Arizona Vacation and REAL Saguaros!

As promised (or threatened, depending on your point of view), this is a post about our vacation to Arizona earlier this month. We left a day late because of a nasty snowstorm that dumped a foot of snow in the Salt Lake Valley. We had to make a few last-minute arrangement shuffles, but it was no real problem.

On the way driving down through Utah, part of Nevada and the length of Arizona, we had nice weather. Cool, but clear. On the second day, we stopped in an area of saguaros to get a glamour shot of Saguaro Sunset, the quilt I made for DH’s sister Annette and her husband Glenn.

Saguaros are HUGE!!  Did you know that Saguaro is pronounced Sa-WA-ro? The G is silent. Also, the saguaro’s scientific name, Carnegiea gigantea, is named after Andrew Carnegie? And the final interesting fact is that saguaros don’t grow their first arm (if they grow one at all) until they are 75-100 years old. They can live to be 150 years old. Saguaros are by far my favorite cactus, and so iconic and representative of the American Southwest.

Another photo to share is the picture of the McCartney Road turnoff on the highway just north of Tucson. Is it THE McCartney (Paul), you ask? Yes! Remember that Paul and Linda had a horse ranch out there - Linda had attended the U of Arizona in Tucson. And then there are the words in the Beatles’ song “Get Back”

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner

But he knew it wouldn't last

Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona

For some California grass

That’s enough trivia for today, LOL, so let’s Get Back to the trip.....

The annual Tubac Arts Festival is a big thing in southern Arizona. It’s been going on for decades. But this year the weather was lousy (cool, windy, rainy) on Wednesday and Saturday. We arrived on Friday and did visit all the booths and vendors, although I didn’t buy anything this time. I was saving my money for the regular shops in Tubac, which we visit the week after Festival concludes. However, I did take a picture of one booth.

Just thought these old records made into wall hangings and clocks were a cool idea. And below is a picture of a large new statue in the sculpture garden in town. There are lots of them there - I had more pictures last year HERE - but this was my favorite this year.

One day we took a drive south to the border, all of 20 minutes by highway. We just went south on Interstate 19 - the only metric highway in the USA - to Nogales. The distances are in km, but the speeds are in mph so as not to confuse people. HA!!  

Anyway, the sheer number - acres and acres - of produce warehouses along this I-19 corridor from Rio Rico south to the border at Nogales is mind boggling. It is one of the major transportation arteries between the US and Mexico for produce. My desire was to see the border wall in Nogales - the one that has recently had concertina wire added to it that I read about in the Washington Post. The wall wasn’t difficult to find.

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In this next section, I’m going to rant. I don’t usually espouse my political views on my blog, and I promise not to make it a habit. But our visit to Nogales really affected me. 

Quick backstory: When I was a teenager, I spent the summer of 1970 in Europe and had the opportunity to visit Berlin and the Berlin Wall. I remember walking to the wall one evening with two friends from our hostel in West Berlin. There was a viewing platform we were able to climb, and we did. We couldn’t see much over the wall in the dark (although there was a street lamp), but we could see the backlit silhouette of an armed guard in a tower, watching us. It was silent, eerie, soul-draining. 

That same feeling struck me as I viewed this scene in Nogales.

Other visitors were there too, on foot and in cars, to take pictures. A Border Patrol vehicle was parked down the way to watch us. Actually, I had no problem with that - the agents are just doing their job. So I waved. At least they were on our side of the fence and presumably had no rifle trained on us.....

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why countries have borders and checkpoints and immigration protocols, and why we need to fund customs agents and technology, etc. etc. But somehow, dividing a city in two (probably a century or two ago) and then adding insult to injury by heaping literally tons of wire on the steel barrier....... REALLY?

I think this is not only SHAMEFUL, but WASTEFUL. Just how much frickin’ concertina wire do they need? The scale of the wall that divides Nogales, Arizona from Nogales, Mexico is massive and grows from a concrete base that is already up to a person’s thighs. Look at this young lady standing next to it (pic taken from our car). 

There was and is no logical reason, other than some bully show of machismo, to resort to this. But then that is the method of the current Administration. God help us all.

End of Rant.

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I did get some sewing done on our trip, but I’ll share those pictures in another post. Basically, I made about 60 elephant-themed Happy Squares (10”) and started some string blocks. But we also visited family, went out to dinner, hosted a family dinner, shopped, basked in the sun at the Beer Garden, did puzzles, read, watched a couple movies, stargazed through Bruce’s new telescope (wow! we could see craters on the moon!) took walks, etc. So relaxing. 

The house we stayed in belong to Bruce’s sister Annette and her husband Glenn. It is their second home. They obtained it (and all the contents from the previous owner) about a a year and a half ago, and have been working diligently to fix it up (new roof, new electrical, plumbing fixes, a new shower) and haul out over 8 dumpsters-ful of trash and years of previous-owner detritus. It was built in the sixties as a ranch - hacienda style as befitting the Arizona landscape.

The home was owned by “Amy”, who was a photographer who moved from North Carolina but lived in NYC most of her life. It is all of her and her family’s possessions that were given to Annette and Glenn - three generations worth. 

The front had a circular driveway with a fountain (not operational) in the center front. 

There was a large saguaro cactus at each intersection (entrance/exit) of the driveway to the front road.

See the holes in the saguaro below? Those are made by birds. Yep, saguaros often house birds and it’s not uncommon to see these holes (you can click to enlarge).

Inside, you enter into the massive living room (the door is at extreme left).

See the sofa in the picture above? That is the sofa upon which Madonna (the singer) posed nude for photographs taken by Amy and her partner. There are actual copies of the photos in the house (and on the internet, I might add).  We didn’t use this room at all except for egress. The furniture is all antique. 

Below: looking from the front door through the living room and the doors leading into the back area of the house (which was added later).

In the kitchen, you can look back through the doors and this 2-way hutch into the living room. That little round table was where I set up my sewing. Through the arched doorway is a butler’s pantry with a skylight.

Annette and Glenn have done so much to this place since we visited it last year. Glenn’s latest project is waxing and sealing these beautiful Mexican floor tiles. This is the view of the working area of the kitchen. So pleasant to look out these windows in the morning! The only thing we had to bring was our coffee pot and coffee grinder and beans (we’re kinda-sorta coffee snobs).

And this is the view in the other direction, looking through the large dining area to the sitting room. It’s where we spent the most of our time.

So many odd things about this house!! This is a little room built in the middle of this great dining-living area. In it is housed a lot of electrical stuff, cleaning supplies, etc. It was covered (as are a few other walls) with barn wood brought from North Carolina.  You can see some of the curiosities in the cubby cabinet to the right and the faux (non-working) fireplace to the left. Oh, I guess the cattle skull, branch wreath and wooden bowls are rather curious, too!

A view from the dining area to the back outside. You can see the covered patio, trees and an outbuilding (including dumpster!)

Same room looking back toward the kitchen. Here, you can see doors (left) that lead to a central enclosed atrium area. Amy used it as an office. It has a skylight. I used it for a well-lit daytime place to work on puzzles! The whole floorpan is rather circular in nature.

This was once a master bedroom. Right now it houses an amazing amount of vintage Victorian furniture; bed sets, armoire, chests, trunks, chairs, tables, etc.  and isn’t really ready yet for guests.

We stayed in the lovely guest room. The antique bed was as sturdy as the day it was built! Lots of antique furniture in here, too, but I’m only scratching the surface with all these pictures.

Outside in the huge yard (this house sits on about 4.5 acres), this is the view beyond the back fence.

Side yard.

Along the back patio. Remember, it’s still a work in process. But doesn’t it have great “bones”?!?!

We enjoyed staying here, and hosting a dinner (I made my family-famous Hungarian goulash) for the whole fam-damily and taking in all the beauty and antiquity. Annette and Glenn were so kind and generous to us, and we loved spending time with them. It felt like going from the outhouse (AKA the Bates Motel - the old family trailer) to the penthouse!

Annette has a fun sense of humor, just like Bruce. When she told us that the only thing we’d need to bring was a coffee pot, I jokingly lamented that I would miss not having to dodge the frozen snake meat in the freezer (Bruce’s brother Dennis, who owns the Bates Motel family trailer keeps snake meat specimens in the freezer there. Don’t ask; I don’t know why. It’s a well-known family fact).

About halfway through our visit, Annette asked me if I’d found anything interesting in the freezer there at Amy’s house and mentioned she’d left some frozen Key Lime Pie there if we wanted it (we didn’t). But when I went to look for it, I saw two other small containers. I opened them and just about died laughing. Annette had wrapped toy snakes in the containers!

That’s it for the vacation pictures! I’ll be back soon with an update on my quilting projects. Thanks for dropping by, especially if you read this novella all the way through!  xo

OMG! Saguaro Sunset Finished!

Wow, I did it! I finished Saguaro Sunset on schedule and in time to join in the finish link-up for our January OMG (One Monthly Goal). Yes, I’m doing a happy dance here!

Saguaro Sunset is backed with a cactus print and some solid Kona that I picked up at JoAnn’s (no picture). The “batting” is just a piece of flannel, since this its recipients live in Arizona and don’t need heft or warmth. I quilted it with simple vertical wavy lines (maybe we could pretend it’s radiating heat?) It washed up beautifully and crinkly as you can see. The wonkiness is just due to the way we pinned it up on the design board. The finished dimensions are 58x70”. This is my second finish for January.  

You can see lots of other great January OMG finishes over at Elm Street Quilts, where we’re all linking up our finished goals for the month.

Saguaro Sunset was also Goal #3 on my 1st Quarter 2019 Finish-Along list, which is HERE.
Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict Whoop-Whoop Friday HERE.

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Bruce bought himself a new T-shirt this week......

Squirrels truly do run in our family......

The End of the Red

I say this every year in January, but hasn’t this month dragged on For.Ev.Er? Why is January so dang long, and spring just flits by in an instant? A question for the ages.

But we had a delightfully bright color, RED, to work with this January, and it has Sparked Joy for many of us. Yes, that is yet another reference to Marie Kondo. I think that her Joy Sparking will be the subject of punchlines in no time. Maybe even by the end of this never-ending month.  In the meantime, to spark your own Joy of the color red, why not hop on over to Angela’s blog and check out the Rainbow Scrap goodness??

Here is a recap of what I finished in the Red Department this month:

Top Rows, L-R:

10    Cracker blocks, 7.5” unfinished

12    Lover’s Knot 9-patch blocks, 6.5” unfinished

1      Row of Tumblers (plain and selvages) - about 8 selvage tumblers

5      Anvil blocks, 8.5”

Middle Row:

6      Strip blocks, 9.5” (plus one at 8.5” that ended up in the Parts Department)

1      Scottie Dog Quilt (or scottie god quail, right Louise?) made for donation

Bottom Row:

1      Bitcoin block, 4.5x12.5”

2      Crumb blocks 6.5” sewn, then added to last year’s to make 3 Crumbcakes blocks

4      Selvage 4-patches, 8.5” each

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This week I also finished two flimsies, as shown in my last post. They are Saguaro Sunset and the last of the selvage blocks (from last year’s RSC) that have been sewn into a pink-y flimsy. Both of them are now basted and ready to be quilted. Come hell or high water, I’m going to finish Saguaro Sunset by the end of the month to claim it as my finished January OMG (One Monthly Goal).  Oh look, here is Saguaro Sunset now, just shining away on the basting table, waiting its turn under the needle!

And just for fun, I want to show you part of Cousin Kim’s latest quilt. Lately she’s been finishing the quilt bindings at home, then gifts the the quilt and I never get a finished picture. But I wanted to show you her Jelly Roll Race quilt. When she finished sewing it together, we checked my stash for possible backings and found half of this amazing duvet cover I’d bought last year at a thrift store. It matched the colors perfectly.

The floral is the duvet cover, of course. Every color in the stripes (not all are shown) is represented in the floral print. It was meant to be. I quilted it for her in a simple stipple and snapped this picture before she took it away.

And finally, it’s time for some Gratuitous Cat Pictures. You’re welcome.

Alfalfa (Alfie)

As the picture above shows, Alfie is an alert and energetic cat. He has two speeds; ON and asleep. If he were a person, Bruce and I decided Alfie would be a cross between Robin Williams and Steve Martin. A wild and crazy Little Rascal!

Darla

And this is Miss Darla. She is sweet, shy cat with a squeaky voice. I haven’t quite figured out who she would be if she were a person. On one hand paw, she’s very girly and diva-ish and loves to cuddle. On the other, she is very athletic (jumping down 3 stairs in a single bound) and sneaky and can bop Alfie around when they tussle. Any ideas who she is? Do your pets have equatable human personalities?

A Couple Flimsies

I’ve got two quilt tops to show you today, both of which I hope to have finished into quilts by the end of the month. Saguaro Sunset is my priority of course, since it’s a gift with a deadline. But since I like to have more than one project going on at a time, and since my red scraps for January have been whipped into shape , I decided it was high time to finish the third and final selvage quilt from my 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge selvage blocks.

So, here is the selvage quilt top. Nothing too exciting. And as you can see, I had to sometimes turn the selvages sideways or upside down, but that’s just fine in my book. I’m the boss, not them.  :-)  For the top, I was able to use three different pink pieces for the sashing. One of them - the stripe - will also be the binding. I think I finished up all but the very lightest one. I love clearing things out.

I’ve got a Frankenbatt all ready to go, as well as a backing pieced from two other remnants. This will be basted today. Quilting won’t happen until after Saguaro Sunset is done.

And here is Saguaro Sunset. As much as I loved the deep royal purple border against these colors, I’m not sure the recipients would have appreciated the colors or the size. Or maybe that’s just an excuse to keep it small enough (it’s currently 58x72”) to manage basting it on my own with pins. It’s the dead of winter and way too cold to open the studio door for ventilation (if I use a spray baste).

I’m not crazy about the plain yellow at the bottom, as I’ve said before. But I ran out of the ombre fabric(s) and couldn’t get more. So, plain yellow it is. It’s not horrible, but it could’ve been better. Oh well, it’s still a pretty cool top. It’s certainly a technique I’d like to play with more!

So, that’s my progress in the quilt department so far this week. I’ve also found an old online friend I can gift a lot of my crazy quilting things (well, vintage linens and silk ribbon so far) to.  I’ve spent several days of going through boxes and bins and packing things up to mail to her. As well, I’ve been doing some serious deep cleaning and getting rid of Stuff. No, cleaning guru Marie Kondo has nothing to do with it. It might be just the time of year or even the time of my life, but owning accumulations and collections of Stuff doesn’t hold the appeal it did a couple decades ago. And I know that the more Stuff I get rid of now, the more my kids will appreciate it once I’m gone. What about you? Have you done any recent purging of Stuff?

In the Red ... Scraps

We are still playing with our red scraps for the January Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and today is the linky party over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog. Let me show you what I worked on this week.

First, I made three of these great blocks. Each block consists of 4 quadrants, each a 9-patch made of 2.5” (unfinished) squares. So, the finished block is 36 patches. At this stage, they measure 12.5” each. I have no idea what they’re called, but I first saw and fell in love with them on Jennifer C’s blog HERE.

I think these will offer some interesting setting possibilities down the road.

Last year in the RSC, I made 6.5” crumb blocks. This year I’m joining them together in fours, separated by a 1.5” black strip. I only needed to make two red crumb blocks this year to finish up these three 13.5” Crumbcake blocks.

There are a few crumbs left, but I left them to provide some variety for next year. However,  I did piece these little 1.5x2.5” bitcoins. I think everyone else probably did them 1.5x3.5”, but my scraps warranted this size. I have no idea what I’ll do with this 4.5x12.5” block yet, but as always, the scraps find a home.

Moving on, it was time for strings. I am overrun with strings, and so I'm resorting to a tried and true favorite, single-color string blocks. This time around, they measure 9.5” unfinished, and I had enough red strings to make six blocks.

In truth, I made seven of them, but I trimmed one wrong (8.5”), so it is now residing in the Parts Department.

I also finished quilting the red Scottie Dog donation quilt, which was a finished I talked about in my last post.  It’s made with red cracker blocks of scottie dog fabric. You can see it at the link there, or click in my newly-revised quilt pages above (just below the blog header). It’s my first finish of the year. BUT..... But Saguaro Sunset is hot on its heels!

So, this is where SS ended up as of yesterday afternoon. Two of the four cacti in the final row are pieced and sewn - they are on the bottom right.

The last two cacti (the bottom left two) are in various stages of piecing. I hope to finish these this weekend so I can finish up and layer the quilt in the next week. Besides the pieces pinned up on the board, this is all I have left to work with of the light yellow fabric (below). I’m having to use more of the plain yellow than I’d have wanted, but needs must. If I’ve got some pieces left over to fix some of those plain yellow areas, I’ll do it. Stay tuned.

And here are the strips that will be used for a final deep, bright contrasting border.

But before I get back to the cacti, I’ve got to finish quilting a Jelly Roll Race quilt for Cousin Kim. What surprised both Kim and me was that I had the PERFECT backing in my stash. It was a duvet cover that I’d bought at the thrift store last summer for $5. Being a duvet cover (2-sided), it yielded two huge floral backings - similar but slightly different. They are very bright and Monet-like, and the colors matched up with the jelly roll that Kim used like they’d been made for each other. Total serendipity! Pictures to come.

Have a great week, friends.

OMG or TMG?

One Monthly Goal or Two Monthly Goals?  What?!? Really, I can’t decide if I should list one - and which one? -  or both of these quilts as my One Monthly Goal for January. I’m linking up (slipping in under the wire) with Patty at Elm Street Quilts to set my goal, which I guess I’ll have to decide on by the end of this post.

The dilemma: this “Squirrel!” project popped up out of nowhere on Saturday (well, it came from my feeble brain). Why not make a kid-sized donation quilt out of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, red? I had a couple yards of a cute scottie dog fabric just yapping its head off to be used. And I loved those little cracker blocks I had started making for the RSC. So, yesterday, this happened:

Forty-two 7.5” red cracker blocks of scottie-dog fabric. How easy it would be to claim this as my OMG!  It just needs the blocks sewn together. Then maybe/maybe not add a border, sew a backing, baste, quilt, and bind. Easy-peasy for a quilt this size; the work of an afternoon. But it would be a kinda-sorta cop out.

The other project that I MUST finish by February 6th (-ish, give or take a day or two) is Saguaro Sunset. This is where that stands.

Seven more cactuses (12.5 x 20.5") to piece (in squares of 2.5 inches) trying to build a sunset-like color gradation with a questionable amount of fabric. Plus sashing and borders, sewing a back, basting, quilting and binding. This one has trouble written all over it (but I loves me a good troublemaker!). The other thing is I know I can finish it by the February deadline (when we leave on vacation), but I don’t know if I can finish it by the end of January.

So, what to do??  OK, Executive Decision Time.

I am going to push myself to finish SAGUARO SUNSET in January. The dogs can wait, or provide comic relief (you ought to see how bad the point matching is) when I need a break from the prickly cacti.  Wish me luck. Better yet, come on over and I’ll put you to work behind my new back-up sewing machine, Bob.

Quilty Plans for 2019

First of all, Happy New Year to all of you. May 2019 be happy, healthy and full of all good things for you! I’ve been putting off writing this Plan for 2019 post because I can’t quite define, or wrap my head around, what exactly I want to do quilting-wise this year. Oh, I have plenty of ideas and fabric, but I’m just not sure how well I can describe them. It feels to me like a bunch of floating ideas, not a cohesive plan. But here goes....

I try to be an organized person. After working for about 35 years outside the home, I was adept at keeping a planner, making schedules and lists and sticking to them. When I retired, it was a priority of mine to let go of timetables, planners, schedules. Even sleeping in (until 8:00 am!) was a luxury. But I found my footing over several years and now find that I need to add some of that back in. The operative word here being some.  This is the 3rd year that I’m using a planner again. This year I’m trying the Quilter’s Planner. It is expensive, detailed, but not in the ways I want. It’s too big and there’s so much stuff I’m not interested in. Last year I just bought a planner at Barnes & Noble that seemed to suit my needs. But it was too generic and bare bones. Too small. Back in 2017 I used Lori Holt’s Scrappy Project Planner. We are only a few days into 2019, and I can already tell you that going forward (2020 and beyond) I’ll be going back to Lori’s Scrappy Project Planner. It is just right! (Are you thinking of Goldilocks and the Three Bears here?)  I still use some of the leftover Scrappy Project Planner pages to supplement my other books. Live and learn.

The online tools I use to keep me on track (insert sound of whip cracking here) are the Finish-Along goal-setting and finishing link-ups (with prizes!).  We set our own quarterly goals and work toward them. No pressure, just self-accountability. When we finish a project, we blog about it, link up to their end-of-quarter post and become eligible for prizes. It’s the same concept for OMG - One Monthly Goal - only that’s done on a monthly basis. Again, it’s a project we choose to work toward completing. No penalty for not finishing, but eligibility for prize incentives if we do. But my favorite of all is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - working with an assigned color every month, we work through our scraps to make whatever we want. The buttons and links for these are on my right sidebar if you’d like to learn more about them.

Now, let’s get down to business. Generally speaking, I want to do more charity quilting. Last year I made some quilts for Quilty Hugs (see link on sidebar) and one at year-end for Quilts for Kids. In 2017 (and a few in 2018) I made lots of kennel quilts for the local Best Friends Animal Society. This year, I plan to participate with all three charities. I have no family gift quilts I need to make (after Saguaro Sunset, which I’ll talk about in a minute) and my closets are overflowing with quilts. Literally! I’ve already contacted our (family) contractor Jeff and spoken to him about expanding our hall linen closet. No lie. I’ve wanted to do it since we moved in 15 years ago, but it will happen this spring.


Like everyone else, I’m doing string scraps this year. I believe 2019 is Year of the String. At Christmastime, I treated myself to two new books, both published at the end of the year and both about string quilting.

Left: Strip Quilt Secrets by Diane Knott. My favorite of the two; very do-able projects (including a selvage project). You can check it out HERE.

Right: Bonnie Hunter’s String Frenzy. To get an autographed copy, check out Bonnie’s blog (full-price is charged, but you get a free extra pattern download). Or check out other retailers. HERE is a link to the publisher, C&T Publishing.

So that moves me on to my favorite subject - the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month, our organizer and leader, Angela of SoScrappy, has called the color RED for January. Our weekly Saturday link-up is HERE.

This week I tackled my selvages. I had hoped not to have to do any selvage project this year, but they keep accumulating. I swear, this is the last year for selvages. I’m not going to save them anymore!!  So, I’ve got 2 small selvage projects going. Last year I made 6.5” selvage blocks, but then made some 4.5” blocks when the colors ran low and I couldn’t make the full 6.5”.  So, I’m supplementing those smaller blocks with any remaining colored selvages in the color of the month and pairing them with low-volume and color background fabrics to make 8.5” (unfinished size) 4-patches. Eventually, I hope to get a smallish donation quilt out of them.

My multi-colored selvages - those that do not identify with a particular color family - have grown completely out of control.  Witness these two boxes full (not sorted; some obviously will fit in with a particular color.

Since I bought myself a (used) Go! Baby cutter last fall, and had the tumbler die, I decided to pair multi-colored selvages with single color tumblers. I made 5” selvage blocks, ran them through the cutter, then cut red tumblers and sewed together.

Yield: One red scrappy tumbler row, measuring approximately 39” across. I’ll make one of these every month in the monthly color and have a rainbow quilt in 10 months. I can add a border or two to expand it to whatever size I’ll need for donation and use up my selvages in the process.

I haven’t tackled my strings yet, although I’m planning at least two multi-colored string projects (again, strings from random scraps that don’t fit into a particular color family) and one RSC project where I’ll make string blocks in the monthly color. I have a week or two to make a final decision on that pattern.

What I did tackle this week were some scrappy red chunks so that I could make a test block of two of the blocks I’m definitely doing for this year’s RSC.  The first is Crackers. I love this block so much; it’s easy and fun to make.

I’ll be using black on white backgrounds for these. In fact, I’ve already pulled some additional fabric in red, white and black with scottie dogs on it to make dozens of these blocks into a donation quilt this month.  Maybe one thing I’ll be doing is making a small kids’ donation quilt in the color of the month. We’ll see how that pans out. I’ll have more pictures and updates on this as the month progresses.

The other block I’m doing is Jen Kingwell’s Little White Dove block. You can click THIS LINK  for the pattern.  But the picture that got my juices flowing was HERE.  And this is my first test block. More to follow (hopefully at least 4 per color) as the month progresses.

That’s all for my rainbow projects for this week, but I did make progress on Saguaro Sunset. This is the quilt I’m making for my SIL and BIL for when we go to visit them in Arizona next month.  It will be 12 cacti set in three rows of four, with the sunset fading from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom. I bought an ombre fabric (but not enough) for the background. So, I found a similar ombre and bought a couple yards of that to cut up for borders and use here an there.

After piecing the first row, I decided that I needed to forego the pattern and just cut the background pieces in 2.5” squares to better control the gradation of color. Hence the haphazard pinning and piecing you see here.

The above picture is how it looked at the beginning of the week. In the picture below, I’ve pieced one cactus in the second row and am OK with the colors. My hope is to make substantial progress on this second row in the coming week.

That’s about it from here. Today I have to go out and pick up Bernadette (my Bernina) who is ready to come home from the “spa” (annual servicing). I got an email on Thursday night that she was ready, but the store was closed for inventory yesterday. So today it is. And then I have to head south down to Thimbles & Threads (The Quilter’s Lodge) to pick up an order. They had some beautiful masculine fabric on sale at year-end online. I’m trying to make more boy- or masculine-themed donation quilts this year. And finally, I have a donation quilt to drop off. But first I have floors to clean before I can get my shower. Then I’ll have lunch and head out to run the errands. With a little luck, I might be able to squeeze in a couple hours of sewing today. If not, well, there’s always tomorrow!!