Slinging the Strings

It seems the heat has finally broken here in the Salt Lake Valley. Autumn is on its way. This born-and-raised California beach girl who has loved summer for decades once denied that summer was over (jokingly) until the last leaf fell from the big pear tree back in our last house. And that was in January. But now I’ve become a bigger fan of autumn. Let the celebrations begin! Give me falling leaves, cooler days, and pumpkin spice. It’s not sweater weather yet by any stretch of the imagination, but next week is our Closing-of-the-Pool community party, and I’m bringing Caramel Apple Salad. Yum. Have the leaves started turning color yet where you are? They haven’t started turning yet here in the Salt Lake Valley, but they have up in the mountains. It won’t be long!

As my blog title suggests, I was playing with strings this week. But it didn’t start out that way. I couldn’t resist sewing one of those quick Strippy donation quilts of which I cut out five kits, if memory serves. It took me less than 30 minutes to sew up. 

I let the fabric strips (all width-of-fabric) dictate the size and number of strip panels. These scraps came from my friend Wanda. Here’s a better closeup where you can appreciate the vibrancy. 

I had to just sew one up quick, but made myself move on to something else once the top was sewn. I’ve begun my Fall Finishing Frenzy. I have some loose goals. First I’d like to sew 600 string blocks between now (beginning of September) and the end of the year. Since I safety pin them in groups of 15 for Quilts for Kids kits, that would be 40 sets of 15. It’s an ambitious goal, and honestly, I’ll be happy with anything over 418. That was how many I sewed in 2023, and I started those in October. I didn’t do string blocks in the fall of 2024. 

In addition to strings, I’d like to finish up at least a half dozen of my RSC block sets into quilts. But first I’ll work on my Halloween quilt for this year. I’m planning to baste it this week, just have to finish a couple seams on the backing. Maybe that will happen on Monday or Tuesday. 

But I do have some string blocks (6.5” unfinished) to show for this week. Sixty of them. I love that little mouse in the corner of the block in the bottom left stack. Do you recognize any fabrics you have or have worked with in the past?

After I baste my Halloween quilt this week, I plan to switch colors on the strings and sew up a bunch of brown blocks. I’ve got a few fabrics that I can pair them with (like football 🏈 fabric), and they’ll make a couple cool boys’ quilts. 

That’s all I’ve got for this week. I am anxious to see if you all have begun your finishing frenzies. Have a wonderful week! Linking up to Scrappy Saturday/Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

The Eyes Have It!

On Thursday I had a cataract in my right eye removed. YAY! My vision is still blurry, as I was told to expect, but in my follow-up visit on Friday, everything looked great. There has been no pain and only minor discomfort on the afternoon of the surgery. And other than a few annoying restrictions, it’s been smooth sailing. I’m officially able to drive again beginning today, although I’m not allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds or bend down to pick things up (or do any gardening). I’m mindful of keeping my head above my shoulders as instructed, so deep knee bends get things done in a pinch. Well, that and Bruce helping out. I have another post-op re-check next Friday.

So, ahead of the procedure on Thursday, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday preparing for my forced downtime. I did the weekly grocery shopping and hauled a load of stuff to the Goodwill store. I had originally planned to participate in our community-wide yard sale today, but realized I really didn’t have that much stuff AND I wouldn’t be able to unload it all anyway. So a preemptive donation was the best solution. But the most fun preparation during those two days was pin basting four quilts all on Tuesday afternoon. 

I didn’t snap photos of all four, but I did snap a picture of the one I haven’t shown you yet. This is a large lap quilt donated by my friend Susan L in Iowa. It will go to our local women’s shelter because it’s more appropriate for that in addition to exceeding our Quilts for Kids size limits.

After completing the top, Susan wasn’t enamored by it, so she sent it to me to complete. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed basting this one. The fabrics are not my usual style or colors (I try to do bright kids quilts, after all), but it was fascinating to me to study these interesting fabrics and how they were combined. It’s such a peaceful, low-key quilt, which I’m sure will be greatly appreciated by a woman in the shelter! 

I also basted the two Rainbow Candies quilts and the green column monstrosity quilt from last month. Anyway, here’s the first quilt finished; finishing the other three are my highest priority for the coming week.

This is Rainbow Candies II. I ran out of the sashing fabric (since it’s the sashing and backing for both of the candy quilts) so had to add the bright chartreuse outer border on this one. I quilted it in quick loops and it finished at 42.5x51.5”. Below is the backing and label.

Last Sunday, when Ruby, Kimmie and I were sewing (have I told you that we call it The Church of Bernina?) I finished fifteen of these Switchplate blocks. They’ll finish at 3x5”.

Here’s something else I haven’t talked about or shown. Beginning last March when several of us attended our local Worldwide Quilting Day event, I began sewing multi-colored string blocks in an 8.5” size.  I usually sew them at 6.5”, but my string stash had (has?) been multiplying faster than I can deal with. I figured the larger size block might eat up strings faster. The jury is still out on that, because before I knew it, I had enough strings for two kids’ quilts. 

This is not a sewn top; the blocks are just slapped up on the design wall. I have another one just like it with a small navy and white print as the “solid”. Both will finish at about 40x56” - a good size for a kid. And I can use a 42” wide backing when I machine quilt them eventually. I can get 4 solid blocks from an 8.5” WOF strip. With a little piecing of WOF leftovers, it takes about 34” for the solid accent.

But I’ll be going back to my 6.5” block size. Quilts for Kids has a lot of solid fabric donations, so from now on I can just turn in 6.5” multi-colored string blocks (in groups of 15, like I do for the solid-color string blocks) for them to put into kits for other sewists. 

I think that’s about it. Bruce wants me to take him to the grocery store to get some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, his favorite. They didn’t have them when I shopped on Wednesday, and he’s going through cookie withdrawals! 

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Have a great week!