Some Quilt Finishes and More String Blocks

Before I dive into my sewing and quilting for the week, I have some good news. We had a sum of money deposited into our account by the Veteran’s Administration! I think Bruce was approved for Vietnam-area disability benefits (not to be confused, I’m learning, with ongoing healthcare benefits. We were denied the healthcare benefits, as previously whined about, hehe). Anyway, we have not received anything in writing from the VA detailing the payment made or the monthly benefit amount, but we expect it hopefully next week. It is most welcome, even if it appears to be less than what we were initially told to expect if approved. Time will sort it all out.

Now, on to sewing. This week, I finished the quilting and binding of the last two Community Quilts as organized through Jo at Jo’s Country Junction blog. These are the last two that were generously donated by Susan L of Iowa. I saved the best for last, and these two were absolutely delightful to quilt and study.

The first one is a girly Rail Fence quilt. I had to quilt this one in loops and hearts. 

Truly, the pictures don’t do these quilts justice. The fabrics in the rail fence have sparkles and just radiate spring joy! 

The second one is a masterwork of scrappy piecing. I love the navy polka dot fabric that sets the blocks off to perfection! I quilted it with a basic stipple.

Thank you for entrusting me with these beauties, Susan. They will be donated to the Salt Lake Chapter of Quilts for Kids at our April workshop. 

Now it’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge time and I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday. The last block of my monthly makes is the one I call Paint Chips. Here are the five of these 8.5” (unfinished) that I made in yellows. 

And here are all three of the colors for this year so far. I wanted to see what these looked like together, and I am pleasantly surprised at the pattern that results. It’s better than I had hoped. Naturally, more colors and blocks will look better. And I have no idea what the actual finished pattern will be. I see so many possibilities. Oh, and the pattern of color and neutral varies from block to block. 

A quick note - if you didn’t see my (rare) mid-week post, I joined up with the final Parade of Quilts for the 2025 Stay at Home Round Robin. My post showing and describing the quilt is HERE, and the quilt parade, which I highly encourage you to check out, is here at Gail’s blog. 

Cathy’s 2025 Stay at Home Round Robin Quilt

And let’s not forget the strings! I finished the last twelve 8.5” string blocks, which I call Nann Strings, after my friend Nann of With Strings Attached, who came up with this block and sewed a stunning quilt. 

Here are my blocks slapped up on the design wall. I’ll sew them all together next week. 

I recently acquired some fabulous scraps from a Friend With Very Good Taste (Wanda). I’ve spent some - but not nearly enough - time this week fondling and sorting them. I started going through my quilt kits and trying to match up fabrics with them. But I’d see one fabric, dive through the kits searching for something in those colors, then get distracted by another kit or fabric. Before long, I had piles and fabrics and orphan blocks everywhere on tables, chairs, the floor and also draped over the sewing machines and ironing board. It was such a chaotic mess that I realized I was never going to make any progress that way. So I put it all away and have devised a plan to move it all out to my kitchen island and go through it methodically there. That kitchen island is so big, that I’m afraid Trump is going to want to take it for its strategic value, hehe! Kidding. Sorta. 

And speaking of the T-word, here’s a cute picture I borrowed from former Labor Secretary (under Clinton) Robert Reich. Some women attorneys from Tennessee are commenting on the leaked military attack plans and other facepalm actions of the T regime: 

Have a great week, friends. And if you can’t do that (because you read or listen to the news), then at least stay healthy and safe! xo

Will Winter Please Leave the Building?

I’m so sick of winter that I could scream. Last year, winter was so much more wintery in terms of cold temperatures, precipitation, and early onset. But this has been such a stressful last few weeks and months for us, that it’s been “just one more thing” to deal with. And I’m so over it. 

The house sale and condo purchase saga continues. It’s been up and down, not bad but sometimes not good. I’ll save the details for the end of the post so that if you’re here for the sewing-related content, you won’t have to listen to me whine. :-) But in a nutshell, we got a good offer on our home that we’ve accepted and we have made an offer on a condo to purchase that’s been accepted. Both are set to close on - are you ready? March 22. Yikes!!!

Suffice it to say that I didn’t get much sewing time this week, and when I did, it was primarily focused on finishing up the secret sewing that will be revealed on Wednesday. A special mid-week blogpost!! But I do have a couple minor things to show you.

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC), Angela at So Scrappy has called purple in all its variations as the March RSC color of the month. All I’ve done so far is sort my purple scraps into strips, chunks (blue purples and red purples) squares/shapes (like HSTs) and miscellaneous. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the RSC. 

That’s really exciting, isn’t it? (That’s sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch that)!

I finished up a column of scraps and strips in red for February. Since I never showed my green column for January, I’m showing both now. They’ll finish at about 3” wide (and 62” long), so I’ll not only be doing our usual 9-10 RSC colors, but likely will add gray, brown and black as well. And possibly divide the yellows into a yellow and a gold column. 

Seeing that picture above reminds me that the design board is coming down this week so I’ll have time to patch and paint the wall behind it before we move.

And through all the chaos that has been our life for the last couple months, I’ve managed to keep up with the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR). But this week, I just couldn’t do it. I did cut out the pieces and began sewing the triangles, but that’s it. The rest of this, the final border, will be sewn next week, come hell or high water. But in the meantime, I do have a photo to share. The outer components are just pinned or slapped up on the design wall, so please disregard the wonkiness. 

White fabric will fill in between the corner groupings. This week’s hostess, Kathleen, called for us to use a letter or number in our border. Not necessarily literally, although a literal interpretation was certainly valid. I chose the triangle block because it consists of three pieces (2 white side borders and the blue triangle) And because it looks like the letter V. Additionally, I grouped them in threes, so I think I met the challenge. Or I WILL meet the challenge when it’s all sewn. We have until March 18 when the final finished quilts will be revealed. In the meantime, I’m linking up to the Round 6 SAHRR linky party  HERE. There are some really lovely quilts being constructed that you can check out at that link. 

So this is where I begin my Tale of Stressful “Woes of Moving” diatribe. If you’re not interested, (and who could blame you?) this is where you take the exit ramp. No hard feelings! 

* * * * * * * * *

This week, the builders who are building the townhouse complex behind us, legally recorded their quitclaim deeds to the residents on our side of the street. Basically, they gifted us with an additional 252 square feet at the rear of our property, which the county officials have now incorporated into our lot. But we had to chase down a copy of the recorded deed so the prospective owners’ title company could have the documentation. OK, that was easy enough. Then the title company asked us to provide them with the copy of our Kizerian Family Trust, because that’s how our land ownership is held. Luckily I had all the documents on a thumb drive, so that easy enough to locate and get emailed to them. But between the two issues, a half day was killed, never to be recaptured. 

The new owners had their appraiser out to appraise the property (for their mortgage loan), and we had to clear out for a couple hours for that to take place.

And then on Thursday afternoon - all afternoon - we had to leave the premises while the buyers’ inspectors crawled all over every detail of this house. Roof, plumbing, electrical, appliances, etc.  At the same time (yes, it was planned that way), our inspector was doing the same thing on the condo we want to purchase. So far, so good, right? But this is where things began to get a bit stressful.

When we got home that night, the microwave didn’t work, and neither did the lights in my studio. What had they done? Well, Bruce checked the electrical panels, and one of the kitchen circuit breaker blocks had not been snapped in all the way by an inspector who apparently had to take them out to do his thing. OK, so Bruce snapped it in and the microwave worked just fine. The lights in my studio, it turned out, had been, well, turned out. There’s a master switch that controls all the lights and power in the room (don’t ask me why, it was that way when we moved here 21 years ago), and they had just flipped the switch off. So we just flipped it back on. And let me just say here that Bruce was flipping more than that, too, if you catch my drift. 

So the next morning, we get a text message from our agent saying their inspector said our air conditioning unit was not operational. What?!? Bruce went outside to the A/C unit’s fuse box and low and behold, the inspector had put the fuse block in UPSIDE DOWN, which is the normal “off” position. It wasn’t making contact. Bruce put it in correctly, and then we had to test the A/C. Yep, cold, windy weather outside, and here we are with the A/C on. It worked like a champ, and soon the house was 60 degrees. I have frostbitten toes to prove it! (Just kidding). So we called our agent and explained everything and ranted a bit about their incompetent inspectors. But apparently, not taking our word for it, the buyers have an electrical inspector coming on Monday. Luckily, we don’t have to leave the premises, and Bruce will have the opportunity to show them what happened. 

As if all that weren’t enough, an issue came up with the condo we’re purchasing as well. When it rains, it pours. In one of the hall closets, the water softener unit, the hot water tank, the furnace and main water shut-off valve (to the entire condo) are all situated. Apparently the water softener was leaking (not badly, but leaking nonetheless). When inspecting these items before we arrived, the inspector decided the smart thing to do was shut off the water valves to the softener to bypass it altogether. But apparently the valves “seized” (his words) and he ended up having to shut off the main water valve to the entire condo. We were told it would need to be addressed before the water could be safely turned back on. The condo seller balked; they had a backup offer to ours and said they were not going to address it. We talked to our family plumber (Cousin Kim’s son Nick). We sent him a copy of the inspection report and the pictures. Nick said the inspector, likely erring on the side of caution, probably could’ve unstuck the water softener valves. Nick offered to do it for us. When we talked to our agent to get permission for us to bring our plumber to the premises to try that, we learned that the sellers were getting a plumber in this weekend after all to try that themselves. So, we’ll hear the results once it’s accomplished. We don’t even want the dang water softener! 

And all the while, we’re packing our belongings. I know no home sale is without glitches, but man, the stress keeps ratcheting up. I really need a day to just sit and sew while listening to music. Who’s with me?

Round Robin Quilt Finish

The quilt that I finished through working with the awesome ladies of the annual Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) is ready for its reveal. I actually finished the binding several days ago and we’ve been waiting for a day that was sunny and without a stiff breeze for picture-taking. But this is spring in the Salt Lake Valley, so I might as well be wishing for a unicorn. It just doesn’t exist. So…. We battled with the breeze to gather a few snapshots, and it is what it is!

May I present “Swimmingly”, whose name was coined by my friend Sally.

I had this quilt professionally quilted with a nautical pantograph that includes all manner of sea life and seashells, anchors and more. Perfect! The binding is a black Kona cotton that blends in well with both the front and back.

“Swimmingly” finished at 57x64”, which is a great lap size for us. Bruce has claimed it as his, which is fine with me, LOL. 

So, with all that said, I’d like to thank the organizers of the SAHRR for their time, organizational efforts and cheerleading as we all followed their prompts and leads to create some fantastic quilts and other finishes. You guys are awesome, and I hope we’re all able to continue this for many years to come!

The Finale quilt parade can be found at Quilting Gail’s blog, here. Come see all the wonderful quilts! 

Yello-phants

What a busy and fun week it was! The temperature got up to 70 F degrees on Thursday, which was a fluke. Friday was cloudy and cooler and we’re expecting snow - or rain - this weekend. We need the moisture and I would much prefer that to unseasonable temperatures!

I’m going to back up to last Saturday and hit the week’s highlights from there. At our monthly Quilts for Kids workshop, the program was changed from working with scraps and bits of fabric (crumb piecing) to working with strips. That made sense, actually, since we can then use the resulting scraps in a future crumb workshop. We’ll be doing crumbs in May. But on Saturday, we sewed like the wind and a dozen of us got through one 18-gallon tub of strips in 3 hours and churned out lots of string blocks. Typically we make quilt kits that members can “check out” (like a library) and then sew and return. These string kits will consist of 15 strip blocks and 15 solid blocks, 6.5” unfinished each, plus enough fabric for two small borders. We made enough strip/string blocks for 20 kits!

165 string blocks = 2 piles of 3.5” each!

That workshop had me all fired up for sewing strings, so on Sunday and Monday, I pieced 75 string blocks, then pulled out 90 more multi-colored string blocks from my cache. I’ve been making them for months and months. So, 165 more blocks are going to our Board to make the kits!!

I have plenty of strips and strings to work with, and that was supplemented by my friend Claudia in Washington who sent a boxful of kid fabrics for backings, as well as chunks and strips. It’s so much fun to have a fresh infusion of kids fabrics, especially when some of what I have is dark or adult-ish. Thank you, Claudia!

Claudia - you might recognize those monkeys!!

Tuesday brought March and the start of a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month we are working with our yellows and golds. How perfect is that? So many of us have the Ukraine people in our hearts and minds, and the interwebs are springing up with yellow and blue (Ukranian flag colors) quilting ideas to ease our hearts and possibly provide potential fundraising opportunities. I plan to join in later this month as some of these organized efforts begin. How about you?

But first I tackled my yellow elephants. Yellophants!!

I got all six of them made this week. Notice the pineapple ears. Chevron ears. So much fun! These blocks will finish at 10”, and are from Wendy Shepard’s pattern, Stomping Ground. 

Next up were the Antique Tile blocks. I’m doing two of these for 10 months and will assemble all 20 blocks at year-end into a quilt that measures 48x60” (or larger with sashing).

On Wednesday, Bruce and I went to a newish quilt shop and we dropped off Swimmingly for quilting.  The picture at the right is just to refresh your memory. The picture makes it look bowed, but it’s not in real life!

Before taking it to the quilter, and thanks to the pep talk by my friend Roseanne, I gave myself some grace and didn’t throw in the towel on it. Instead, I added a small black stop border around the entire perimeter of the quilt (not shown in the picture) to preserve the points. At the quilt shop, we picked out a nautical-themed pantograph. Bruce had a ball checking out their long arm quilting machines and talking to the ladies. 

We’ll have it back in a couple weeks, which will give me plenty of time to add the black binding and finish it before the Stay at Home Round Robin finished quilt parade. I’m trying to think of a venue that might be good to use for some glamour shots of the finished quilt. But we’re landlocked here, and I don’t see (sea?) a visit to the coast in my immediate future. There’s always the Great Salt Lake, but..... um, probably not. 

On the same day we went to the quilt shop, we actually spent the afternoon at South Towne Mall in Sandy, where we went clothes shopping (pants for both of us, plus a belt for Bruce and personals for me) and had a coffee treat and split a pretzel. And then we stopped for a nice dinner on the way home. Wow. It was so nice to be out and about in public again and doing some normal things. And I sure got in a lot of steps!

The other thing I did this week was pull three personal (“personal” meaning made by me) “kits” of scraps to make Quilts for Kids quilts this month. The first turned out not to have as much yellow in it as I thought, but I added the middle yellow chunk and it will work fine for this month. Here is what I’ve cobbled together.

This top helps me use up the aqua selvage half-hexie blocks and lots of random pastel strips in pink, yellow and aqua. It measures 40x46”, perfect for a little toddler girl. I plan to quilt it this coming week along with one or two or three other quilts from Jo’s Country Junction Community Quilts program. All finished quilts will go to the Salt Lake Quilts for Kids group, and be documented here and eventually on Jo’s blog. 

I think that just about wraps it up for this week. Tonight we’re going to my son Ryan and DDIL Kim’s house for dinner and to celebrate Ryan’s and my birthday. It’s a little early for both, but for working couples like Ryan and Kim, weekends are it. Ryan is doing the cooking (he loves it and he’s the best chef in the family!) and I’m baking the cakes. Yes, that’s cakeS, plural. Ryan and I like the plain yellow cake with buttercream frosting and Kim and Bruce like chocolate (which will be made into cupcakes). And they’ll get all the leftovers, so I won’t feel guilty having just one piece!!