Worldwide Quilt Day, Last Red Scraps and Lots of Strippie Tops

Hi there friends! Why don’t you grab a cup of your favorite beverage and have a seat. We’ve got a lot of Stuff to get through today! This will be a picture-heavy post, at least by my usual standards.

Last Saturday, we (Ruby, Kim and I) attended the World Wide Quilting Day event in Sandy, Utah. Joining us were Cathy (Ruby’s sister) and Jenny, Cousin Kim’s niece (and my late Cousin Carrie’s daughter). We had a blast. After we got settled into our favorite spot (by a window and an electrical outlet) and got our machines set up, we wandered over to the stage area. There, boxes and boxes of donated fabrics and scraps and books and patterns and….anything quilt/sewing related were spread out along with tons of quilters (both figuratively and literally) were searching for treasures. 

Our group was restrained in our acquisitions; I concentrated on smaller scraps, strings and solid yardage, which were curiously overlooked by everyone else. I also picked up a brand new bamboo pillow form still in the package. Bonus: I’m short, so it was good to sit on while I sewed! Ruby found a needlepoint owl piece that she is going to make into a pillow for her daughter who loves owls. Everyone else got a few pieces here and there. 

Last week on the blog I showed the little scrappy quilt that I’d made from the scrap challenge baggie I picked up at last year’s event. Of the 26 kits that were checked out in 2025, sixteen of us returned them as finished quilts. We were entered into a drawing for $100, and I won! Kim took my picture with the quilt and Ben Franklin.

While we were there, I sewed three Strippie quilt tops, which I’ll show and talk about later in the post. The food was plentiful and delicious, although I will admit that I may have had one or two extra helpings of apricot crumble (hold the crumble, but beware the sugar!)

Did you do anything quilt-related on Worldwide Quilting Day??

The end of March is upon us, and I managed to finish up all my red block sewing for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. First, I made 15 red string blocks that will finish at 6”. They are pinned in a group for donation to Quilts for Kids. 

And finally, I was able to eke out four 6” (finished) crumb blocks, also for Quilts for Kids. 

But even when added to the four from last year, my count is only up to 8. Maybe next year I’ll have more time and scraps to make up the final 7 to get me to a full set of 15. 

***We now interrupt this blog post for some kitty pictures, which have been scarce lately. Ruby gave me a birthday present in this box. Alfie turned his nose up at the Talavera pitcher, but fully endorsed the box. This pic was taken a few days later during one of his many forays into cardboardland. Humans just can’t appreciate the finer things in life!

Darla agrees with Alfie. But she is much more dignified. Here she is, regally “loaf”-ing on her mid-level cat tree perch.  “You may carry on,” she said. 

So, back to the Strippie quilts. And it should be evident with these quilt tops why all of a sudden I had an urge to take solids from the giveaway tables. The cute focal prints were donations, mostly from my friend Wanda. 

I’ve seen these Strippie quilts done in a very formulaic manner before, but I prefer to let the fun print determine the eventual size, depending on how much of it there is to play with. Here’s a closer picture of the colorful print.

There was enough of the vegetable fabric below to do not only this top and its backing, but another top that is cut and has yet to be sewn. 

And again, a closer shot of the fabrics.

This next top is the first one I played with when pre-cutting all the possibilities into sewing kits. The garden theme is just so happy and bright! No close-up for this one because the print is large enough to clearly distinguish. 

I’ll give all the measurements once they’re quilted and bound, but mostly they start with width-of-fabric strips (hence the name Strippie). I do trim the edges enough so that a single width-of-fabric can be used as the backing/fold-over binding. 

The above three tops were done at WWQuilting Day, as I said. But I was on a roll and kept going with this concept during the week….

Here’s a cute elephant quilt top. 

And here is another one in progress. This isn’t a Strippie, though. I had a large batch of kid print fat quarters that Ruby found at an estate sale (27 FQ’s to be exact). I selected this fox and squirrel print to start. There were 4 fat quarters of this design, but I only used 3. The other FQ was cut into two Zipper blocks and strings. 

And here’s the close-up of this fabric. 

I’ll finish up the border on this and then hang it with the others to be quilted. I’m hoping that Angela at So Scrappy will announce April’s color of the month today so that I can get started on it this weekend. Update: she did! April’s color is PINK, 

This morning is our Block of the Month class. Once that is done, my goal today is to finish the garden clean-up in the courtyard before the rains begin for all next week. Also, we (Bruce Kim and I) will be taking off for Arizona to visit family next Saturday. I’ll have a post up Friday night, but not sure when or if I’ll be able to link it up to the RSC as we’re driving for a couple days. But driving will probably be easier and faster than attempting to fly these days. Enough said.

Have a great week!

Preparing for Worldwide Quilting Day

One of the things that my Cousin Kim, me, my friend Ruby and her sister Cathy do every year is attend the Worldwide Quilting Day event in the city of Sandy, which is at the South end of the Salt Lake Valley. We’ve spent a good part of the week in preparation, gathering up the projects we want to work on, gathering up finished quilts to turn in to our Quilts for Kids group who will also be there, gathering our donations for the giveaway tables (which take up an entire performing stage area), preparing our food donation (it’s a gigantic potluck), etc. The event starts at 10:00 on Saturday morning (tomorrow as I write this but probably today as you read it). I’m sure I’ll be too excited to sleep well tonight!

But let’s get “business” out of the way first, since I won’t be able to share pictures of the event until next week. I sewed this week on some red blocks for Red March in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Above are the seven Hollow Nine-Patch blocks that will finish at 6” in a quilt someday. I’ve just started these this month because I have so many 2 ½” squares and they need to be pared down. I’ve made them for RSC before and just love their ease and versatility in kid quilts. 

Below are the two Rolling Stone blocks I did in red. They finish at 12”, so I’ll probably end up with enough for at least one larger kid quilt, maybe two. 

I still have my red strings and crumbs to tackle next week, so there will be more red sewing. But for this week, I belatedly decided I ought to work on my scrap challenge quilt. Every year at WW Quilting Day, they make up gallon-sized baggies of scrap “kits”. They are numbered, and you can check one out if you’d like to make it into a quilt, supplementing it with your own scraps. Well, I forgot about it last year until just as we were leaving. So I ran back to the table where these were and all that were left were three very dark and ugly bags of scraps. I selected one that had some bright bits in it, and checked it out. 

Fast forward to this week - *ahem* I’m usually not a procrastinator, but the fabrics were so dark and ugly that I couldn’t justify spending time on it. There were 43 little wonky square-in-a-square blocks (about 2-3” each, I never actually measured). The center was a small bright print surrounded by ugly blues and grays. But there was a piece of a solid bright blue nestled in the bag that gave me an idea. So I pulled out some solid brights and set out adding another round of triangles to the wonky blocks to brighten them up. 

So the above picture shows what I had by Wednesday morning. But Ruby and  I spent Wednesday at Cathy’s house, longarm quilting the wedding quilt for my grandson’s that I’ve been working on. I’ll show that hopefully next week. It’s quilted and trimmed and I just need to bind it, then I’ll need a quilt holder and locale for its glamour shots. But I digress.

Anyway, the bright triangles brought the block sizes up to 5” (4.5” sewn). Set at 6x7, the quilt was still small. So I added a purple stop border and searched my stash for another border and backing fabric. I struck gold! Well, metaphorically anyway, because the border fabric was perfect! 

I quilted it with a simple stipple. The backing was a blue batik that my friend Nann had sent me some time ago, and I also used it as the fold-over binding. The quilt measures 37.5 x 42”. I actually ended up loving it, and will be happy to turn it in! At WW Quilting Day, the organizers do a random prize drawing of the numbered kits that are turned in as quilts. I’m hoping that my kit #16 will be a lucky number this year! As usual, the quilt will be donated to Quilts for Kids.

So that brings my total quilt finishes this year up to three so far, all done this month. And when I get the binding on the wedding quilt, which will be done this month, that will be four finishes! I think my slump is over! 

This was a busy week. We got our taxes done (yay!) and our accountant will be handling both my brother’s 2025 tax return and the estate tax return (after the closing on the sale of his house). He explained the process, and I’m so relieved that I’m in the hands of a great trust accountant, a good attorney and a good real estate agent. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train! 

We are also planning our trip to Arizona in April, so that will be nice. But no sewing for 10 days, so I’ll be playing catch-up again in April. Then there is also my grandson’s wedding (another 2-day trip to northern Utah), and the court hearing (by phone) to be named as Personal Representative of my brother’s estate. All in April. Also, my left knee is going downhill fast, and I don’t think I’ll be able to wait until September to get that knee replaced. I’m thinking now that it’ll be some time in late June. That will mean I can heal in plenty time to enjoy the swimming pool this summer! 

Life is good. 

Busy Week

Busy week. Duh. Who doesn’t have a busy week (unless they’re on vacation)? But this was an UNUSUALLY busy week, so I’m sticking with my unimaginative post title. My brain is fried. I need one of the kitties to curl up in my lap and purr. 

Darla here, at your service!

Last week started with a bang - Worldwide Quilting Day. Cousin Kim, Ruby, Ruby’s sister Cathy and I attended the festivities at the Sandy City Senior Center, a large venue that accommodates a good crowd of all ages. There were over 150 attendees, judging by the numbers on the tickets for the door prize drawings. Both Ruby and sister Cathy won some fabric prizes. Kim and I weren’t so lucky, but we definitely scored at the Give and Take tables. Actually, it was more than a few tables. It also included dozens of boxes as well as a piano and bookshelf covered in books and patterns. Oh my. It really was quite spectacular!

I remembered to snap a couple pictures later in the day after the incredible potluck lunch. The pix don’t capture the crowd well, because things were beginning to wane by then.

Looking across the room to the stage/stash area. Ruby in the foreground, talking to Kim

View from another angle. Kim in foreground, hand sewing a quilt binding.

And here are some of the scraps and pieces I scored in the Give and Take area, photographed once I got home.

The two green fabrics at the top right are larger cuts of 1.5 - 2+yards.  The rainbow and striped fabrics could make great borders or bindings for Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts. Most of the rest were smaller pieces to flesh out my thin scrap bins. And those flamingoes!! I don’t know what I’ll do with that piece yet, but I love it so much! I may just have to keep it just to gaze upon, LOL!!

I also fell in love with this yummy Mary Englebright fabric panel. It’s got four repeats of these two squares. I’m thinking it would make two fun girl quilts in gold, blue, red and other accent colors. That pink and red checkerboard block border is screaming to be repeated in a quilt border. I’m sure wishing there were 48 hours in a sewing day!!

My sewing for the WW Quilting Day consisted of string blocks - both Nann Strings (with the black centers) and some 8.5” string blocks - a new, larger size to help me whittle down my huge bag o’ strings faster. I laid the two styles out (below) on a whim, but they’ll actually be used separately. 

On Sunday, Ruby and Kim came over to sew, as we usually do on Sundays. We call it the Church of Bernina. I sorted my scrap haul and got everything put away. 

On Monday, I had a mammogram in the morning and then HOA meetings in the afternoon. Although it was St. Patrick’s Day, it was too cold to wear my new Kelly green short-sleeved blouse. But I managed to avoid Bruce pinching me when I told him I’d had enough pinching and squeezing at my mammogram appointment to cover me for the day!!

On Tuesday I had Weight Watchers in the morning, then got to sew in the afternoon. Here are some crumb blocks I got sewn for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s color of the month, yellow. They measure 6.5”, unfinished. 

On Wednesday, we spent most of our time going back and forth to the DMV for Bruce. It turns out the letter revoking his license was sent automatically by their system before it could be recalled. So he could’ve been driving. But, because of the CLL diagnosis last summer, his doctor reported (in an annual letter required for amputees) that his health had declined. That meant that, by law, Bruce was required to take another written test (which he aced) and a driving test, which he failed. He had another appointment set up to re-take the test, but then that evening he said he didn’t want to take the test or even drive anymore. He is voluntarily giving up his license and will use the future scheduled appointment to get a State-issued ID card instead. Bruce said he’s just not confident behind the wheel anymore, and tends to get confused easily. I’ve noticed that, too. So I’ll support him in this personal decision. 

That means that we will sell our second car, a 2021 Nissan, once my son Shane is done borrowing it while his car is having a new transmission installed. 

On Thursday morning I helped with some HOA issues that sprang up, and the afternoon was spent blissfully playing cards with my girlfriends at the clubhouse. Boy, did I need that fun time!

Friday was just grocery shopping, food prep, and finally more sewing time!!

I finished the quilting on my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt, got it trimmed and the binding made. Today, Saturday, I’ll sew on the binding to finish it up. If it’s sunny, I’m hoping to take it outside for some glamour shots before Monday’s final reveal in the link-up next week. But for now I can show you some of the quilting I did on my DSM (domestic sewing machine - a Bernina 570). 

Inner panel; a pattern of curls and leaves.

On the row of Friendship Stars I did simple little loops.

Next came a round of fat “l” loops:

And then some basic stippling:

And finally, on the outer border I decided to do a hybrid motif of  swoops and elongated loops. 

I’m calling it a hybrid motif because I do loops al the time, but I’ve never done feathers. I thought maybe this design (which I was practicing on my pillow one night with my finger as I was trying to fall asleep) might be a good halfway point between a loop and a feather. I’m trying to work up to practicing feathers!

So, that wraps things up for this week. Next week will be slightly calmer. I hope. I hope your week is calm, too. And a good one!