Wishing Every Month Was October

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

OK, raise your hand if you love October. !!!!! 

That’s what I thought. We *all* love it. (Even those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, where October is spring). But for my purposes today, I’m talking about October autumns, and here in Northern Utah they are beautiful. Clear, blue skies, leaves changing colors, perfect days and cool, crisp evenings. Harvesting the veggies, planting bulbs and buttoning up the garden. Changing the summer wardrobe out for warmer, more snuggly clothes. The first pumpkin spice latte, hot chocolate and soup of the season. Even the cats have begun sleeping in their cozy beds! 

And this year it’s even nicer because we are happy, healthy and have so much to be grateful for. Where do I start?

Our grandson Easton graduated from naval Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode  Island on Thursday. We were able to attend virtually and watch him become a fully-commissioned Ensign in the US Navy.

From here he’ll return home to Utah for a couple weeks before heading off to Charleston, South Carolina for Nuclear Engineering (submarine) school. Easton, we are so proud of you and just love you to bits! 

Some of my favorite memories of Easton include seeing him in a Jedi costume I made for him here and watching as he and his sisters made “snowmen” here (he was so little!). We wish you fair winds and a following sea. 

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My studio remodel is finished! There may be a few tweaks here and there, but I finally feel as though there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. I changed my mind about some things and had to adapt in other areas, but overall I’m very pleased. 

For those of you who may not know, we had two floods this summer. The first was in July when water came in along a foundation wall after a thunderstorm from Hell. Water leaked in through a hairline crack between the foundation and outer brickwork (building codes in 1963 weren’t what they are today). The issue was addressed and fixed and should be good for another 100 years or more, LOL. But we had to tear out a wall in my studio and pull back our new carpeting to dry it out. Then another storm hit us in August. An exterior drain (that we were keeping an eye on) clogged up and water seeped into the basement again in my studio. Luckily, we caught the flooding in the early stages. We moved everything out of the room, fixed the drain, sandbagged, and wet vacuumed the water out. The carpet was peeled back again and dried out over the next several days. The wall had already been stripped down to the foundation (mold remediation). From there on out, it was just a matter of building back - sealing, insulating, framing, drywalling, painting, installing new window coverings, restretching the carpet. And ordering in new furniture to accommodate the room that had shrunk a few inches due to the layers of the new wall. Oh, and putting in a new design wall to replace the old one that had gotten yukky after years of use and weeks of construction dust! 

Above you can see the new west wall, blinds, and the three Hemnes bookcases. I had two of those bookcases before, but they were on opposite sides of the window. With the smaller dimensions, the bookcase formerly on the left had to be moved over to the right. This necessitated getting rid of our old oak bookcase, which I moved into my “studio annex” (the downstairs bedroom). It replaced an old bookcase held together with duct tape, which is now out in the garage holding stuff. 

The third Hemnes bookcase was delivered from IKEA on Thursday. THAT was a story in itself. I ordered it online last Friday the 24th. I got an email on Saturday that said it would be delivered on Wednesday the 28th. On Monday I got a text message that said it “could not be delivered” and to call Customer Service. What did that mean?  I called the number and got a recording to visit the website. When I went to the website to check the order status, the page was down. On Tuesday night I got a text message that said it would be delivered between 9am-9pm on Tuesday. What?!? That time frame was already past! Then immediately afterward I got a text saying that the “Monday delivery had failed”.  The next morning (Wednesday) I filed an inquiry with the transport company saying I had checked our security camera footage and no delivery attempt had been made at our premises, and when could we expect delivery? They replied that evening by email that it would be rescheduled with us as soon as it returned to the warehouse. The next morning, Thursday, there was a knock on the door, and they delivered our bookcase unannounced. And that, my friends, is the cluster-Foxtrot (you know what I mean) that is the IKEA delivery service. 

So here is the view looking from my sewing station toward the design board on the north (another scrappy quilt in progress). You will also see that I have an eight-cube credenza-type storage unit upon which I’ve set my ironing board.

Originally we were going to have the cube unit raised up on 3” bed risers. But the risers arrived from Amazon broken, so I returned them. Cousin Kim and I are both short, so we decided that this height (about 32”) was good for us without risers. I have a piece of batting under the ironing board to keep it from scratching the surface of the unit. Although it looks a tad tacky, at least this way I can remove the ironing board if I need the small end to iron sleeves or something. And the unit can always be repurposed for something else down the road.

The credenza unit houses my backing fabrics (large cuts), my flamingo bag of multi-colored scraps, African fabrics and some WIPs.

The view below is from the east wall looking west. I moved two small plastic storage units into the left corner to house neutral scraps, and completed blocks awaiting assembly into tops.

The final picture, below, is our four-table set-up that can easily handle 4 quilters. The electrical cord comes down to the center area from the lights above and allows lots of things to be plugged into the power strip without us worrying about tripping over cords on the floor. And we can clear the tables easily (two machines, small personal iron and cutting mats) to use the surface for basting quilts. The door at the very right goes outside and the door in the back by the large painting (my son Shane did that in high school) is a bathroom. 

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And finally - the actual sewing I did this week! I finished basting two quilts and quilted two others. The first finish was this sampler quilt. The blocks were started in a class I took at a local quilt shop in 2019-2020 that was aborted because of Covid. I finished the remaining blocks this year as certain colors came up in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I sewed the flimsy and basted it to use for a quilting demonstration for newbies at our last Quilts for Kids workshop.

So, if you were to closely inspect the quilting (and I doubt you can see from these pictures), there is some basic stippling, some loopy designs and a hook-swirl flower on the quilt. It’s going back to Quilts for Kids, so they’ll understand the odd variations! The sampler finished at 44x58”.

The backing is a cute white-based confetti print that I had on hand. 

The second finish was the orange string quilt whose flimsy I showed last week. I’ve named it  Orange Creamsicle Strings. It measures 42x48” and was quilted with a basic stipple.

I had to add a strip down the back to make the backing wide enough. Excuse all the waviness in these pictures - the grass (at least it’s still green!) isn’t the flattest surface. But I figured I’d take advantage of the outdoors while I can!

There was more sewing too; I added borders to my Framed Pinwheel quilt, and sewed up two more scrappy flimsies. I hope to have those, as well as my Positivity quilt, finished by next weekend. I can dream, right? 

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday. 

September Sendoff

Bruce’s brother Marv (one of his three brothers) has been visiting us from Arizona for a couple weeks. As I write this on Saturday morning, he is on his way back home. But we had to have a family gathering before he left so everyone could see him since it’s been 8 years or more. Last night was the party night at our house. It was a lot of work, but boy was it a lot of fun! 

There ended up being 16 of us, with 3 in the under-12 age range. We had pizza (three kinds), tossed  green salad, a fruit salad, cookies and a great lemon zucchini bread. The kids had a blast picking their allotment of pumpkins (limit 3 each), onions (limit one each), and grapes (limit one small brown paper bag each). I had already picked tomatoes to pawn off on any willing takers. We sat out on the patio until past dark (the patio has lights and a fan). What a wonderful, wacky and fun group the family is! Even cleanup was a snap with several of us (women and men) pitching in.  

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In my sewing studio, the carpet people arrived right on schedule Monday morning to trim and re-stretch and lay the carpet. As soon as they were done, I shampooed the carpet, and when it dried it looked as good as new! We began moving in the tables and shelving units on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday I went to Home Depot and got panels of insulation foam (like styrofoam). I used a staple gun to cover the panels with white flannel. 

The insulation panels I used came in a six-pack of 3/4” boards measuring 14x48” for $10.60.  Odd dimensions, but that is probably some standard building measurement for the space between studs. I had to run to JoAnn’s to get more flannel, but I had it all done by Thursday except where I ran short. 

I’ll have to go get one more insulation board to finish up. Later this morning our contractor and family member Jeff is coming to hang the blinds for us. Tasks like that are a bit problematic for a numbskull (me) and a one-armed man (Bruce). My final bookcase - a Hemnes bookcase from IKEA - will be delivered on Wednesday. The horizontal storage unit I wanted from IKEA isn’t available *anywhere* at present, but there is a similar one in stock at our local Target. I’m picking that up later this afternoon. The 3” bed risers for it will also be arriving on Wednesday. Then all I have to do is find a board to pad and cover for use as an ironing surface on top. With a little luck, I can get it all done this week and finish moving in my fabric. As soon as it’s all complete, I’ll give you a tour! 

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But I do have all my sewing tables set up again, and Cousin Kim and I had fun sewing in the “new” studio last Wednesday for a bit. Here are the blocks I was able to churn out this week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s orange September:

I started off with eight framed four-patches, above. I’d been sewing some regular 4P’s here and there earlier in the year, but this week decided to try them out with dark and light frames around them. Much better, and a great scrap buster! These framed 4P’s will be one of my RSC blocks moving forward into 2022.  And then I tackled my crumbs and got 12 6.5” (unfinished size) blocks.

On Monday, I’m planning a marathon basting session to get at least four quilts basted. My goal is to get that many finished up by the end of September. I feel as though I’m finally emerging from a long “tunnel” of remodeling, garden chores, and family guests/obligations. Not that I would change any of it; it’s just that I’m so ready for a rest and some serious sewing time! Life is good. Have a wonderful week, friends.

A Great Week!

Ah, the sun is shining, the birds are singing (literally!) and Darla is curled up in my lap. It’s been a good week. The basement is dried out, the exterior west wall is permanently fixed and the inside renovation has started. Any potential leaky cracks in the foundation have been sealed with foam and the waterproof backer board is in.

Today the framing studs go in, along with the insulation batts and the start of the sheetrock. I can’t wait now until it’s done so I can paint the wall a new color - probably gray instead of the institutional white that’s been there longer than we’ve lived here. I’ll also be ordering white shutters for the window. And on the exterior of the house, we are having the rain gutters and downspouts cleaned, adjusted and spruced up with leaf guards (separate company). Jeff, our contractor for the interior, has also said he’d work on our laundry room this fall, so I can finally get some new lighting, cabinetry, paint and a new washer/dryer. It’s really about the only place in the house that we haven’t remodeled since we moved in 19 years ago.  It feels good to be moving through some of the fixes and remodeling we’ve wanted to get done for a long time. 

In the meantime, Cousin Kim and I were able to start sewing again. On Wednesday we set up two (out of four) of our sewing tables. With a temporary place to work, I got busy on the remainder of my aqua/teal/turquoise blocks for the August Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Twelve 5.5” waffle blocks, sewn into three 10.5” big waffle blocks:

Two 6.5” crumb blocks and five 4.5” four-patches for the Parts Department. 

And finally, eight “chips”, four white with black and four black with white.

These, then, are my aqua RSC blocks for the month. They totaled 46.

I used my two tables to lay out and baste a small quilt for Quilts for Kids (QFK) this week as well. There are two larger quilts waiting to be basted, but I don’t have the space to set up more tables until the remodel is complete. So, I’ll just do the small ones in the meantime. This little quilt (posed in the construction area) finished at 31x41”. It was my only quilt finish for August. 

But I’ve kept busy. I decided my string bag was way too full, so I’ve begun chipping away at it. Here are 39 string blocks that will finish at 6”.  No noticeable change in the string bag yet! These blocks will get added to the 200+ in the Parts Department. When we get the studio finished up, I can do an official count of all my string blocks and make plans for a string quilt assembly extravaganza! 

Later this morning I’ll be attending our Quilts for Kids workshop. We try to vary the workshop location all over the Wasatch Front, which means the gathering can be anywhere from Ogden in the north to Provo in the South. About every other meeting is in the Salt Lake Valley, which is best for me. In fact, today’s meeting is here in Murray where I live. Yay! I have 17 scrap quilts I’ve made over the last 3-4 months to donate. I’ll continue sewing string blocks in the workshop. 

It’s going to be a crazy and fun weekend with contractors, family, friends, Quilts for Kids and the Farmers Market . Woo-hoo! Bring it on. Life is good!

Spring Cleaning in the Studio

The countdown to new downstairs carpeting is at three days. On Tuesday the installers will be here to begin laying new gray/taupe carpeting in my studio, the office, stairs down to the basement, and the small stairs from the office down to Bruce’s laBORatory. We (meaning me) have cleaned out the studio except my sewing machines and the furniture that the installers will move into a spare bedroom. It’s desolate! I have been pacing myself, doing a bit each day to avoid overdoing the physical stuff (as I tend to do when I work outside in the garden). Bruce helped yesterday to drag two heavy totes of stuff down to his laBORatory, which is where the office furniture will be stored come Tuesday. All that’s left is moving the computer stuff, storing the seven desk drawers and their contents, and moving my machines and cutting mat. We’ll do all that on Monday. 

In looking at the picture above, I guess I need to move my iron and ironing board too. Easy peasy. The picture below is the left part of the same wall pictured above. I’ll move that cart of my neutral scraps on Monday, too. But you can see the old, yucky carpet. I don’t know if you can click to see, but there are rust spots in the carpet. I used to have an old iron-based Victorian dress form that stood in that corner. Before the exterior drain was fixed outside that door (it was actually the former door), we had a flood in that area and the iron rusted into the carpet. Never could get it out. 

But by this time next week I hope to have it all carpeted and all my stuff returned to normal. Fingers crossed. They said it would take two days - one to lay the carpet in the rooms, and the other to do the coving (which requires special woven borders) and the light cutouts on the stairs. 

In the meantime, I did get a bit of stitching done. I quilted a Halloween quilt that Cousin Kim assembled. I don’t have a picture of it yet because she hasn’t added the binding yet. Anyway, I plan to show the last several quilts that Kim has finished in an upcoming blog post - she’s been on a finishing tear these last three months. 

But Purple Posies did get basted, quilted and bound. Yay! In fact, it’s coming with me today (along with about 17-18 other quilts) to our Quilts for Kids workshop this morning.  The weather looks threatening in this picture, but it had been beautiful all day and then clouded up about a half hour before this picture. We hurried out to get a picture (I also wanted a picture of the blossoms on the tree before the storm hit) before it began raining. Only it didn’t rain. A half hour after this picture, it was bright and sunny again. Pffffft......

Purple Posies is a donation quilt that I quilted with little loops, flowers and hooks. It turned out cute, but I didn’t get a photo of the back, which is just the solid lavender with a strip of the leftover floral fabric to add width. It finished at 50x60”.

Last week I was having tension issues with my machine. I had tried adjusting everything and cleaning and oiling as per usual. Nothing had helped. But my friend Pat suggested using canned air to blow out the tension discs. I hadn’t thought of that. Once I did that, the issues disappeared! Who knew? I made a quilt sandwich and played with my walking foot, free motion foot - just playing and speeding, etc. Perfecto! YAY!! Thanks, Pat. That precipitated my quilting frenzy this week!

Since this is the last Saturday of April, I’m linking up with Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here are the light blue scrappy blocks that I finished this month.

I didn’t get a picture of all the string blocks I made, so the picture in the lower left of one block represents the 18 that I made and inserted in one of the light blue quilts for this month. Eighty blocks total, a good showing.  Next week I’ll show all the quilts for the month. I’m hoping I’ll have time to get my studio back together and finish two more quilts before month end.

Which two, you ask? (You did ask, didn’t you?) Why, Rainbow Scrap quilts. I decided that my Twin Sisters (aka Windmills, to me) would be better if made into two separate kid-sized quilts. 

The first one included most of the darks and expressly forbade any pink, although some of those reds and oranges look pink in the picture. It will be a gender neutral quilt. These blocks finish at 6”, so this flimsy measures 42x48”.

The second flimsy contains the pinks and more of the floral and pastel blocks, again measuring 42x48”.

I had a piece of multi-colored polka-dot backing fabric in my stash that split perfectly in half to make the backing for these two tops.

Finally, last weekend we had dinner with son Ryan and his wife Kim, plus our two grands Lauren (17) and Easton (22) at their place. Ryan is becoming an excellent cook/chef! He reads and watches a lot of cooking shows and experiments with new recipes. And the new gadgets (special grills, meat grinders, etc) attest to that. That evening we had birria tacos (I hadn’t heard of them before this) and they were to die for. OMG, my mouth waters just thinking of them. My DIL Kim wisely lets him do the cooking! Anyway, we celebrated the March birthdays (me and Ryan) and Lauren’s April birthday. Easton is graduating from Utah State University in two weeks, and we will attend his (virtual) graduation. In June we’ll have a real, in-person family gathering/send-off for him as he heads out to New Hampshire to begin naval officer school and their nuclear engineering program. 

Life is good. 

Are We in a Time Warp?

Wow, the last couple weeks just seemed to speed by. But if you asked hubby Bruce, I'm sure he would say just the opposite. For two weeks he had his right hand/arm sewn to his abdomen in order for a skin flap be to acclimated (my word, not the doctors') and then grafted to his forearm, where the cancerous tissue was taken. Anyway, the flap and arm were "detached" yesterday, and he is beginning the healing process. It remains to be seen how much hand function he will retain (it looks like most, but not all) because he's still swollen and sore. But he can now get it wet and we can change bandages here at home until his follow-up visit in two weeks. The light at the end of the tunnel is here, and it isn't a train!!


During this two weeks of self-imposed hibernation for us (it was hard and uncomfortable for Bruce to get around a lot), there was still a lot happening. The back basement door for my studio, which was ordered back in April, finally arrived and was installed.  Now, I know it's just a boring, two-panel door, but it is So.Dang.Exciting to me. The old door was beyond ugly and plain, and the screen had seen better days forty years ago. So, now there's this lovely, clean, wooden door (not steel to draw the cold in) with a lock and dead bolt. I still need to do some touch-ups around the frame, and then we'll be cutting out the carpet around the door to do a small tile entry, probably over the winter or in the spring.






Here is the back door open with the new storm door visible. We can open the screen from the bottom up, which the kitties love. They can lay in the sunshine even if the view is only the basement stair landing and some sky (and a phony plant for some color).

We plan to get a new light fixture out there too,  but that will also wait until spring.

Another happening had to do with the apricot tree.  After the deluge of apricots this year, we were curious to see where all the branches reached when not laden with fruit and propped up with boards. Well, they reached into the power lines, over to the eaves and a bedroom window, and across and into the neighbor's yard (even though we had cut them all back two years ago). The rest of the branches (two of them) reached up waaaaaaay high or else out across the grass area (admittedly rather small) and over to the garden. Bruce had trimmed the lower, diseased branches out near the tree crotch during the apricot season. Anyway, we decided it was time for the tree to go.  It had grown way beyond its described growth when we bought it as a sapling fifteen years ago. Any future fruit would be unmanageable (especially given our aging and health issues). Believe me, this broke my heart. Our yard guys, who are arborists, felled it and cut it up in an hour flat. They left the stump at my request, so that I could put a bird house on it. We do plan to replace it next year with something smaller.

I miss the shade and protection it offered. I'm sure the birds do, too. Boomer's grave, at its foot, is no longer sheltered. My granddaughter London cried when she saw it was gone. She remembers her pre-school days here at grammy's when we used to play out in her kiddie pool and have an apricot drop right in the water for us!

London in 2014 singing "Roar!"

I've been doing some small baby quilt quilting for Quilts for Kids. I've also got three kids quilts I've sewn up from scraps that are basted and ready to be quilted. But first, I'm working to get my August One Monthly Goal finished by month-end on Saturday.

This Firefighter quilt is made from a wonky, misspelled panel (I fixed the misspelled word by taking a tuck to hide the errant letter). The design is my own.  Currently it's basted and about 25% percent quilted. I'm doing some free-form flames. I'll talk more about it when it's done.

We so appreciate all the nice messages from those of you who have taken time to see how Bruce and I are doing and to express kind wishes and words of support. It warms my heart and means more to both of us than you can know. Thank you! So now I'll just the "Publish" button and get this update on its way!

A Generous Friend, Thrifting Treasure and a Sneak Peek

Yes, I know I could post each of the topics in my post heading separately, LOL. But as I work through all the stuff I want to share from the last couple  few  several  NINE months that I didn’t blog, it seems as though it would be cheating to devote a post to each one. Like I suddenly became some sort of super blogger, which I definitely am NOT.  So, you may be seeing these mish-mash-type posts for awhile.

And speaking of my studio (OK, I wasn’t speaking about my studio, but I did have to change subjects), I have to snap some pictures to show you the remodel. First I will have to clean it up though, as it has been put to good use and there is STUFF all over it already.  But I will get to that soon enough. I’ll even have before and after pictures. For now, you will have to settle for one little tease picture.

This is my fancy thread storage. Using the idea that Gerry borrowed from Judith Baker Montano, among others, I bought the old coffee cup rack - a very sturdy one in a lovely light color -  and mounted it on the wall.  I also purchased some rings from eCanyons, a place that Gerry recommended (and now, so do I). While my friend Diane was here visiting from Canada after the CQI Retreat in Colorado last month, we spent a couple hours one evening hanging my couching fibers. I have another dozen or so rings onto which I will eventually add other fibers - my perles, floss, etc. But I wanted to get this riot of color up so I could enjoy looking at it!  And doesn’t it look great with that GORGEOUS pin cushion I won in our CQ Crazy Gift game at the retreat? It was made of wool by my friend Ingrid who lives in California.  I gave it a place of honor in the studio, but have not yet stuck a pin in it!

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Every couple weeks, my friend Bev and Susan (whom some of you know from the CQI Retreats) and I get together to either stitch, go thrifting or work on my Etsy stuff. They are so generous to help with their time when we need to be preparing or packaging inventory, and in the process I am teaching them a bit about how Etsy works.  But I digress.

For our last get-together, it was Susan`s birthday.  I just gave her a stash bag of CQ goodies and a card, but Bev went all out and really made something spine-tingly wonderful. I think it’s gorgeous.  She took a print of two little girls and hand-pieced it into a block with a real primitive, Victorian feel.  Then she stitched gold to “tie” them together and framed it.  The caption reads, “Best Friends are tied together with Love”.  

Bev`s gift for Susan

And then, thinking I might feel left out (or more likely, just being the sweet and generous person she is), Bev made me a little gift, too.  Those are REAL leaves that she stitched. They have gold veins and a bit of needlelace on them.  I love autumn and STILL haven’t put any decorations up this year - except this one.  And I treasure it.  Thank you, Bev!

Real Leaves, stitched

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The week after we returned home from the Crazy Quilting International Retreat, Bev, Susan and I went thrifting, along with Diane (who was visiting as I mentioned above).  We all found some wonderful things, especially since at this time of year the stores gear up for Halloween by putting out their funny, outrageous, vintage and otherwise bling-y clothes. Lots of people go costume shopping in thrift stores, which I think is a smart idea.  One of our particular favorite things is looking for highly embellished gowns or Indian saris and clothes that we can raid for beads, sequins, gold purl, etc.


And we were not disappointed!  However, I scored a real find when I found this obi for $3 mixed in with the housewares - curtains, tablecloths, etc.  Isn’t it lovely?  Now, I don’t know much about obis, but I bet this is not a valuable vintage find of any type.  In fact, the back and front are the same, so it is not even lined in anything like silk.  But it is a wonderful feast for the eyes - the print, the colors.  I have it laid out on my old sewing chair in my stitching room (another sneak peek, I guess).   There is no label on it, but since it is not handmade, nor do we make obis in the US, my guess is that it is, at the very least, from Japan.  Or, on second thought, China.  (???)  Is there anyone who could venture a guess about this?

I think I’ll close this post for now.  Although I have a lot more things to share, I think that three things in one post is enough mish-mashing.  And tonight is Halloween, by the way, so we will be Monster Mashing!  Bruce and I always watch Young Frankenstein while the kids are coming to the door for treats.  I think we know all the dialog by heart, and use it all year long.

“Hump? What hump?”
“Walk this way!  No.... THIS way!”
“Put the candle BACK!”


Hugs,