As Christmas Approaches

Our week started off last Saturday with a fun visit from our (Bruce’s) daughter Stacy and her three daughters. Her hubby Chad had to work and the two boys were ill. The six of us went out to lunch and then the girls got to clean out the toy cupboard and keep whatever they wanted. The younger two grabbed the princesses and crayons, markers and stencils for their art. But then grandma (me) brought out a large shoebox-ful of ribbons and trims from my crazy quilting and embroidery/embellishment days. These were just the ones that were headed to the thrift store, not the good vintage, silk and expensive ribbons. Those are going to my friend Flora. 

The girls thought they’d died and gone to heaven and dug into the ribbons right away. But then Grandpa Bruce sat down on the floor and they began to decorate him. Mom Stacy had a good laugh as we snapped photos because she and her sister Emily used to do this back in the day when they were little. Stacy sent a photo to Emily who laughed and replied “That brings back memories!” Indeed. As the family lore goes, when Emily and Stacy were little, they were doing Bruce’s then-brown hair by putting curlers in. Of course, someone knocked at the door and Bruce answered it with curlers in his hair. It was a police officer who was canvassing neighbors about something or other. Bruce said the officer looked at him and didn’t bat an eye. He must have had little girls himself! Anyway, here are our granddaughters Remi and Evie doing grandpa’s hair! 

In sewing news, I finished the last two dozen or so Zipper blocks for my very own personal quilt. These blocks, designed by Lynn Dykstra of Klein Meisje Quilts, finish at 6x9”. I have 72 of them which will be set 9 across (54”) by 8 down (72”). This is my fourth Zip quilt, and I’m determined that this one will be for us to keep, not donated or gifted. Here are some of my favorite blocks:

Click on the pix to enlarge them. Anyway, these are now bagged and ready for assembly in the new year. For the rest of this month I want to concentrate on finishing up a couple more Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) quilts from blocks I’ve made this year. Oh, and I need to make more string blocks in the next couple weeks - about 60 or so - to meet my goal of 400 string blocks in the last calendar quarter.

I did have a quilt finish this week, though. This delightful and colorful Chaser Block quilt. I would do this one again in a heartbeat! 

There was also some progress this week on sewing the Thrifty RSC blocks together. I just have two borders to sew on, and one of those is sewn together and just waiting to be attached. It’s hanging there on the left in the picture below. 

So then it will be quick work to sew on the bottom border to finish off the top. I then hope to baste this and the third (of three) Framed Four Patch quilt tops. Don’t know if I’ll be able to quilt them during the coming week or not.

Did You Know??? “Xmas” is NOT Disrespectful!

The term Xmas comes from the Greek letter Chi (X) the initial letter in the word Χριστός (Chrīstos) meaning Christ. And the word Xmas actually predates the word Christmas by centuries. While the use of Xmas peaked in the 1950’s, it is still commonly used, although not in formal settings. And it’s not part of a (fictitional) “war on Christmas”. See this Dictionary.com entry HERE to explain it more thoroughly. So, use it or not as you prefer, but please don’t get your knickers in a twist over it! This is my public announcement for this year to spread a little cheer and peace!! 

And speaking of Christmas, everything is done. All the gifts are wrapped (easy when you have bags and envelopes for gift cards). The out-of state things are mailed. The Christmas decorations have been sifted through and donated or are actually decorating the house! Meal planning is done. Parties are underway! Here is a photo from our Weight Watchers card group Christmas gathering.

L-R: Linda, Ruby, Lory, me, Lisa and Annette. Ellie is photographer.

We ate shrimp, veggies, fruit, and a great light pudding parfait that Linda made. Ruby brought the silly headbands for us. That huge pink sweater I’m wearing is definitely oversized - it’s a Medium. Ruby and I should’ve stood up, because we are both at goal. Actually, I’m about 4 pounds under goal now, and heading down to lose another 7 pounds. I’ll be careful during the Holidays and focus on those last pounds in 2024.

This past week saw Bruce and me make yet another trek to the thrift store. This week we donated kitchen stuff (more to come, I’m sure), old Christmas decorations, toys, a bird cage, clothes and towels. Who knows what will be in the next load! And when we get tired of sorting sh-stuff, we cruise potential neighborhoods to move to, sew (me), read (Bruce) and watch Christmas movies. Life is good!

Back in the Saddle Again!

It’s so good to be back in the land of the healthy and strong! My recent left hip replacement was as easy as most everyone said it would be. But I didn’t blog last week because I was laser-focused on my healing and meds and exercises - and the time just sailed by. Bruce and I have mended our differences and he was an excellent nurse, LOL. We spent Thanksgiving at my friend Ruby’s house with her man and her half sister. She had the meal catered and it was delightful to just sit and talk and laugh. And eat, of course. 

Did I tell you that I hit my Weight Watchers goal just before my surgery? Actually, after weeks and weeks of a weight plateau, I finally broke through and sailed past my goal, which was -64.4 pounds. I’m actually at -67.8 pounds. Luckily, as a Lifetime Member, I only have to weigh in once per month. I’ve been mindful of my healthy eating through Thanksgiving, but the hip surgery tends to add weight with the fluids they give you, the swelling, etc. Luckily, most of that has passed, but even though I never miss a workshop meeting, I won’t weigh in for another week or two just to be realistic. Now, I hope to lose just a few more pounds - to total 75 lost. They give us these lovely charms for various milestones, and I want that 75 pound charm!! But that will be my winter to spring focus - I’m in no rush. 

I do have some quilt blocks to show you. After the first several days of recovery, I began to be interested in sewing again. After a week, I had Bruce take all my sewing stuff back down to the studio (he’s such a gem) and I ventured downstairs carefully to take up residence once again in my sewing chair. And all was right in my little world! 

So, in the two week since I last posted, I managed to sew 75 string blocks (at 6.5”). These will be added to my Bag O’ Strings for Quilts for Kids. They’re pinned in batches of 15 for kit-making.

That brought my total for November string blocks sewn to 90. In October I sewed 243, so my total so far this fall for my String Finishing Frenzy is 333. My goal is to hit 400 blocks by the end of the year, so I’m going to have to put the pedal to the metal! At least my string tote bag is breathing easier!! But I doubt I’ll be able to get to the very bottom of it. We’ll see!

I also have my Chaser quilt half quilted. These were Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for this year. Watch for that finish next week.

While I convalesced, I also began sewing up some Zip(per) blocks for another quilt. I haven’t counted them, nor do I even know how many I want for a quilt top. Hopefully this one will be for me, because my first two  three ended up going to charity, my daughter and my cousin, respectively. 

Winter has arrived here, and leaves from the big tree have fallen and littered our front lawn. I haven’t been able to rake or blow them into a pile because of my surgery - and then the rain and snow came. Hopefully we’ll get a few clear and dry days so we can get them all cleaned up! 

That wraps it up for this week. I have more to show you, but it will wait for next week. Have a good one, friends!

Linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Back in the Saddle

 Now that I’ve completed my New Owner classes for my new sewing machine “Nina”, a Bernina 570QE (Quilters Edition), I feel as though the machine and I are working well together and I’m back up to speed. I was frustrated because I didn’t have a walking foot that came with this machine. About mid-week I finally remembered that when I traded in my old machine, they had me keep my walking foot and all its accessories. Hmmmm…. Where did I put that????

After a little straightening of the messy sewing area behind my sewing seat, I found my walking foot! But that was already after I had sewn the binding on my second Zipper quilt (pictures coming below) with the quarter-inch foot using dual feed and sewn the binding on the second quilt with a zipper foot. Hey, that actually worked great!

But now I’ve got my beloved walking foot back, and everything is right as rain!

First up this week is the Zipper Quilt. This is my second one of these (can’t get enough of these blocks). It’s Lynn Dykstra’s Zip Block, and all credit goes to her. It finished at 52.5x61.5, a good-sized personal lap quilt. It’s going into my personal giveaway pile. 

Zipper Quilt #3 is all cut out and will be started later this spring.  I just love the riot of color, and find the Zip Block to be a great use of 2” scraps. 

The next finish was this 9-block quilt made of donated quilt blocks. Well, I made one (the Dutchman’s Puzzle block in the top center) to round out the number needed for this quilt. Next week I’ll show the 12-block quilt made with the rest of these blocks.

This little number measures 38.5 x42.5”.

Here’s a shot of the background fabric I used from my stash. It was also used in the Dutchman’s Puzzle block. While it isn’t a Fig Tree fabric, I believe it plays very nicely with the rest. 

The majority of this week’s sewing time was spent planning and executing the following quilt top from my dark and bright blue scraps. That’s the January color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. There was obviously some assistance from the dark green scrap bin as well as 10 blocks from the block orphanage.

Out of my various scraps I made 9-patch blocks from the 3.5” squares (some light blue sneaked in there for contrast) - six of those in the center column. That was flanked by a 1.5” dark blue strip on either side. Then from 4.5” and 2.5” squares I made four-in-four blocks, adding in an 8” orphan block on each side. Again, two vertical sashings (3.5” this time) were added. Finally, I finished out with a 6” column of blocks on each side: rail fence blocks, two Twin Sisters blocks, strings, and more. The finished top measures 44.5” x 60.5”.  I’m calling this another “Creature Quilt”, because it’s like Frankenstein’s monster - miscellaneous parts stitched together. What shall we call it? Creature From the Blue Lagoon or Creature from the Blue Scrap Bin? LOL

I’m still working away at Weight Watchers (WW) and have lost all my Covid weight gains and more. I’m now down approximately 33 pounds (lowest weight since summer 2018), and have arrived at what I consider my true starting point. 32 more pounds to goal, and then I’d like to go 10-20 under that. One day at a time. In the meantime, I’ve given away or worn out some of my “fat” clothes - just in time! I’ve also been shopping over the last month at brick-and-mortar stores and online to buy new makeup, new earrings, and finally some new tops. I even got two new sundresses for summer that look fine now, but will be even better if I can drop another 8-10 pounds before summer. I still need to add new pants and shoes, but I’m going to wait for spring before tackling that.

My friend Ruby gets back from Egypt and Jordan today, but she’ll most likely spend Sunday sleeping instead of sewing with us. I don’t expect to see her until Tuesday at WW. 

That’s about it from my corner of the world. See you next week!

Three Little Pink Quilts

This week my focus in the studio was to finish some of the pink quilt tops that I’ve been sewing up from scraps this month. Pink is April’s color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I like to make as many pink quilts as possible whenever this color comes up so that I don’t have to mix it in with the other ROYGBIV (standard rainbow) colors. 

But first I did sew some cute little 4” bow tie blocks using some of my 2.5” squares. 

Then in one afternoon I went on a basting frenzy and sandwiched up three little quilts to be quilted. There was only one day this week where the weather allowed us to work outdoors due to rain, so it was no problem to quilt, bind and label them for our QFK workshop today.

This first one was made from various leftover width-of-fabric strips that I had  collected over the last couple years and kitted up for a pink sewing month. It measures 37xx44”.

The backing was this awesome 100%. Cotton sheet (well, half of it). I love plaids!!

Next up was another WOF strip-and-chunk quilt of fabrics gathered and kitted last year.

I was so excited at how well this recent online fabric purchase for the backing matched the quilt front. The quilt finished at 39.5x46”.

The third quilt used a lot of crumbs, leftover half-square triangles and pink fabric squares. 

It finished at 40x48”.

I still have another pink-and-color-friends quilt to quilt, and one pile of scraps and selvage half hexies to assemble into a quilt. That will be a fun project for Sunday.

In between the above quilts and blocks, I devoted some sewing time to my new Zipper Quilt. There were only four blocks left to sew, then it was quick work to assemble the 54x63” top. 

I prepped the backing - a lovely floral on navy background fabric thatI purchased at Missouri Star Quilt Company last summer. Now it’s all on a hanger, waiting to be quilted next month. 

We interrupt this blog post to bring you a word from our sponsor, Alfalfa. He’s here to remind you that if you do not have a furry quilting supervisor, then you are not doing it right!

That is all. Carry on.

And as you can see in the picture behind Alfie, he insisted that I make some progress on my Hearts for Ukraine quilt (he’s a slave driver I tell you!). I found an old blue and yellow floral jelly roll that I’m going to use to finish up the top. 

So I added a stop border and am in the process of sewing and adding the checked border. It’s just slapped up on the board for now, not sewn.

The final border will be a piano key border on the top and bottom in these fabrics to make it rectangular. It should finish about 54x66”. Unless Alfie or I change our minds. 

If you’re interested, I did a post mid-week that shows all the recent renovations we did in March. You can visit by clicking the “older post” link below or visiting here. 

This week Bruce and I finally bought a new bed. It will be delivered in mid-May. That gives us time to shop for sheets and rugs. I also bought plane tickets for my son Ryan I to fly up to Seattle next month to visit and help out my daughter Megan, who is having (female) surgery. More about that trip later. Between all that and the recent remodeling, I feel as though our money has grown wings. But I am grateful we have it to spend. With the state of things in the world, I know we are very blessed. Life is good.

Snow, Sew and Vegetate

What a fun week it was as the Christmas season began to bear down on us. We got the last of the shopping done on Monday, just ahead of the snowstorm this week. It snowed overnight Tuesday, and on Wednesday we woke up to a winter wonderland. There was over a foot on the valley floor where we live. The ski resorts were inundated and I’m pretty sure we could’ve heard the skiers rejoicing had we tried. 

Our neighbors pitched in to help us old folk shovel out. And some friends with a truck loaded up our (too large, in my opinion) snow blower and took it to the repair shop for us. It wouldn’t fit in our SUV, and we couldn’t have lifted it ourselves if it did. We have family members with a truck arranged to help us get it back when it’s been serviced. In the meantime,  I’ve kept the walkways shoveled and de-iced as we get skiffs and flurries. It’s exhilarating to be outside in snow and moving the ol’ body! Is it sick and wrong to enjoy snow shoveling? 

I went light on the sewing this week. Usually I spend several hours a day, but we had Other Important Things this week, like dentist appointments (semi-annual cleaning and all is well), going out for lunch, making a trip to the liquor store, walking in the snow and watching Christmas movies. I’ve also been trying to learn some advanced strategies for solving extreme Sudoku puzzles (on You Tube) with some success. Not much, but some. I go on Sudoku binges every few months….

But let me show you what I did sew. Inspired by my friend Julierose, I made a JOY table runner. I cut all the pieces several weeks ago, so it was quick work to assemble it. Actually, it can be either a table runner or a banner.

My goal this season has been to use up as many of my old Christmas scraps as possible. To that end I’ve already made two kitty quilts, a pair of pillowcases, my Christmas Presents quilt shown last week, and now this JOY table runner of scrap squares and yardage. 

JOY finished at 14x36”. The quilting is snowy-looking spirals. I added a hanging sleeve in case I want to hang it, but for now it will be a table runner. And see the Father Christmas in the picture? That was painted by Cousin Carrie (Kim’s sister) last year as a Christmas gift to us. I love it! Carrie selected the Father Christmas with all the wild animals for me as a nod to my Kenya trip back in 2018. Didn’t she do an amazing job? I keep him out almost all year. 

When I finished the JOY topper, I decided it was time to get a year-end chore done. Time to tackle the mountain of batting scraps and pieces. So I put on some lively Christmas music and spent an afternoon making Frankenbatting. I had some good-sized chunks and lots of strips. If it’s over 6” wide I save it. Skinnier strips and scraps to to a friend who makes pet beds. Some batting scraps are set aside and stored for things like table toppers, placemats, kitty quilts or zip pouches. But I had enough “ingredients” to make seven quilt-sized Frankenbatts!

My preferred method of making Frankenbatts is just to trim edges, butt them up and sew together with a short and wide zig-zag. I do have the heat-bonding strips, but they’re more of a pain. However, I keep a roll on hand just in case. (… in case of what, I’m not exactly sure). Anyway, once they were all sewn, I measured and labeled each one so they’re ready to go for the new year!

My final project of the year will be to finish up this Ring Around the Roses quilt for myself. I made the 10” blocks back in January and February, when the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors were pink and yellow, respectively. I’m finally getting back to them now. The first plan was to just sew them together without sashing, like this. 

But I felt it needed and deserved more, and the blocks really needed some separation. An inner white stop border and an outer larger border of pink/yellow Moda Grunge fabric were already planned, but I felt that some narrow sashing and cornerstones would be sharp. 

Yep, much better! That’s as far as I have it now, although the border fabrics are all cut and ready to add. 

And since my daughter Megan claimed my last zipper quilt, I’m making another one for us. This week I sewed a couple dozen blocks or so, just a few here and there as the mood struck. Here are some of them from this week.

That wraps it up for today. We are planning a quiet week, hopefully doing nothing more than visiting a friend and exchanging neighborhood gifts. We’ll be spending Christmas Day with my son Ryan, DDIL Kim and her side of the family. I don’t yet have my food assignment, so I will need to make another grocery run before the big day. Plus, I’m feeling the need to bake some almond biscotti to enjoy in my coffee share with friends and neighbors. *wink* 

39 and 40

What an odd title for a blog post, but it’s been my mantra for about 5 or 6 days now. It refers to quilts #39 and 40 that I wanted to finish up before the end of June. It was close, but I made it by the skin of my teeth.  It’s July 1st as I write this, but they were June finishes. Yesterday was a busy day, with Cousin Kim coming over to sew. I already had the two final quilts basted up, and quilted them in the morning and early afternoon. 

 Image Courtesy Jordan Fabrics

Then we decided to do the cutting on a project that we’re both taking to the retreat at Missouri Star Quilt Company in early August. The pattern is Ribbons, a free pattern from Jordan Fabrics that you can find here. The only thing that complicated it for us was that instead of using 10” squares, we cut ours from yardage I had bought on sale last year. It took us both working (oh the quilty math!) about three hours to get it done. But we did it. I’ve now got two projects down and one to go. I’ll show them all in another post before we leave. 

After Kimmie left, son Shane and DGD London came over and we all went out to dinner for Shane’s birthday. By the time we got home it was after 8, and although the two quilts had been trimmed, I still had to turn the bindings and sewn on labels. Got that done, but didn’t get pictures until this morning. So, here they are.

This is the Zippers quilt that I made for Quilts for Kids. It measures 48x54”. It’s the second one I’ve made - the first one I kept for myself! There will be many more of these, I’m sure, because they are so fun to make and are a great scrap eater. 

The 6x9” (finished) blocks are set 8 across and 6 down. After consulting with our QFK chapter President, we decided that a majority of the quilt kits (that I’m making up for our scrappy workshop in the fall) should probably be limited to 42” wide to accommodate a single width-of-fabric piece for the backing. 

Isn’t this backing great, though? It’s a riot of color, just like the front!

Anyway, now that this quilt is finished, I can spend July cutting and bagging up the remaining blocks for the kits. In August I can write and print up the handout, and in September I’ll do any final cutting (including the contrast squares) of any more fabric scrap donations. 

The second quilt came into being in between Sunday and Tuesday. I had a bag of brightly-colored scraps, containing 4.5 - 5” squares, some strips and some bricks (about 3x5.5”). I pulled out the bricks as their colors told a different story. Most of the strips ended up with their like-colored friends in my scrap buckets. Some strips that were multi-colored were sorted out for future Zipper blocks or strip blocks. The reds and greens stayed with the squares, and I was off and running.  Sorry for the wonky pin-up job on the design board...

I trimmed all the squares to 4.5” and drew up a quick plan. These multi-colored squares were the starting point. I used 9 of the 11 in the center portion along with some lighter contrast squares cut from some backing yardage I have on hand. From there I used the two strips of red Pokémon fabric to frame the blocks and create the 16x28” center.

The next round was more 4.5” squares and some four-patches in the main colors of green, red and purple. I sewed together a white and green 1.5” strips and made another border with four-patch cornerstones. The final round of blocks used up most of the scraps, and I finished the top off with a blue border to tie it all together. It was purposely wider on the top and bottom to add more length.

The final quilt measures 39x47”, and I can’t tell you happy and bright it is in person! This was such a fun little project and used up a lot of miscellaneous bright scraps.

This afternoon I’m off to visit one of our QFK board members, who called me to come and get some scraps. Twist my arm.....

Life is good. xo

Purple Has Left the Building

It’s not even the end of the month yet, and I’m totally done with my purple scraps. There are a few strips and bits left to use as “seeds” for accumulating more purple scraps for next year. In the meantime, I have two more quilt finishes to show you and a patriotic Squirrel! project in the form of a table runner.  

But before that, typing the preceding sentence (squirrel!) reminded me of a story from when I was a little girl, about age 4. My parents were both born in the US (New York) of immigrant parents - all from Hungary. While everyone spoke English, if the grandparents didn’t want us grandkids to know what they were saying, they’d speak in Hungarian. My mom and my aunt spoke basic Hungarian. My grandparents also spoke German, so if they didn’t want anyone to know what they were talking about, they spoke German. I loved languages. My little girlfriend Phyllis and I had our own made-up language we spoke (as if we really knew what we were saying....). But I digress... When I played with my dolls, I had them speak in different languages. One day I was playing with my dolls in my room and my mom came in and asked me to repeat something. I said the word “mo-kush”. She told me it was the Hungarian word for squirrel (mokus, with an accent mark over the ‘o’). So, “squirrel" was my first Hungarian word!  

Without further ado, here were the last of the purple scraps that I sewed this week.

14 four-patch blocks from 2.5” squares (above) and 9 crumb blocks, 6.5” unfinished size (below)

That brought my total purple blocks for June to 89. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Early in the week I basted the two quilts I had finished tops for. These will go to Quilts for Kids, as usual. Once they were quilted and bound, I added them to the ever-growing pile of quilts to be delivered. First is this cute little pink and purple scrappy number that finished at 37x43.5”

The pictures don’t do justice to this sweet little quilt! I had the perfect backing (a 1-yard cut that my friend Angie sent me last year) and to that I added this leftover purple Twin Sisters block and some darker purple strips as they seemed a bit strong for the front.

The fabric is adorable!

Next up was the dark purple donation quilt that I could not bring myself to name (and why bother with a donation quilt after all?). There were sure some great suggestions in the reader comments last week, though! I just hope it doesn’t give any kid nightmares!

This one finished at 38.5x43.5”. The backing (a questionable choice, but I thought the gray was more purplish....) is a piece from Connecting Threads that I bought six yards of - enough for four quilts. So you’ll be seeing it again.

And it was about this time, Wednesday, that The Squirrel Struck!!  I have been separating patriotic scraps from my Quilts for Kids scraps, because they really try to avoid holidays and patriotic in their little quilts. I ended up with lots of strings and a few chunks and 8 navy and white HSTs.  I thought doing a few stars would be nice - and remembered the leftover red HSTs from this project (where I cut a block wrong) one. So from there it was easy to come up with three sawtooth star blocks with string centers.

I did make a mistake and use a non-Kona white in some pieces around the center red star and it bugs me. How did they get into my Kona White Scraps drawer, anyway? But oh well.  Another oops - I meant to alternate the direction of the star stripes, but that got all futzed up too. Leave it to Cathy! Anyway, there was a 2.5” navy strip of star fabric that was just enough for a border if I added cornerstones. So I did. And then it was finished off with the perfect red and white striped binding.

It’s not the best of pictures, but I wanted to take it upstairs and put it on our dining room table. Maybe I’ll get another picture later in situ. Anyway, my favorite part (besides the binding) is the cute fabric I’ve had a couple years to use as a backing. I consider this totally reversible!

I’ll be joining in with the monthly Table Scraps linkup with Joyful Quilter and company. 

I’ve been working on my latest iteration of the Zipper Quilt (so addictive!) - this one to use as a sample for a scrappy workshop this fall for our local Quilts for Kids chapter. The bottom four rows have been sewn, the last two are still pinned on top of one another on the design board. Usually I work bottom to top in order to keep my color order while growing a quilt. It’s easier to let sewn parts hang down below the board.... (does that make sense?)

 

I would love to finish this before the end of the month to give me 39 quilt finishes in the first half of the year. I was shooting for 40, but I won’t make that. 

Finally, I’ll be joining the linkup on Sunday with Bernie and Preeti for the Positivity Quilt Along progress link-up. Here are my first 24 blocks - exactly half of what I need. I wish these looked a little more orderly and more nicely pressed. But I love the gender-neutral blues, purples (not pink!) and turquoise. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be alternating the light-dark backgrounds or creating a dark frame like the picture below.  I have a few weeks and lots more sewing to do before I have to decide.

And with that, I’m off to order another small iron for my workshop. My current little iron died after only 9 months. I’ve tried just about every brand and none has lasted me more than a year and a half. I use my irons every day in my studio, so they need to be sturdy little workhorses. They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to.....