dang.  Finished size is 56x70”.

Here’s the back. These were some of the fabrics I bought while I was in Kenya about five years ago (at the same time Barack Obama was there!). I’d been saving it specifically for this quilt back. 

***********************

My sewing focus this week was on beating back my red strips. To that end, I sewed 54 red string blocks that will finish at 6”. 

In the bottom right corner are the blocks left over from last year, so I will have enough blocks total to put together four 15-block bundles for our Quilts for Kids kit assemblers to pair with other fabrics. 

Speaking of Quilts for Kids, our workshop last Saturday was so delightful. I can’t tell you how many sweet friends came up to tell me how “cute” and skinny I looked. And then when I went to the Nordstrom Anniversary sale, the sweet young personal stylist helping me kept saying “cute” too. Of course, she gets paid to be nice, right? But it made me wonder if “cute” is code for “sweet little old lady”. LOL. Oh, and it was near tear-inducing when I kept having to size down in the clothes I tried on. I now have a beautiful basic wool blazer in a single-digit size!  

Next week I’ll recap my July weight loss highlights, goals, medical benefits and, well, we’ll see…

But getting back to red, the July color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I also completed the top of my Red Ribbons quilt (a free pattern from Jordan Fabrics). It is perfectly square and flat, although pinning it to the design board (sideways) tends to distort it and make it look wonky. It’s not!

The backing is prepped, and I hope to spend today in a quilt-basting frenzy! There are at least 7 quilt tops that need to get layered up, and I’m going to put on some upbeat dancing music and see how many I can knock out in one afternoon! Wish you could be here joining in the fun! 

An Almost-Finish, A Dinner Out and (Lack of) Fireworks

It was another great week of summer here. We only spent one day in the yard because it was hot and there is less to do. Maybe I can get out there again this week, weather and obligations permitting. I do want to repaint the white wicker rocker and the backyard wrought iron railing, but I need to have a perfect set of circumstances come together for that - (1) having supplies on hand - check! (2) having a nice summer early morning with no breezes, and (3) getting my lazy butt out of bed before 8 am to get outside and just do it. I’ll let you guess where the problem lies…

Friends Ruby and Cousin Kim were over on Sunday, and we had our usual fun sewing, chatting, and listening to music. I sewed these Little Bricks squares, which finish at 6”. It’s Red July for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday. 

I also sewed seven more Sawtooth Star blocks with a red background for the Christmas quilt I’m making this year. I have seven more of this 12” size, then I can drop down to the 8” stars.

Monday was the day for my doctor appointment to get cortisone shots in my knees. When I was heavier, I was getting them every 4.5 to five months. Apparently losing weight really does help, because it’s been 11 months since my last shots! In the afternoon, I began a lot of batch cooking. I seem to get a wild hair to do this sometimes. This time I made a large pan of lasagna (4 meals), a ham and broccoli quiche (2 meals) and lots and lots of strawberry-rhubarb (from our garden) compote. It’s all tucked safely away in the freezer. Well, except the quiche, which was safely tucked away in our tummies!

Tuesday was a quiet Fourth of July for us. Even the neighborhood fireworks were tame. This was a nice, cooler day which we spent outside working in the garden. We harvested all the peas, and the sorting and shelling commenced! Here is a recycled photo of Darla on one of our patriotic quilts.

Wednesday happened to be another sewing day with Kim, and I got all the white background of my International Sisters quilt quilted. Later in the week, (Thursday and Friday afternoons) I was able to finish up quilting the Sisters and their dresses. Here’s a peek. It’s trimmed but not yet bound.

The background is just a small meander with white thread, while the headpieces and dresses are mostly varying patterns and more loosely quilted so they will hopefully stand out a bit more. I’ll give all the details and show some close-ups next week. I’m intending to get some “glamor shots”  of this one. But for now, here is the backing - fabric I bought in Kenya when I was there five years ago. 

The fabric is a heavy cotton Dutch wax resist, and in Africa the fabrics are put up and sold in 6-yard bolts. In this case, it was three yards of each of these two coordinating prints.  I saved some of both of these prints specifically for this backing. I also sent some fat quarters to friends at the time, so now I only have a few scraps left. And that is how it should be. 

On Thursday I had a Weight Watchers meeting in the morning. I usually go on Tuesdays, but with Independence Day being Tuesday, I had to switch this week. I lost another 1.8 pounds, to bring my total loss to 52.6 pounds. I’m 11 pounds from goal, which is the top end of my healthy weight range. I’d like to go ten pounds below that goal number just to have a little flexibility within my range. I won’t be thin, but at least I will not be obese. A healthy weight. 

Thursday was the day that Bruce was asked to attend and present at a special session for Prosthetists, Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists ahead of the annual EmpowerFest 2023, which was being held in Salt Lake this year. EmpowerFest is presented by the Hanger Clinics (they’re a national chain of prosthetics and orthotics). EmpowerFest is an opportunity for persons (adults and children) with limb loss to connect, make friends, share resources, learn and to try out lots of new skills - like horseback riding, rock wall climbing, dancing, and on and on. 

Bruce was one of four amputees in this professionals-only session, along with three other locals - friend Sam (the No-Handed Bandit on You Tube who lost both arms in a work-related electrical accident as a lineman); Craig, who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, and John, who is a quadruple amputee and can sling his left arm prosthetic like a gun from a holster. John was so charming and funny - he just lit up the room! 

L-R: Kyle (Bruce’s prosthetist), Bruce playing the banjo, and Kelly

It was an interesting and enlightening evening, especially for us few lay people. And we made some new friends and had a really nice meal. :-)

Friday was just grocery shopping, sewing and some chores, which brings me current. Now I remember, though, why I don’t get as much done in the sewing room even when the heat of the summer sets in; there is always garden harvesting to process! It won’t be long until I start bringing extra veggies along to my Weight Watchers meetings. It’s more fun to share than to stand in a hot kitchen! 

Have a great week!

Life in the Slow Lane

I guess that when you’re retired and are in the middle of suffering through a pandemic with the rest of the world, there’s no shame in admitting that one’s life is not exciting and eventful. We don’t have to get up and go to work (thankfully), nor do we have to worry about kids in school (although there is concern for the grandkids). We don’t have to travel, although we’d like to. But we’re not until things are safe again. So what does that leave? Errands - appointments, grocery shopping, and occasional “gotta-do’s”. The highlight of our week this past week was when Bruce got a new prosthetic attachment for his arm that allows him to hold a guitar pick and play his guitar or banjo. Honestly, I never thought I’d be so grateful to hear a banjo! We don’t have pictures yet , but we’ll take some. First, though, he is just modifying the end of the attachment so the pick-holder part is a little longer and doesn’t necessitate the use of so much shoulder action. 

A meme I found online says it all for us about 2020. If you’re offended, sorry/not sorry.

Also this week I did a lot of batch cooking because the fall nesting instinct hit hard. Over two mornings I made chicken tortilla casserole (enough for 4 meals), beef enchiladas (2 meals), chili (4 meals), baked apples (a panful of of those for a week of guilt-free evening snacking), minestrone soup (4 meals) and chicken tortilla soup (4 meals). I’ll do lasagna in a big IKEA roasting pan (makes 6 meals for us) this weekend, but the rest of the soups I’d planned (white chicken chili and split pea with ham) will have to wait until we free up some containers. That’ll probably be after Thanksgiving, when I’ll likely be doing some leftover turkey batch cooking. The truth is I’m a lazy cook. I like having meals on hand so that meal prep is often nothing more than popping something in the microwave. That leaves me more time to do something else.

My "something else" this week was to sew. I’m nearing the end of my regular Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for our Yellow October. Today I’m linking up, as usual, to Scrappy Saturday.

First I worked on getting some yellow International Sister blocks made. This first one was sent to me by my friend Preeti, the pattern originator. She had a gray background to it, which we both agreed didn’t work. So I picked it apart and inserted my usual Kona Snow.

Then I sewed up three Sisters from some of the African fabric I brought back a couple years ago from Kenya. These blocks will go into some of the Harambe Humanitarian fundraising wall hangings I’m making.

Then, because I have so many yellow and gold scraps, I sewed three more Sisters.

Here are all seven yellow Sisters together. I’m getting antsy to get all these sisters sewn together. I’m planning to spend some time early next quarter to just buckle down and get several of the wall hangings assembled in one huge push. 

Then I began working on my final RSC monthly project, the “Creature quilt” in yellow scraps, chunks and orphan blocks. This is where it stands for now.  Since I took the picture, I’ve actually sewn all the sections together and trimmed it. The bold yellow and black print scraps were sent to me by dear Nann, so they influenced the choice of black as the accent color. 

The name of the quilt was going to be Creature From the Golden Galaxy, but the black stripes and general colors really call for an apiary-themed name. Golden Hive? Golden Skep? Bumbling Creature With the Golden Honey? Yes, I know; I’m over-thinking it, especially since it’ll just be a donation quilt for Quilts for Kids. But ideas are welcomed! 

I also finished the flimsy of a Christmas panel quilt for my brother. The flimsy measures about 56x66”, a good size for a lap quilt for my brother, who is short. The backing is pieced, so it just needs to be basted, quilted and bound. That should happen this week before month-end, just like the yellow Creature quilt.

And I think that just about wraps it up for me this week. The furniture moving last weekend went well, and we were able to get all the old stuff donated and hauled away. For the coming week, Bruce has no appointments with the occupational therapist or the prosthetist. That means I don’t have to drive anywhere and will instead concentrate - maybe - on shampooing carpets. We have three rooms I want to do - two bedrooms and my studio, which is about the size of two bedrooms. Since we do have our own carpet cleaner, I can take it one room at a time at my own pace. But, like the batch cooking, I have to psych myself up to do it. So it may or may not happen this week. 

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.

Rolling in the Orange

This week I had four good sewing days (or half-days) and got so much done. Part of my motivation is that today is our monthly Quilts for Kids workshop (and a Scrappy Workshop, which we have once a quarter - my favorite!). I had three quilts made by others that I had to baste and quilt; one was done before we went on vacation, but two I did this week. No pictures, because I don’t count those in my personal totals.  :-)

This week I mainly focused on sewing orange blocks for February that I’ve chosen for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Today is our linkup, and as always there is so much fun and creativity on display as everyone shares their goodies for Scrappy Saturday. 

My first finish of the week was this Scraptastic Star block. It measures 16.5” and I’ll be making a total of nine of these.

Next I churned out ten 6.5” Twin Sisters blocks. I love these blocks! They are so quick and easy. 

And I must have something for “sisters” this year, because I also sewed up 10 International Sisters Blocks (pattern courtesy of my friend Preeti).

The dresses of these Sisters are (all except one) made from African fabrics, and most will be going into fundraising wall hangings for Harambe Humanitarian. That’s why there are so many with the same fabrics. I used up all my African orange fabrics. Each wall hanging will only use 8 sisters, and I’m planning on several (at least 6) more of these wall hangings. I will be working on assembling at least two of them in March, and will talk more about them - and Harambe Humanitarian - at that time. A lot has been happening that I would like to share.

Moving along....  Here are my 17 orange string blocks. They measure 6.5”. 

And I assembled (from previously-sewn and quilted panels) another scrap bucket for my orange scraps. This is a cute and simple pattern courtesy of Angela at So Scrappy.  It measures about 7x10” and is 10” deep. It’s currently holding all my leftover scraps. I’ll be sewing on those this coming week to see if I can put together an orange quilt using them, along with lots of orange orphan blocks. Stay tuned.

Last week I also showed a couple scrappy quilts in process. Here is my progress on those. All of the string star blocks are done, but only the bottom three are sewn together - but not pressed yet. The goal this coming week is to turn this into a flimsy, and then quilt and bind it. Month-end is next Saturday, and I want to count this as a finish for February.

I also showed this in-progress scrap quilt, made with a pack of Rainbow Charms and some low volume (neutral) string scraps.  Here is finished Rainbow Charms #1. It is my February OMG (One Monthly Goal), so I’m linking up to Patty’s February goal finish link-up party here.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this when it was completed; it looks so much more vibrant and fun in person. In fact, there were enough charms to do another whole quilt. That second one is already sewn. I’ve layered and basted it, so it’s just waiting for its turn to be quilted. That will happen this weekend. I’ll have that to show next week, along the finished string stars and my February recap.

That’s it for now. I’m off early this morning to my Block of the Month class, then home for a few minutes to pack off and head in another direction to the Quilts for Kids scrappy workshop, then lunch with friends. Have a great week!

Sewing Like the Wind

More snow here this week. And that was great because it gave me a chance to stay indoors most of the week and SEW. And I sewed like the wind!

Let’s talk green. Light and bright greens are the colors this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I’m linking up to Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday. There is so much color and inspiration there from all the participants.

First up for me this week were the string blocks. I had a lot of green strings and ended up with 16 blocks measuring 6.5”.  I sewed these on my back-up machine over last weekend.

On Monday I got a call from the service department that my regular machine, my Bernina, was ready to come home from her annual checkup and tuneup. So we went to pick it up. The service notes told us how they cleaned the inside, adjusted the presser foot tension and reset the internal stitch counter. There were 2.5 MILLION stitches put on the machine in 2019. Holy moley! All Bruce could say was “No wonder there are so many threads all over the house!"

Here are six International Sisters blocks. I’m still sewing these from Preeti’s pattern. Two of them will be for me and the other four will go into wall hangings I’m making for Harambe Humanitarian, a Kenyan non-profit organization that I became involved with when I went to Africa in 2018. The jungle fabric was a gift from my friend Sally.

We interrupt this blog post for an Impurrtant Announcement from Darla. She would like to remind you that any house decoration done with stray sewing threads is vastly inferior to all the beautiful furs she (and brother Alfie) bestow upon us on a daily basis. This concludes our public service announcement.

Ha! What Darla didn’t mention is how she and Alfie happened to notice that I had not totally sealed a ziplock bag with some balls of embroidery thread inside the other day. In a matter of mere minutes, there were two balls of perle cotton missing.  I noticed it when I went to rethread my needle to finish embroidering the cord on this Farm Girl hand mixer block.

You’ll notice that the cord is embroidered with different colored threads. It wasn’t until I’d finished stitching the block that we found the missing thread balls strung all over several rooms. Darla and Alfie looked totally baffled and innocent (but come to think of it, they always look totally baffled and innocent...)

Getting back to green fabric sewing, it was time to tackle some tiny scraps and crumbs. I’ve been wanting to make some of Angela’s scrappy baskets (tutorial HERE) for awhile now, and this is the year that it’s happening. Her tutorial is very thorough and the process came together very easily.  I love it! Thanks, Angela!

Now my green scraps have been liberated from their plastic drawer and henceforth will reside in style in their own little bin. Isn’t it cute? I just quilted it with a simple serpentine stitch. The remaining scraps (no, I didn’t use them all) have lots of room.

And the picture below shows the basket in situ. As I use up fabrics and downsize a bit, there will be room to put the scrap baskets on the shelves with the folded fabric by color. At least, that’s my theory. Im hoping that by the end of the year I can use the emptied set of plastic drawers to stow the sewing supplies that are currently in a big, heavy desk that I want to get rid of.

So, I’ll be making these scrap baskets every month for awhile!

Once those projects were done, I began playing with green orphan blocks and green scraps from the Parts Department. With the bazillion half-square triangles (HST’s) I had, I made several pinwheel blocks. I pulled in 8 green cracker blocks, the 8 selvage log cabin blocks from last week, 10 of the 16 string blocks and various other parts. The goal is to get some sort of cohesive quilt out of this mess. The color will help tie it together, but so far the only part that’s actually sewn are the 8 central cracker blocks with the little checkerboard trim between them and the white strips along the side. Everything else is just pinned.

This block play will get some attention this week, but I know one thing for certain. Somewhere in there I have to add a pop of a different, unexpected color. I don’t know what that color will be - red? purple? orange? blue? We’ll see as this moves along.

I have a lot more to share, but I’m going to cut this post off here. I’ll be back in a couple days to show you more sewing stuff, not the least of which is a couple quilt finishes. Have a great weekend!

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!