Is it Saturday Again Already?

It’s been another busy week with mostly beautiful spring weather. If you’re visiting for Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, welcome! But during this past week in two separate blog posts, I shared lots of quilts from the UQSM (Utah Quilt and Sewing Marketplace) - Utah’s only major quilt show on the national circuit. If you’re interested in quilts, you may want to check those out.

Front shade bed with brunnera blooming

In addition to last week’s quilt show, we visited and dined with friends, met with Emily Bailey from Aunt Em’s Scrapbag (more later in the post) to drop off quilts for Hands2Help, went to a plant sale at the arboretum and walked around Historic Fort Douglas (more on that in a separate post), plus worked in the garden. Whew! This week promises to be just as busy with family visits and Mother’s Day, more garden work (my Talavera flower pots in the front yard are almost finished!), dentist appointments, plus we’re having two new windows installed in the front of the house.


The only Rainbow Scrap Challenge sewing I got done this week is this group of 10 Cracker blocks.

But at least I got the next blocks cut out and ready to sew; 11 Anvil blocks. I spent a lot of time sewing this week, but what was I doing? Well, I knew I had 9 donation quilts ready for Hands2Help, but I decided to hurry and get a 10th one sewn up. 

This is my second stacked coins quilt using the instructions provided by the H2H hostess, Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I cut it out on Friday and sewed the strips together on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday I made the blocks and constructed the top. On Monday I basted and began quilting. On Tuesday I finished quilting and binding, and then washed it up. We delivered it on Wednesday. First, here’s the quilt.

I ran out of the green fabric for the sashing, so I couldn’t add borders to the top and bottom. This one finished out at 55x60”.  The backing is the leftover green fabric that I used for my Good Fortune quilt, which is still basted and waiting its turn under the needle for quilting. The binding was a cute green stripe.

The quilting I did with a lot of hooks and swirls and echoes of the swirls and flowers. It’s more quilting than I usually do, but I wanted to just relax and zone out and see what I could do. Overall, I love the texture and am pleased with it, wobbles and all. This quilt, my first finish this quarter, is #6 on my 2nd Quarter 2019 Finish-Along list, HERE.

So, one of the real highlights of the week for me, then, was getting to meet up with Emily Bailey, who runs the Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo, a Hands2Help charity that actually encompasses 3 outlets; Primary Children’s Hospital, The Huntsman Cancer Center and the Rack Pack (breast cancer patients). This is the second year we’ve met up.

I may be joining Emily and her group for their monthly Quilty Hugs meeting occasionally. It meets the same time as my Tuesday Weight Watchers meeting, but I think I can skip that once in awhile (wink). Anyway, it was good to see Emily again, as well as have another order of the lovely soaps I bought from her Etsy shop hand delivered! Thanks so much, Emily! And I’m linking up to the Hands2Help final tall post HERE.

Oh! I almost forgot. This quilt is also coming together; it’s my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for May. All 120 of the 6.5” blocks are made and have been sewn together in fours to form the 30 large 12” blocks. Here are 16 of them pinned up on the design wall. Putting this top together, plus sewing orange RSC blocks will be my focus for the week ahead.

Quilt Show Part 2

I knew I’d have too many quilt pictures to share in one post, so this is the second (and final) installment of the 2019 UQSM (Utah Quilt and Sewing Marketplace) quilt pictures. It was hard to narrow down which ones to share, but I’ve tried to include a variety. One category that I did not photograph were the traditional quilts done with Civil War report fabrics. They just don’t speak to me, although I do appreciate the workmanship that goes into them. I photographed but am not sharing some of the Special Exhibit quilts. Just so much - all lovely in their own right.

So let’s get to the business at hand. 

Another Youth (age 18 and under) quilt winner, although you can see I cut off the credits.

A couple modern quilts I liked:

A great improv quilt using solids.

The detail on this one was exquisite. 

There was an exhibit of Hot and Cold quilts. These were my favorites:

For this next quilt series, I am putting the credits first so you can read about (or not) how this series of quilts came about through the Social Justice Sewing Academy. There was so many wall quilts, but this stood out to me.

And last but not least, this Bride’s Bouquet quilt. This is a bucket list quilt of mine. I want to use a Tamara Kate floral for the alternating blocks and one of her geometrics for the bouquet bases. I have to find just the right ones, though. Her new line, ABLOOM, is beautiful and is due out in stores in the USA in June. That may be the one!

I hope you enjoyed the quilt show!

Tomorrow I’ll have some pictures of my meeting today with Emily Bailey of Aunt Em’s Scrapbag blog. She coordinates Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo, one of the Hands2Help charities. She’s an amazing woman with super talent and a generous heart.