And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

 Four Quilts Finished

Three Family Members Infected With Covid

Two Old Folks Healthy and Calm

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Now that my Christmas 2020 song is sung, I guess I should explain it. The quilts will be shown and explained later in this post. Bruce and I are the healthy Old Folks. We’ve done our annual physicals and dentist appointments and passed all of them just fine. I did have to have a crown on a lower molar re-done this week, but it’s all good. I go back to the doctor on the 29th to have a mole removed from my back, but that’s a minor thing. At least we don’t have Covid. I wish I could say that about my son Ryan, daughter-in-law Kim and their daughter Lauren (16). 

Kim works in healthcare - she’s a physical therapy assistant at a rehab center. In mid-November she tested positive (two tests) for Covid. She stayed home for 10 days, enduring mostly aches and tiredness. My son Ryan (negative test) quarantined in the basement, granddaughter Lauren (negative test) went to stay with extended family, and son Easton stayed at USU in Logan where he is a senior. 

Once Kim tested negative twice (after about 10 days), she returned to work. She worked two weeks, getting tested regularly as they do for all the employees and patients and continued to test negative until this week. Apparently two patients were released from a hospital to the rehab center and they tested positive for Covid. Before long, several of the staff, including Kim tested positive as well. It’s the second bout of Covid for Kim and also for an administrator of the rehab center. This time, Ryan and Lauren tested positive too. They have all lost their taste and sense of smell and are experiencing body aches and lethargy. Ryan says that when the symptoms were the worst for him (a couple days during this week),  every injury he’d ever had from baseball, hockey, bike riding, etc. flared up and ached like crazy. He can laugh about it now, but it was wild at the time. Lauren had the worst case of the three. They are all on the mend now, just laying around and taking it easy. So, you CAN get Covid twice. And being younger isn’t a guarantee that your case will be mild. We are very grateful and relieved that they are all recovering.

So let’s move on to something positive (that isn’t Covid), no pun intended. Cousin Kim (not to be confused with DIL Kim) helped me baste Ryan’s quilt last weekend, and I basted the other three donation quilt tops that I had lined up to finish. 

First up, Gumby and Pokey. This is the cut of Gumby fabric that Sally sent me. I extended it it by using large-ish scraps from the Quilts for Kids scrap boxes, forcing myself to make do with what was on hand. The “make do” part is important, because who wants to cut up perfectly-good yardage (making more scraps in the process) when the aim is to turn boxes of existing scraps into something useful? The results are usually not glorious, but certainly warm and serviceable. And those horizontal green strips ARE straight and parallel, but this picture is like an optical illusion!

Gumby and Pokey measures 40x47.5” and was quilted with a largish meandering stipple in light blue thread. The backing is a single piece of fabric I had on hand from Connecting Threads.

The second finish this week was one that I made using my brown scraps as I tried to follow along with the (RSC) Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s monthly challenge to use dark neutral scraps. In addition to the browns, I pulled smallish cuts of teal/turquoise and an ombre gold. I love this little quilt, and the picture doesn’t do justice to its warmth and vibrancy.

This cute scrappy quilt finished at 42x50” and was quilted with serpentine X’s in each section. The backing is an older architectural-style print I had on hand. So, I’m considering this an RSC finish and am linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog. 

The third scrappy quilt that will go to Quilts for Kids is this one I showed last week as just a flimsy (top only). It measures 42x48” 

For the backing I used some of this chambray blue backing that I bought in bulk from Connecting Threads. I think I have enough, if memory serves, for three more kid quilts. 

So, those were quick, easy finishes. Then there was this big monster quilt for my son Ryan. I’m calling it Arahorn, after a place name in his novel. More about that in the new year. 

Arahorn finished at 73x80”. It was made from a fabric line called Imperial Elegance (also from Connecting Threads, do you sense a pattern here?). It’s still available there, and I may buy more because some of the prints are just to die for.... but I digress. Anyway, I did add some other bits to it because the quilt grew beyond my original plan. Raise your hand if that’s ever happened to you... 

The picture below shows the backing and some of the quilted front. It washed up beautifully.

And that completes my quilt show for this week, this month and this year. In 2020, being largely stranded at home, I finished 46 quilts. You can check them all out, if you’re curious, at the page link under the header entitled ... oddly enough ... “2020 Quilts”. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Now that brings me to what I’m planning, quilt-wise, for 2021. I’ll definitely be participating again with Angela and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. In fact, I can’t wait to get started in January! I have blocks planned for strings/strips, small scraps/orts, 2.5” squares, 1,5” pieces, and also for larger chunks. Additionally, I have at least one carryover block type from this year to finish up in a couple colors (split nines) and several RSC tops to sew into quilts. I’ll select one of those “almost done” quilts every month to finish up. 

But if you’re a regular reader, you know I have been inundated with scraps from Quilts for Kids and by fabric donations from friends Sally and Angie. My goal in 2021 is to use those scraps and yardages to make donation quilts. So, last weekend I sat down with a pad and pencil and went through All.The.Fabric. I made a list of scrap fabric themes (and a couple quilt kits) on hand. All the small pieces were sorted and “filed” by color in the respective scrap color bins. Strips 2.5” and wider were gathered into another pile by color, as were the chunks and small cuts of yardage in single (or tone-on tone) yardages. Finally, every theme was bagged and labeled.  I’m ready to sew as of January 1. 

So, the list above has now been cut up into individual pieces and I’ll draw two themes out every month to work on. I’m hoping that process will keep it all fresh and interesting as I move through the various projects. Those RSC and other projects in the lower right will be scheduled separately. So, I’m either very organized or very crazy. Or both!

In closing this too-long post, I want to thank you all for joining me here on the blog this year. I so appreciate all the comments and conversations we share. Being able to connect like this has helped me (and you too, I hope) survive and even thrive in this crazy pandemic year. You are all special online friends, some of whom are new this year and others whom I’ve known for a decade or two. And still others of you are real-life friends and honorary family! I love you all. Merry Christmas to you and yours. Stay safe and healthy!

What a Week!

Thank goodness it’s over!  The week, that is. You may remember from my last post that I had a “procedure” scheduled for Monday. Oh heck, we’re all adults here...... it was a colonoscopy. After my weekend of fasting, the procedure finally took place on Monday at 2-ish. Missing the food was not the worst of it. Neither was the frequent trips to the bathroom. The worst was drinking the POISON - a solution that can be best described as warm seawater. But the results were perfect, and I don’t have to do THAT again for ten years!

And if that wasn’t enough crap (literally and figuratively), the election was on Tuesday. The results, to most of us, are devastating. Talk about CRAP. And by “most”, I mean the majority of voters (because H won the popular vote), educated women, minorities of any variety, and the rest of the peace-loving world. My daughter (age 30) called me, crying. My neighborhood friend’s daughter (age 24) called her, crying. Bruce’s co-workers (many are gay or minorities) were in a deep funk on Wednesday. We are still trying to come to terms with what this means for us going forward.
End of political discussion. I just deleted a paragraph of rant here. You’re welcome.  

So, back to why we're REALLY here - faaaaabric and those wonderful things we do with it!

I didn’t get much sewn this week, but I did finish the litter of purple kitties from last week. That is 4 litters down, two to go on the third and final Kitty Quilt.  As this is a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, I am linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday party. Swing by and see all our rainbow projects coming together!

I also got the green and black borders sewn onto this pre-printed panel from Pattern Jam that I bought a year ago. Our son-in-law Mike is a hunter and this has his name written all over it.  The backing is pieced and it's ready to be quilted (behind several others in line!) And yes, I realize I need to pay more attention to how I pin quilts up on my design board. Sorry for the waves, LOL.

I finally began quilting the Magic Carpet quilt last night. After a false start that required some frog stitching (rippit, rippit), I decided on some basic stippling for the blue sections. The quilting on all the colored squares will be simple and medium to large scale. I don’t want to interfere with their color punch. The black bits will probably be X’ed or ???

I am not enjoying the quilting of this one, mainly because of all the stops and starts, changing thread colors, etc. I just want to put the pedal to the metal and stitch because I have so many quilts to do. But I am being patient, though it’s hard.

As far as my Christmas quilts go, there is only one left to start, and that is for my son Ryan. I have a jelly roll of Black Tie Affair by Basic Grey, plus lots of light and dark neutrals and some matching yardage for a border. Originally, I was going to do a Ribbon Star (MSQC) pattern, but decided it was too much background, and the stars were too cutesy for my athletic son. So now, the four patterns I’m considering are below, and they’re all in fabric colors or lines that are similar to what I’m working with. Which one do you like? I’m leaning to the strings one in the upper left (a la Three Dudes quilting).

One of the projects I’ve set for myself for 2017 is to make and contribute small kennel quilts to charities. These quilts are for cats and/or small dogs and measure approximately 12x18”. To find a local charity, I contacted our local Best Friends Shelter, a no-kill shelter and organization from whom we adopted Alfalfa and Darla two years ago. They were enthusiastic about the kennel quilts, and indeed accept quilts of all sizes for not only the kennels, but for fostering families and other uses. My cousin Kim and her granddaughter Trinity and I will begin sewing these in January. Our goal is to complete and donate at least a half dozen per month. Here are some kitty fabrics I ordered just for the fun of it, but any fabric will do, of course.

Along with the fabric I got a great new book, Modern Selvage Quilting by Riel Nason. I ordered it because I was having difficulty finding a pattern to use my selvages for. After getting the book (and seeing what she has coming in 2017 - a book of Halloween selvage patterns!), I am now having trouble narrowing it down, LOL.  But I think this quilt, pictured below, will be a great one to use for my selvage RSC project in 2017.  I will do it as a column quilt, working on one color - two columns - per month. The selvages themselves can be multi-colored (which will allow me to continually collect them), while the alternating solid pieces can be sewn in the color of the month. And those solid-color pieces can be one piece or scrappy/crumby. A solution that really works for me!

Finally, in remodeling news, the living room is fully painted, with new outlet and vent covers installed. The hallway is getting its second coat of Agreeable Gray today by yours truly.  Then, since Sunday is Sewing Day, on Monday I will start painting all the hall doors and door trim white. The baseboards will be replaced along with the baseboards in the living room. But unlike the living room, the hallway will not have crown molding.

All our living room furniture is moved out; we have temporarily relocated  the TV and Bruce’s recliner to the library/music room (our back bedroom). I have the futon to curl up on. It’s cozy, but the cats think we are crazy. So what else is new. The living room carpet comes up today, and the old ceiling lights are coming out and new can lights are being installed.  Our cabinetry may be done as early as next week, but if it’s the week after, that’s OK. In the meantime, the hall painting needs to be finished (me) and floor laid (contractor). Once the flooring in the living room is done, we will move the recliner (etc) back while the flooring moves down the hall and into that back bedroom. Such fun; musical furniture. And we are still on track for the new furniture delivery on or around December 7-8. And padded white cells shortly thereafter.