Three Little Quilts

It was a cold and rainy week this week in the Salt Lake Valley. On Thursday night/Friday morning we had our first hard frost. That means we’ll be spending some time outdoors this weekend pulling up the last of the garden vegetation, bringing in all the flower pots and yard decorations and storing the patio furniture in the sheds until next spring. Oh, and I’ve got some daffodil bulbs to plant. But those are all pleasant chores and the sun is shining today, so I’m looking forward to getting to it!

Our new washer and dryer were delivered on Thursday. The process of clearing a path through my studio to the laundry room was simple. The removal of the old behemoths (and me sneaking in to clean the dusty floors and walls) plus them bringing in the new machines and setting them up was painless. The only down side to the new machines is that the dryer doesn’t have a light in it. But the room is well-lit so it’s all good. Surprisingly (to me anyway) is that there are only generic Owner Manuals for these machines, no user instructions. Granted, after 50 years of doing laundry it’s pretty intuitive. But I found it odd that the manuals didn’t have specific operating panel pictures or instructions. And the LG website claims there IS no user manual for our models. Oh well. I figured it out. The washer has a huge capacity - two loads for what would have formerly been three loads. 

This is my prehistoric laundry room, stripped down to nothing. The old machines are on the left and the new ones on the right. See how much better the new ones fit?!? There is actually room to move in there! The laundry room will get its facelift this winter. It’s the only room in this house that has never had a redo,  except we had the drain changed from a french drain to an actual connected-to-the-water-line drain. And floor tiles were added in 2010-ish to replace the linoleum. 

There are myriad holes in the walls behind the machines, none of which are visible in these pictures. They’ll need to be patched. Then we’ll add cabinetry and/or storage and then paint and decorate. I’m thinking it’ll be sometime in early 2022, after the Holidays. I’m collecting ideas on Pinterest now.

There was a lot of time to sew this week given the inclement weather. First I focused on my lime and light green strings and managed to get 18 blocks made. They look funky and stiff in the picture below because they still have the foundation papers on the back. I’ll remove the papers (and talk on the phone!) when Bruce has his annual wellness doctor visit this week and I’m stuck waiting in the car.

And then I tackled the green scrap crumbs and made seven blocks. Both these and the string blocks will finish at 6”, which is my go-to size for these filler blocks for quilts. 

I’m sharing these blocks at Scrappy Saturday. I love participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and will begin finishing up this year’s rainbow quilts beginning next month.  But this week I was mostly on a small scrappy quilt finishing mission, and I have three little quilts to show you. They’ll all be headed to Quilts for Kids.

This is the lime green Soccer quilt. It measures 39.5” x 47.5”. The quilting is a large stipple with variegated green thread.  It was put together from bright green and black/white almost-WOF (width of fabric) strips donated to Quilts for Kids. I had to use some green strips to make it wider along the sides.

The backing is this familiar newspaper print that I’d like to get used up. It has a greenish tinge to it, so it was perfect. 

Next in finishing (but sewn before the green) are these two quilts from Under The Sea  themed scraps. The line on this first one was “Here Fishy Fish” by Heather Mulder Petersen. 

There were a lot of chunks and pieces from this line and another similar line of fabric, so I used it on the back, too. 

This quilt “Fishy Fishy 1” (so NOT original, I know, but who really needs to name donation quilts?) was quilted in swirls and hooks to mimic water and waves. Sort of. I guess. Whatever - it was fun! It measures 40.5 x 47.5”.

The third and final quilt was “Fishy Fishy 2”, because there were still a lot of scraps in this theme and colorrway to use. You can see some of the same fabrics but with the navy added.

The backing was this blue I had left over from the yardage I bought for my Positivity quilt backing (to be revealed before month end). 

I quilted it with stringy loops. It finished at 41.5x45”. 

These three quilts will be added to the pile and delivered to QFK next Saturday. That’s the day that I’ll be teaching the scrap workshop (the Zipper Quilt) at Quilter’s Lodge in Draper. 

One final thing before I sign off. I’ll be back on Wednesday with a special blog post. Let’s just say there will be a quilt finish (or two) to share and a giveaway! See you back here then!