Pink July

The color of the month for July’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge is pink. I have so many pink scraps, which is not surprising considering I have six granddaughters. Oh, and I like pink too, hehe. Last year I didn’t even come close to using them all, so this year I am really going to make a concerted effort to reduce their numbers!

As usual, I started with my selvages.  Here are four 4-patches, sewn into one big 16” block. This is the seventh of 9 blocks I’ll need for a quilt. It’ll finish at 48x48” unless I add a border to enlarge it.

Next I sewed a row of selvage and fabric tumblers in pink, then added it to the selvage tumblers top (working name, Gumdrops).

I still have several rows to make for this; purple, light blue, gray, and brown.

And the last of the scrappy sewing for this week was 8 Cracker blocks.

In the garden, the lettuce, peas and rhubarb are still going strong, but the spinach is petering out. But that’s fine because we’ll probably plant a second crop in August.

The apricot tree is just days away from being ready. The fruit is mostly ripe, but just not quite there. Once they're ready, the next 3-4 weeks will be crazy time for me. I’ve gathered the old (and bought more new) jars for jam and freezer containers for putting up the apricot halves in light syrup; the supplies of pectin, sugar and ascorbic acid are assembled, the dehydrator is ready to go, as is the vacuum sealer. Friends and family are on standby, and I have lots of cardboard fruit flats and plastic clamshell containers for distributing and donating apricots. We don’t get bumper crops like this every year, so I don’t mind taking full advantage of it while I can!

Did you have a nice 4th of July? We stayed home by choice and had a relaxing day and yummy grilled burgers for dinner. The neighbors did lots of fireworks, including aerial displays. Guess who else enjoyed the fireworks? Well, it wasn’t Darla - she ran off and hid as the first firecrackers were lit. But Alfie perched himself in the front window (resting on the shutters as he always does) and watched it all. Here’s a picture, but I need to warn you that it’s dark. We were watching TV and I turned off the lights to try and get both Alfie and the fireworks in the same shot.  He cracked me up. That is one strange cat!

Pink Selvage Quilt Done

Yesterday I finished up the third and final selvage quilt from the selvage blocks I made during 2018 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Like the other two quilts, this has been added to the pile of donation quilts.

This quilt used the 6.5” (unfinished size) selvage blocks in pale blue, pink, yellow and green. I also used up most of three pink fabric chunks for the sashing. There’s at least a yard left of the lightest pink, but the other two are residing as little scraps in the pink bin. The striped fabric was also used for the binding.

I quilted it in a small loopy design. When I quilt selvage quilts, I always do loops or a stipple so that I can be sure that the ample stitching secures the selvage edges extra well.

The quilt finished up at 48x56” (before laundering). For the backing, I used a piece of this cute Flower Market fabric by Lella Boutique that was left over from a quilt I made a couple years ago.

This selvage quilt was also a finish that ticked off Goal #6 on my Quarter 1 Finish-Along list, which you can see HERE, for 2019. It is my third finish this month. YAY!

And I just wanted to give a shout out to Cousin Kim. She has always wanted to try a Jelly Roll Race quilt, and after spending months and months on a gift quilt for her son (the lovely Hunter’s Star quilt that I never got a picture of), she wanted a quick project.  Kim made it from a jelly roll she picked up on sale last summer when we were out gallivanting around. The purple border was left over from a quilt she did 2-3 years ago.

And this is the fabric from (half of) the duvet cover that she used for the backing.

Again, it’s been too cold to snap pictures outside, so we’ve just been pinning these up on the design board, hence the wonkiness. Or maybe it’s just the way the lens bends things? Whatever; you get the idea, right?

Stay safe and warm during the horrendous Polar Vortex weather here in the Northern Hemisphere. As for us, we’ve got plenty of quilts, cats, heat, margaritas, and food to keep us warm and safe until we head south to Arizona next month......

Goodbye Pink, Hello Aqua!

With the beginning of a new month comes another color to work with for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. But before we get into June’s color of aqua (or teal, or too-green-for-blue or too-blue-for-green), let me do my Pink May recap.  I finished sewing more birds for Birds in the Lattice. Here are the seven pink (or pink with another color) birds:

And then since I had birds in almost every color there will be in the quilt (except a yellow-orange pair), I sewed two of the Irish Chain “lattice” blocks to see how they would play with the birds.

I think I love it!!  The final quilt will have a total of 63 blocks, measuring 10” each when finished. They will be set 7 across by nine down (70x90”) before adding a stop border and then a large border of the main fabric, the blue floral print you see in the blue birds, the central square of the lattice blocks and on the wing of one pink bird. Queen-sized quilt.

For May my pink blocks were:
8 (4” finished) bow ties,
54 (4” finished) hearts, 1
2 (6” finished) quarter log cabins,
7 (10” finished) birds,
3 (16” finished) Linked Squares blocks,
4 (6” finished) blocks for the All You Need is Love quilt,
15 (6” finished) selvage squares,
3 (10” finished) Squared Away blocks, and
13 (6” finished) crumb blocks.
That’s a total of (wow, even I’m surprised...) 119 blocks. But that is all the sewing I did (other than to finish sashing the quilt top, above, at the last minute). So, there is progress, but nothing finished to show for it!!

And in the couple days since Angela has announced June’s color, I’ve managed to sew a whopping four bow tie blocks. But if you join us for Scrappy Saturday, you’ll see lots of other fun projects!

Today I’ll be spending the day with Cousin Kim and niece Jenny as we head on out to do another day of the Utah Shop Hop. It started Wednesday, and Kim and I had fun hitting the stores up around Park City and Midway. Then we drove the Alpine Loop down to Utah Valley (Provo/Orem area), passing Sundance, where the annual Sundance Film Festival is held. It was breathtakingly beautiful, reminding me of the Austrian Alps. I was driving, so I couldn’t get any pictures. However, we waved to Robert Redford as we passed by his place (wink!)

Anyway, today our quilt travels will take us north to (maybe) Logan, but definitely Brigham City, Bountiful, and finally a couple shops here in the Salt Lake Valley. We have been buying some fabric. Kim bought some old-fashioned purple fabrics to make a Hunter’s Star quilt for her son and I bought some Pepper and Flax fabrics (grays, yellow and greens) to make a quilt for our yellow guest bedroom. We are, however, suffering from sticker shock to see fat quarters priced at $3.50. Needless to say, we are mostly sticking to the sale tables.


And here are some pictures from our garden this week. Most were taken on a cloudy day, and the first three are along the back wall of the backyard garden.

The rose bush below (no filter or editing on the pic) has gorgeous magenta roses. This was the first one to open, but the bush is getting up to full bloom and should peak in the coming  week.

This is my favorite rose bush, in the front yard. The blooms are a lovely yellow-orange to salmon color. But some winter damage a couple years ago in the center has made the bush a bit lopsided. I’ve tried to prune it to compensate, but it looks best from this angle. This fall I’ve got more woody canes to get rid of and some more shaping to do.

And then I decided to cut some of the irises and roses to enjoy indoors in a bouquet. Before retiring from the workforce, I’d always bring flowers to have in my office and for the reception area.

Finally, a couple pictures from our Red Butte Gardens visit last week. The pictures didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, nor did I get many before my card filled up. But here are a few...

From the Xeriscape garden area, looking up into the canyon.

And then looking down and out west along the north half of the Salt Lake Valley.

The next shot is near the area where they hold weddings and is one of the few decent pictures I got.

By the next time we go, I’ll have a better phone/camera. And if Bruce takes the pictures, we’ll have a better photographer too!

Have a great week, friends. I miss talking to you and replying to your comments. But I hear that Blogger is hoping to have a fix to the problem this coming week. Fingers crossed!

54 Hearts

The last week was a most enjoyable one, with beautiful warm spring weather here in the Salt Lake Valley. I was able to get some sewing in last Sunday when Cousin Kim came over for our regular sewing day. And other than an additional hour of sewing on Monday, that was it for my time in the studio. Instead, Bruce and I spent a lot of time finishing up most of our spring garden chores. We also visited Red Butte Gardens, an arboretum here in Salt Lake City of which we are members. I’ll do a separate post on that. And I did a lot of prep for my upcoming trip to Africa.

But let’s take a look at what emerged from under the sewing needle first. Fifty-four 4” (finished size) hearts.

These will go into the All You Need is Love quilt for my daughter. What better time to get them sewn up than in the Month of Pink for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge....

Mostly I don’t trim these up until I’m ready to sew them in to the top. They’ll be sitting around for at least a couple more months before that happens, so might as well trim only once.

Since we have almost a full week of pink left before month-end, I am going to wait to do my Pink Roundup until next week. In the interim, my plan is to finish the remaining three pink birds for my Birds in the Lattice quilt. And I would love to finish sewing the quilt top of the AB Baby quilt (my One Monthly Goal, OMG). But I’m not holding my breath on that one.

In preparation for my July trip to Kenya, I did lots of clothes shopping. Mostly I needed new summer things anyway, because of the 35+ pounds I’ve lost since last summer. But in addition to some shorts and tops, I bought a bucket (safari) hat. We had our second online meeting/orientation of the travel group. The non-profit status of our group has been approved! Also, I had to submit passport information to begin processing of the Kenyan visa. Now I have to go look for a large suitcase because it will be filled with my donated flannel and some wooden toys (handmade by local gentlemen) for Kenyan kids. On the way home, it can hold souvenirs. My personal stuff will all be in my carry-on.  I also found a beautiful leather journal and purchased it to have a place to write my thoughts and memories. Bruce is charged with finding me a new phone with a good camera. My old iPhone has been behaving badly for months. I’ll probably get a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8.

I took some pictures of the garden and yard this week. I like taking them at different times of the season, and these will qualify as the early season photographs. Come stroll with me. You should be able to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This shot shows that most of our backyard is taken up by 8 large raised planting beds. There are two smaller ones behind the middle row (visible in another picture). From the right row back you can see the rhubarb plant. Sharing the bed with rhubarb is spinach. Behind them in the next box is lettuce, radishes and peas. And in the far back bed behind them are pumpkins.

In the middle row we have tomatoes and carrots in the front bed. In the middle bed are onions, a tomatillo and several varieties of pepper.

Below is a closer look at the onion bed. The tomatillo has a cage, and the peppers fill out that row. There are red, yellow and green bell, a banana pepper and an Anaheim. No jalapeños this year.

The farthest back large planter of the middle row is all potatoes. Behind that, in the picture below, you can see two smaller planters. In previous years they were tiers for strawberry plants, but that idea was a bust. So this year we separated them and planted them with more pumpkins and some garlic.

In the last two planters we have spaghetti squash (left planter below), and onions and yellow crookneck squash (right planter below).

This is a view of the tomato and carrot bed looking back toward the house and postage stamp grass. You can see that the grape vines are beginning to climb the lattice along the patio. YAY! These pictures were taken about 10 am, when the sun was still in the east. Anyway, I don’t expect the grape vines to bear fruit this year - the growth reminds me of first or second-year growth coming off those mature, woody plants. But I could be wrong. Regardless, they will provide shade in the afternoons.

And let’s take a look at Mr. Rhubarb. Keep in mind that he was barely visible above ground six weeks ago! I have been harvesting off of this plant every 4-5 days now for a couple weeks or more.

This bad boy has been keeping Cousin Kim and I busy making pies (Kim) and compote/sauce (me) and jam (me) for two weeks. The 7 jars in the right of the picture below are strawberry-rhubarb jam. My compotes are already in the freezer in their containers. And there will be plenty more of those in the coming week. And maybe I’ll even make a strawberry-rhubarb pie for Memorial Day weekend.

The jams in the left of the picture (10 jars) are plain strawberry. I’ll probably make another batch or two of those, depending on how many my kids want.

Shall we continue the early season garden tour?

This is the first rose (Daybreak, I believe) on the rosebush that lives where the front walkway meets the driveway.  In another week it should be going gangbusters, and I’ll get a picture of the entire bush ablaze with blooms.

And here is the front walkway with the planted Talavera pots. There are two plain brown pots of petunias snuck in there for the moment. The shepherds hook we usually hang them on was moved to make room for the newly-planted rose tree (left of picture). We were going to relocate the shepherd’s hook to the right, but it needs rebar support to hold the weight of two pots. We have the necessary post, but the pots would hang over a newly-planted rose bush in that area, and I’m not willing to let them do that. So I’ve got to come up with a Plan B.

May is the month of irises here in our yard, and we are overrun with them. Last year, with Bruce’s cancer scare and minimal gardening on our part, they did not get divided - and they were overdue then. This July and August, it’s my top priority.  This  champagne iris below is a favorite of mine. We bought some unusual hybrids several years ago at an iris show, and this one has been prolific.

These irises, another overgrown patch, are along the west side of the house. They, too, need to be thinned.  But aren’t the colors gorgeous???

And more along the west side. That’s the fence to the backyard, and these irises live under the canopy of the apricot tree on the other side of the fence.

Backing up from the above shot, you can see that whole west/south corner of the side yard. That window is actually my sewing studio. Anyway, if I remove that urn, I’ll have room to spread the irises. I’m all about low maintenance as I get older.  And I’m thinking of building a fairy garden in the urn and moving it to the back yard under the apricot tree. More thinking to do on that, too.

By next week, we’ll have and explosion of roses and more irises blooming. Things have already changed in the two days since these pictures were taken.  I’m already enjoying the fragrance of cut flowers in the house.

A Whole Lot of Pink-ness Going On

My last week can be summed up thusly: yard work and sewing pink. But I’ll elaborate and show some pictures to make it a bit more interesting. And if it isn’t enough pink for you (and even if it is), I would recommend that you visit Angela for Rainbow Scrap Saturday HERE.

We’ll start with the birds. I only finished these four this week; the remaining 3 pink ones will be stitched next week. Hopefully I can show you them all together after that.

Next I worked on my quarter log cabins. These are 6.5” unfinished, and this month I did 12. My pink scraps are nowhere near conquered, however. I still have some crumb blocks to make plus dozens of pink HSTs I need to trim up and do something with. I may have to come up with another RSC block to begin sewing in pink.

In checking out my RSC project spreadsheet, I noticed I had planned for 8 multi-colored bow tie blocks for my ongoing RSC bow tie project. Since we aren’t doing a multicolor month this year in the RSC, I took some time to sew up these 8 multi-colored blocks from my multi-colored scrap basket.

The bow-tie block in the upper left is a mix of hot pink and orange and “reads” cooler in real life than the camera shows here. If my count is correct, I only need 16 more blocks total, split among red, teal, and orange.

Last Sunday Cousin Kim and I sewed some zipper pouches. I made three of them out of some African fabric I’ve had on hand for about 10 years (plenty more where that came from). Luckily, I made mine first, because the process was a bit fuzzy and I did mess up. Instead of correctly boxing the bottom, I was not paying attention and instead - well let’s call it a design decision. It’s the one laying down (because it can’t stand up!) The bags I made for DDIL Kim and DGD Lauren are correctly assembled. And they’re identical except for the zipper. In the picture, one shows the front and one shows the back so you can see both sides.

In other preparation this week for my trip to Africa in July, my DIL, DGD and I all made our plane reservations. We will fly from Salt Lake to Amsterdam to Nairobi on the 8th-9th of July and return home in the reverse order on the 20th. I also got to meet half of the married couple who runs the non-profit we are flying with. Her name is Marilyn and she's a Utah native who married a Kenyan Massai man. She and her baby son are back in Utah for about a month due to the death of a family member (she’s an executor of the estate). We met up and I was able to buy myself a pair of killer-beaded Massai sandals (picture soon) that she brought. I also did some other shopping, buying 3 pairs of lightweight capris because all last year’s summer clothes are too big. More clothes shopping still to come - some tops and a hat at minimum.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
About 90% of our spring yard work is done, at least for the time being. Bruce has a few drip hoses to hook up and sprinkler heads to adjust. Once he puts all his work tools back in the shed, I can set up the patio furniture later in the week. And now that I’ve planted and set out all the flower pots along the front walkway, Bruce can run drip hoses to them.

This is my bleeding heart bush. It’s past it’s prime blooming time, but it’s still massive and beautiful. It amazes me how it springs to life from such a little bit of near-nothingness after dying back for winter. But still, it only gets second place in the Spring Comeback category because first prize goes to my rhubarb plant (picture next week). We were SURE that my brother Steve had cut it all out because the ground was bare. But no, up it came and now it’s huge again and bearing the best rhubarb in amazing quantities. I’d have to open a rhubarb store if we had one more plant like it. Sometime this week I’ll get a picture of all the raised vegetable beds and show you what we’ve got planted this year. Everything has finally made its appearance above ground. Let the growing begin!

Below is the east side yard along the house. The big snowball bush hides the chimney. For some reason (you can click to enlarge the picture), there was a lot of winter kill on the bush this year. It’s still blooming, but I was hesitant to do any trimming and shaping until I could see what was really dead and what might be late blooming. We plan to have an arborist visit in the fall to prune this baby as well as the apricot tree. I had one arborist lined up earlier in the spring, but he flaked out on me.

I don’t have a full potting shed, but I do have this potting bench area in the breezeway between the carport and the patio in the backyard. The old wire grids are from my craft show days. The potting bench was a $5 estate sale find a dozen years ago. I use S-hooks on the grid to hold my shovels, secateurs, etc. And there are wind chimes too. Always wind chimes.

This is Boomer’s resting place in a corner of the backyard under the apricot tree. The sleeping cat statue marks his grave. (See the picture of Boomer side by side with this statue here). That’s chives in the front. The tall spike flowers are allium. They’re past their blooming time, too, but I love the interest they add.

My garden plans for this week are to finish the flower planting. All that’s left is the alyssum and lobelia that I plant at the front of the flower beds. Once that’s in, and the patio is set up, all I have to do is a periodic weeding patrol.

As for my weekly sewing plans, PINK pretty much sums it up. I’ll finish sewing those birds, tackle the HSTs and scraps, and begin sewing the bajillion 4.5” hearts (actually only 54) for Megan’s All you Need is Love quilt. Wish me luck.

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In the Pink

It’s been a week of glorious weather here - and so much to do. I didn’t get too much sewing done other than to finish up the fusing of Groovy Guitars (see post HERE), and sew a few pink blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s May color. But there is lots more pink scrappy goodness over at Angela’s RSC linkup. 

So, let’s begin. I have so many pink scraps. Last year I didn’t sew enough of them up, and with adding to them all year I have quite a bit this year. Even my selvages were bulging. So, I was able to make 15 selvage blocks that will finish at 6” square. Plus I still had enough left over to make 3 - 4.5” blocks for some future use (not pictured).

See those really, really wide pink selvages? Those were given to me by Sally over at The Objects of Design. Her supervisor Molly must’ve directed her to cut them generously because I’m the hu-mom of her furry friend Darla. 

Then I worked on the Linked Squares Blocks. I always try to do these first (-ish) because they need larger pieces. Sometimes the larger pieces limit my choices, but overall I was pleased with how they turned out this month.

Even with a flash, my camera seems to take lousy pictures, but maybe they’re slightly better on an individual basis. Mental note: get a new phone/camera before leaving for Africa in July!!

I've touted Pattern Jam many times here on my blog. It’s a free platform for designing quilt patterns using basic blocks in the size of your choice and then calculating the yardage required. Last year they closed down, but were bought up and restarted earlier this year. It was fun to participate in design contests (and win fabric!). And I could use it to figure out patterns to use based on fabric lengths in my stash.

Anyway, with the transition, all my old patterns were lost (except the ones I’d already saved on my own computer), but I have been interested in a pattern of pinwheels and half-square triangles that I’ve seen on Pinterest and Sally’s blog - a pinwheel and HST combination. I wanted to find out a size combo that wouldn’t require measurements in the eighths-of-an-inch (note: fruitless). 

So, I played and came up with Pinwheel Parade, which happened to become the most popular (based on likes or saves or something) pattern of its week in April. Then it became the most popular pattern for the month in April. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing! But it’s sure fun and colorful to look at! Anyone can save, resize and remix this pattern as they wish.

The kicker is that even though the pinwheels and HSTs finish at 4”, the initial cutting is in odd sizes. HA! Never mind; I’ll be rounding up to the nearest whole number after all.

Today cousin Kim and I are going to a quilt show here in the Salt Lake Valley. I’ll do a separate post of pictures later on (hopefully!). Then tonight my son Ryan and his wife Kim and kids are coming over for dinner.  

Ryan, Lauren, Kim (Easton not pictured)

Kim (daughter-in-law Kim, not cousin Kim) and Lauren and I are the three that are going to Kenya together in July. It’s official. We’ve made our reservations and will be talking and sharing plans tonight!