Sewing More Sunshine

February is always short. But this month, with a trip to Arizona to visit family and seek out warmth and sunshine, it seemed even shorter than usual. I had to get my sewing game on and finish whipping my yellow scraps into shape this last week.

To that end, I sewed six 6.5” crumb blocks. Then I added them to the six from last year and made three Crumbcakes blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts for this year. 

I only need 9 more small (6.5”) blocks in varying colors to finish up all the Crumbcakes large blocks. This one will probably finish out sometime mid-year.

And then I made some bitcoin blocks in yellow and in gold.  I’m keeping these only two columns wide because I’m thinking I may eventually use them for a rainbow border.  Then again, maybe not. Time will tell.

That completed my RSC scrap work for the month, YAY!! Here are all my yellow blocks.

6    9.5” strip blocks

4    selvage four-patch blocks

12  nine-patch variation blocks

1    row of yellow selvage tumblers (shown with the red row from last month)

7    Crackers blocks at 7.5”

8    Anvil blocks at 8.5”

3    Crumbcakes blocks 

4     Bitcoin blocks

My yellow scraps aren’t gone, but they are definitely decimated!! Come see what others have done with their yellow scraps at our weekly Rainbow Scrap Challenge linkup. 

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While on vacation, I sewed together some Happy Blocks with some elephant fabric I found on a steep clearance last summer. I thought I had 75 blocks, but it turns out there were only 65. So, I’m making two quilts with 30 blocks each and will use the leftover blocks on the back. I sewed up this top yesterday. The other one uses the same fabrics but will have a slightly different block placement. With the blocks measuring 10”, both quilts will finish at 50x60” and be for donation. I’d like to get them done next week so I can have a couple February finishes.

And speaking of vacation, my vacation post is HERE and includes a picture of Saguaro Sunset in the wild. It also includes lots of cool pictures of the house we stayed in courtesy of Bruce’s sister Annette and her husband Glenn (who we just found out yesterday lost their adult son a couple days ago. Don’t even know details yet). 

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The bulk of my work this week has been on assembling the Lattice Birds top. And after all the deliberation over color placement, I can see I accidentally switched a couple rows (rows 7 and 9 should be reversed) near the bottom and there are some unintended clusters of color. But oh well. Don’t they say that birds of a feather flock together?!?

Now I need to make some final decisions about borders. It will definitely have about a 4-5” dark blue floral border of the focus fabric (seen on a lot of the birds and the center patch of every Irish Chain block). But I think it may also need a stop border in white or bright green. Or one in green AND one in white before adding the wide blue border.

Since these are also 10” blocks, the top currently measures 70x90”. So it could tentatively end up at around 84x104”. I’ve got to get crackin’ on this because it’s my OMG (One Monthly Goal) to get the top finished up in February. That only leaves me a few days to make up my mind and finish sewing it (and press and snip loose threads yet again!). 

Eternal Sunshine of the Never-ending Scrap Drawer....

Are your scraps like mine, breeding on their own when left alone in drawers and shelves and baskets and bins? Have you EVER known ANYONE who has used up all their scraps? Me neither.

Well, we are back from vacation as I post this, but we haven’t even left as I write this. Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? That means I’ll save the vacation recap for another post. See how nice I am? You can get all the yellow scrappy goodness here without having to sit through a vacation narrative with pictures. You’re most welcome.

I’m adding these fun and bright yellow sunshine-y blocks to the Rainbow Scrap Saturday linkup. I know that we’re all appreciating these little bits of fabric sunshine so much during this long and dreary winter.

First up are 12 little 9-patch blocks. I’ve heard them called Lover’s Knots, but when I look that block up, this is not what I see. Regardless, it has a lot of possibilities. These little blocks are untrimmed. Why trim them now when they’ll sit around for months on their shelf, growing more stray threads. Scraps are just like that. So, I’ll trim them when I decide on a layout.

And here are some 9.5” yellow string blocks. String blocks make me so happy, it’s just ridiculous. Especially yellow ones, because they’re so happy too. Here are my six string blocks, smiling away.

Well, in keeping with the time-traveling nature of this post, I’m off to finish packing (as I write this) and off to finish unpacking (as I post this). It’s so wonderful to be home!!

Welcome Yellow February!

January is over for another year - yay!  February is one step closer to spring, and I’ve been happily celebrating with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, yellow. We can generate the warmth and brightness of the sun right in our own studios! Come see what we’re all doing at our weekly Rainbow Scrap Saturday linkup.

I got a lot done with my yellow scraps in the last few days, primarily because we will be on vacation for a nice chunk of February. It seems I always tackle my selvages first, and once again it was so. First are the selvage 4-patches. The selvage patches are 4.5” unfinished. They’re paired with 4.5” patches of a low volume neutral to make 8.5” inch four-patch blocks. I made four blocks in yellow.

And I finished a row (14 blocks; 7 selvage tumblers, 7 colored fabric tumblers) for my selvage tumbler quilt. That’s not a very enticing name, but it’s just a working title for now.

I do plan to alternate the orientation of the tumblers every row, but yellow will be two rows away from red, so is cut the same way. As this will eventually be assembled in rainbow order, a row of orange tumblers (starting with an upside down orange fabric tumbler, then alternating) will go between these two rows. Come assembly time, I may have to make some additional tumblers or else trim the edges, not sure which yet. The row width as it is now measures about 43”. The height per row (after joining) will be 4”, so I’m figuring I’ll need about a dozen rows, and then a border to surround it all and get it to a good size for a donation quilt.

Next up were the Cracker blocks - seven of them.  My yellows are ranging from very pale to very gold, almost golden brown with some fabrics (which you’ll see when I post my string blocks later in the month). The Crackers are 7.75” unfinished.

And then the Anvil blocks. These are fun to chain piece and hence they whip up really fast! They will finish at 8” each, and I plan to mix all the colors merrily in the quilt.

If you only catch my blog on Rainbow Scrap Saturdays, you can use these links to check out two finishes I had during the week. Saguaro Sunset is HERE and the Pink Selvage Donation Quilt is HERE. Or you can click the 2019 QUILTS page tab above.

Next week won’t see much, if any, scrap sewing as we’ll be leaving for Arizona and I’m not taking my yellow scraps. I am taking Bob, however, my trusty back-up sewing machine. And I am taking scraps, but they’re multi-colored strings. I plan to get started on a long-planned string quilt inspired by this quilt. It’s called Diamond Frenzy, was sewn by Nancy Messier and it was pinned from Facebook. The best tutorial for these blocks (in my opinion) is from Molly Flanders’ blog, HERE.

Inspiration: Diamond Frenzy by Nancy Messier

Along with the Rainbow Scrap color of the month, I’m trying to get a donation quilt done every month (and more than one if I can) using that color. With yellow, I’ll be focusing on using up a lot of my stray gold fabric chunks (and other colors too) to frame this cute elephant fabric into Happy Blocks. I’ve cut out 50 center blocks of 6.5” blocks (yes, my hands are numb) and the strips. I'll plan to sew up two quilt tops from them.

I’m also bringing along the next Pineapple Quilt to start if there is time.  And if there isn’t, there is always the rest of February to work on it.

But needless to say, sewing will not be my highest priority on vacation, LOL!! This time Cousin Kim is not joining us, so Bruce and I will take two leisurely days to drive down to Tubac. This time, for the first time, we won’t be staying in the Bates Motel family trailer. Instead, we are staying in the second home of Bruce’s sister Annette and her husband Glenn.  We’ll have a whole, beautiful house to ourselves, and it’s up in the hills above the town. There are lots roads and trails for walking. The Tubac Arts Festival will be going on while we’re there, and that will be fun too.

Wrapping up Yellow

Let’s talk yellow. I was able to get in some good sewing time this week, but it was all on two specific projects. First though, let me recap the yellow blocks I sewed for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s April color of the month.

Top Row, L-R: 10 selvage squares, 6 (4.5”) bow ties; 4 (6.5”) blocks for AllUNeedisLove

Middle Row, L-R: 6 Noon & Light 9” blocks, 3 Squared Away blocks, 12 6.5” Qtr Log Cabins

Bottom Row, L-R: 6 crumb blocks, 4 yellow birds, 3 Linked Squares blocks

Total Blocks: 54

I also made 32 yellow flying geese units for the AllUNeedisLove quilt, but haven’t counted those because they are just units, not blocks.

And in weight loss, I lost a grand total (hold on to your hats) of a half pound in April. Still walking, still riding my bike and still watching what I eat. But obviously, not as conscientiously as I should be. Life will get easier when I can go back to cooking for just Bruce (after my brother leaves). 

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Groovy Guitars, the quilt I’m working on for DH Bruce is coming along nicely. I’ve got about seven or eight more pieces to fuse, plus several little dots for “tuning pegs”. It’s possible that I could finish this today or tomorrow and squeak in just before the end-of-the-month deadline for my April One Monthly Goal (OMG). The goal was to get the top cut and fused.

And I may or may not continue with this project for May (the hand and machine appliqué). I need to add a border, and am torn between using the bright scraps in piano-key fashion or just finding a suitable red, which is Bruce’s favorite color, to border it with. The Utah Quilt Shop Hop is May 30-June 2, and I’ll be hunting for that fabric then if I decide to go that way. So, I may select a different project for my May OMG.

That OMG project is likely to be this ABC baby quilt. The working title of this project is “AB Baby”. I had a math teacher in 7th grade named Mr. Abrahamson. We called him Abey-baby (not to his face, although he was cool and probably would’ve laughed). This quilt made me think of that. Yes, my brain works in mysterious ways.....

I am so in love with these blocks! The pictures do not do them justice. They are so sweet and whimsical. The picture above shows everything just pinned up on the design board. My goal for this week was to get halfway through the alphabet, and I actually did more than that.

Some close-ups:

The fabrics are mostly from various collections of Tamara Kate, with a few other fabrics thrown in here and there.

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This week I was also able to meet up with Emily from Em’s Scrap Bag. She runs Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo, one of the charities for Hands2Help. Hands2Help is a great online international charity organized and run by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 

Anyway, Emily was kind enough to meet with me last Wednesday and a passerby was kind enough to take our picture. I donated six quilts; four of which will go for Quilty Hugs and 2 smaller ones which will go to Primary Children’s Hospital (where my friend Terri and I donate our baby quilts). 

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Grapes along west patio, 2006 

Garden-wise, it’s been another busy week of working in the yard. The new drip irrigation is installed in the raised growing beds. The weeds have been pulled everywhere (for now), although I still have an area on the west side of the house that has a lot of grass to pull out where it’s invaded the flower beds. But everything else is spiffy; the lawns are thick, weed-free and nicely trimmed, the flowers and bushes are all cleaned up and dead-headed from last year and we are ready to plant vegetables. 

The only concern is that last fall my brother cut back the four grape vines along the west side of the patio to within an inch of their lives. It looks as though three out of four are still (barely) alive, but they won’t be producing anything this year. My brother thinks he knows more than he does about everything gardening. Anyway, since the grapes shade the patio from the afternoon sun (see the old picture, above), we are going to have to come up with a plan B to make the patio habitable in the early evening. The apricot tree will provide some shade, so that might have to do. I have hung some cute solar firefly lights (a gift from one of my friends) along the lattice and could always stitch up a canvas valance or something. I’ll just have to wait to see how it goes. 

After we plant the veggies this weekend, I’ll focus on visiting nurseries for flowers for my front entry Talavera flower pots plus some other landscaping items I’ve wanted for awhile - more roses and perennials. We are members of Red Butte Garden and I’m looking forward to their annual plant sale in a couple weeks.  

The first half of May will be crazy. My brother Steve is leaving for Arizona this week and Bruce’s birthday is also this coming week. Plus over the next two weeks there are dentist appointments, a graduation, two charity sewing meetings to attend, a family gathering and the aforementioned plant shopping and garden work. My sewing time may grow scarce for awhile!

Following the Yellow Block Road

It’s been another busy week here. Our weather has varied from snow one day to rain to high sixties (F) all in the same week. We’re supposed to get into the mid-seventies for a couple days next week. I can’t wait! Bruce has the garden beds all tilled, mulched and the drip irrigation about ready to go. We will likely plant at least the early stuff in the coming few days. The more tender things will have to wait 2-3 more weeks.

This week I finished up my yellow blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (visit our link-up at Angela’s blog, HERE) by stitching 12 - 6.5” (unfinished) quarter log cabins:

Six 6.5” crumb blocks:

And four blocks (also 6.5” unfinished) that will go into the All You Need is Love quilt:

And I finished quilting Geese Migration!! This pattern is by Cynthia Brunz, and it is so much fun! Geese Migration finished at 52x64”. I quilted it with loops, and when it was washed, the texture was just amazing!  I think the gray sets the colors off really well. This quilt is #3 on my Finish-Along goals for the 2018 Quarter Two, which you can read about HERE.  By the way, those columns really are vertical - that bump near the top left area is the quilt holder’s head or some other body part. Sheesh, it’s hard to get good help these days, hahaha.

Geese Migration is my final quilt finish for Hands2Help. All my quilts will be going to Emily at Happy Chemo up in Centerville. We weren’t able to meet up last week because she was traveling to teach, but I’m hoping we can get together this coming week. I really don’t want to have to mail 5 quilts. Anyway here is the back. It’s a combination of a spring green batik that I bought last year (but not enough, obviously), along with a Tula Pink remnant for the sides.

Cousin Kim was over last week to sew, as usual. The week before I had quilted her latest quilt for her and then she sewed on the binding. This fabric was a layer cake of something that we both bought from Missouri Star Quilt Company about a year ago unbeknownst to the other. I have a different pattern planned for mine, but I love how her pattern shows off the lovely prints and colors.

We auditioned several backs, but we both agreed that this old vintage sheet was the cutest, softest and overall best.  Kim is keeping this quilt for herself. Congrats on a great finish!

And I have been working on my April OMG project. The goal is to get the top of Bruce’s guitar quilt all cut out, placed and fused. This is where I am after a couple short work sessions on it:

There are more parts to add to what is here so far, as well as two more guitars that will expand the quilt out to the left of the green guitar. But it's progress! And other than struggling just a bit to get pieces to fit where they’re supposed to fit, I haven’t had any issues (so far, knock on wood) with reversing things. My brain is humming along in “drive" instead of neutral or reverse. One everything is in place, things will be tweaked and trimmed to make lines more flowing, etc. Then it will be properly fused and I’ll begin the buttonhole stitching around each piece. That ought to be a barrel of fun (do you hear the dripping sarcasm?)  But first things first. Since this piece, “Groovy Guitars” hasn’t earned my wrath this week, it is saved from Time Out. It's still on my design wall and will be getting more attention this week.

This week I also cut out most of what I need for the granddaughter-to-be’s new baby quilt. Bruce’s daughter Stacy, who is still due in early July, and her hubby have decided the new little girl will be named Evie. I love it! And Evie’s ABC quilt is started. I’ve trimmed up all the letters and other blocks (there will be 30 total). I pull out a block/letter randomly and sew the strips around them. These are the first two:

I’ll talk more about this project as it progresses over the next couple months..... if I can wait that long. If I had my way, I’d just sit down and do it all NOW, but I have the guitar quilt and the Love is All You Need quilt going on, too.

In personal news, my brother Steve is getting ready to move out next weekend. It’s been nine months (a couple more than I had planned), and hard at times, but we are all ready. His health (and health insurance) is under control, he sold his old truck and motorcycle and has a new(er) truck - reliable transportation. He’s got his social security and retirement benefits all settled and coming in, and he’s has been able to save a good chunk of money. So, he will be heading back to Arizona temporarily to seek out new digs and visit friends. When he’s got that finalized, he will be back to pack up his stuff (stored in one of our bedrooms and an outdoor shed) and his hotrod and make the official move. Bruce and I wish him well, but are looking forward to having our privacy back.

And that’s about it for now.

Sewing Yellow Sunshine

I’m sewing yellow fabric sunshine because not only is it our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for April, but it’s about the only sunshine around here these days. I keep repeating the old saying “April Showers bring May Flowers”. I just hope that the snowy portion of those showers don’t freeze our apricot tree buds. But short of going out there and climbing the tree, draping quilts all over it (and believe me, the thought has crossed my mind more than once), there’s not much I can do about it.

Let’s see what’s emerged from under my sewing machine needle this week.....

First, I finished six Noon and Light blocks for the Block Lotto. The hostess asked for these to have a yellow background and be otherwise scrappy. The pattern made two blocks at a time, so I made a total of six, and they were fun but fiddly.

So, my name will go into the month-end drawing six times. The winner takes all. Fingers crossed.

Next I sewed up three blocks for this month’s Squared Away Sampler at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This is another fun block, courtesy of Mari at Academic Quilter. As she explained, this is an old block with several names over the years. 

I’m really enjoying these, and have decided to make enough blocks each month to do a lap sized quilt instead of just a baby quilt. So, I’ll be making at least 3 blocks per month.  And speaking of these blocks, it reminds me that you can see others’ blocks and all sorts of yellow quilty goodness at our weekly Rainbow Scrap linkup at Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

And then my main focus turned to making more birds for my Lattice Birds Quilt.  Several of you have asked me questions about this quilt, but if you haven’t heard back from me it’s because you’re a No Reply blogger.  If you’d like to read my original post and plans for this quilt, HERE is a link. 

These are the four birds I made this month. I decided that while I wanted to keep each bird in a main color, that did not mean I couldn’t add accents of the other colors that will be in the quilt. One of my green birds from last month didn’t have enough contrast for me, so it may be reworked or used on the back. 

And here are the individual pictures. I see that I forgot to add the corner to the top of the wing on this one, to round it out, so a little wing surgery will be required on her before she goes into the finished pile.

I’ve had fun cutting out bird parts and auditioning them, mixing and matching. Wanting more contrast led me to the decision to broaden the fabrics and colors in each bird.

You may also notice that a lot of the prints I’ve used in the birds are actually bird prints. That is intentional!

And I have dramatically increased the size of the quilt from the original 50x70 plus borders to a queen sized quilt. So, instead of me making 17 birds, I’ll be making 31. And the number of lattice blocks, which I’ll sew during our next RSC Blue month, increased too.

Now here’s a picture of the whole flock (minus one) together:

Can I tell you again how much I am loving these birdies?!!  And there are plenty more to come - lots more blue and green, some in light and dark pinks, some orange, and of course some in mixed colors. A few of these need minor surgeries to become more uniform as I’ve tweaked the pattern here and there. But there is no law (not even the Law of Nature!) that says they all have to be identical!  :-)  That’s always my excuse for being an oddball sewist!

And finally, it’s probably time to introduce this project, although it’s been planned for my daughter Megan since last year. It’s called All You Need is Love. Or Love is All You Need, whatever. It was a small pod-like collection (they had some name for it) by Art Gallery Fabrics (Mr. Domestic). Megan is a Beatle fan - came by it naturally from her dad and me, LOL. Anyway, we decided on a medallion quilt with this as the center panel. But she wanted a rectangular quilt, not a square one. So, the navy blue border around the center is 1” on the sides and 2” on the top and bottom.  The yellow flying geese (which look more gold in this picture but are really yellow) are all positioned to add more length than width. The next round is a simple border again, in pink. It will be done in varying widths, like the blue.

The next rounds are split between various colored blocks, a black and white checkerboard, and other ideas. But what I’ll be doing is sewing up the pre-planned blocks whenever we get to a new color. So, for this month’s yellow assignment, I have 8 various blocks to sew. I’m going to try to have those done for next week.  There are no green or purple blocks in this quilt, so the only color I’m missing is the blue - and I can do those when we come around to blue again later in the RSC year.  :-)

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So, the trip I’ve been planning to Kenya was off, and is now on again. That is supposed to be in July, if all goes as planned. I’m trying to get my deposit in, but the flakes dear souls who run it have yet to send me the link. My daughter-in-law Kim and granddaughter Lauren are going too. If I don’t hear something definitive by next week, I may just bag it and go with Bruce instead to a local Jackson Browne concert here in Salt Lake in July. Decisions, decisions. 

A Fun Week

Wow, this week just sped by! It was full of family and fun, exercise, sewing, yard work and so much more.

London and her mom, Heather

On Saturday I went with my DGD London (my DS Shane’s daughter) and her mom Heather to Wheeler Farm for an Easter Egg Hunt. I have experienced my share of Egg Hunts in the past, both as a mom of three kids and as a mall marketing director for 9 years. Plus, I worked at Wheeler Farm for 4 years, and we had Hunts then too. But I’ve never been to one that was so well organized as this year’s hunt!

The kids were separated at pre-registration by age and parental preference of Hunt in the Woods or Hunt on the Grass (for the younger ages). The different groups staged in different areas and were then further split up and led into different sections of the woods (the farm is about 75 acres) by guides.

Everyone got the “Let’s be kind and share” lecture so that no child would go without. The kids were just great about this! The eggs were empty, and once the kids got their allotment, they helped other kids. When it was all done, they turned in their eggs back at the barn and got a full Easter basket of prizes, candy, a stuffed bunny and other toys and coupons. What a deal!

London was in the last group of the day and they didn't have any egg limits. In fact, they were asked to help out the Easter Bunny by finding all the eggs they could (and to share, of course) so that he wouldn’t have as much work later. We parents and grandparents further helped out by gathering and bringing out any plastic eggs that had been smashed by over-anxious kids!  Anyway, it was really fun to walk all over and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. In fact, Bruce and I went back on Monday and walked the entire farm again by ourselves. We also visited all the new baby lambs and goats.

On Tuesday I hemmed up some flannel receiving blankets for one of my neighbors who will be going to Uganda with a local radio station. They go twice yearly and bring these blankets to the villages so the babies don’t have to be taken home swaddled in newspapers. The Riley Blake company, which is local, donates quite a bit of flannel, and I hemmed up a bolt of the blue chevrons and then added some of my own. This pictures shows some of them.

I got some more sewing time on Wednesday and worked on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. This month is yellow.  First I did three Linked Squares blocks, which will finish at 16” each. I need a total of 20 and now have 11 finished.

Next were six 4” (finished) bowties.  I only need 32 more - a few of each of the remaining RSC colors. This project will continue on...

And finally I finished up 10  selvage blocks in yellow. They will be 6” finished. No plans yet other than to clean out my selvages!!  :-)

I still have lots more yellow blocks for the next few weeks: birds, Squared Away sampler blocks, quarter log cabins, and crumb blocks. Plus, I’ve started my daughter’s “Love is All You Need” medallion quilt. The tough part was all the quilty math to figure out the various rounds - no small task because she wants a rectangular rather than a square quilt. So, I worked out the numbers and designs on paper, pulled the fabrics and have gotten started. I’ll share more about this in a week or two. But I will be making certain blocks as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month coincides with one of the colors in the quilt (mostly yellow, pink, turquoise, blue, black and white and some orange).

My final sewing goal for this week was to get my Geese Migration blocks sewn into a flimsy. That happened yesterday. Excuse the wonky picture. As usual, I pin the top on the design board and let the rest fall freely, so the bottom part is not taut. But it is even, I promise!

I am so tickled at how this is turning out! I still have to whip up a backing from some of fabrics. I’m going with green because I found a 3-yard piece and another 1+ yard piece in those colors that will work. The binding will be the same gray fabric.

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We finally got our new car this week. We’ve been waiting for two weeks, and our new Toyota RAV4 Hybrid finally came in and got its windows tinted. It was ready for us on Thursday. I borrowed this picture from the Toyota website (I hope they don’t mind), as our new baby is exactly this color - Electric Storm Blue.

We love our Toyotas! We sold Bruce’s Tundra and traded in my Prius and are now just a one-car family. This car’s controls are very similar to my Prius, but the visibility and some of the newer features (back-up camera) are superior. My favorite thing is how well it fits me. It’s so solid and tight and ..... geez, I sound like a commercial. Sorry, but I just love it. We always give our cars names (please tell me we are not the only ones who do this! Bruce’s Tundra was Elwood and my Prius was Penelope), but we haven’t named this one yet....

And now I’ll switch gears (pun intended) for the final time. This week Darla learned how to wind a bobbin. And she is definitely a southpaw!

Hey, I’m the Supervisor, not the Bobbin-Winder!

If she thinks I’m going to sew those batting scraps together when the bobbins are done, she’s got another thing coming....

June Recap and Happy July!

June was a great month, wasn’t it? It was yellow in the studio and yellow and sunshine-y outside. Once again I managed (this time by the skin of my teeth) to get my yellow sewing goals, kennel quilts and other personal donation quilt commitments done. No thanks go to Darla or Alfie, my feline supervisors. They were too busy enjoying the Cat Days of Summer, napping away in their favorite spots. Somehow, I managed without them. I think they may be getting ready for Pets on Quilts (see badge in sidebar).

The collage above shows my RSC blocks for June: 16 - 4.5” bowties; 1 crumb slab block  that was made into a kennel quilt (more on that in a minute); 4 - 8.5” crumb blocks to add to the ones I made last year; 2 selvage columns; 13 - 6.5” Friendship Stars; 2 Geese Migration blocks; 5 bookshelf blocks (which make one whole “shelf"); and 12 - 6.5” plus blocks. Total = 63.  Linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge participants.

My yellow crayon was already done from last year, so I made all the remaining crayon color blocks (4) and finished up the Color Me Crayon Quilt, which I wrote about Thursday, HERE. It is my first 2017 RSC finish.

I started another yellow project - a pineapple quilt - but only got most of it cut out. It will go into my third quarter goals for the Finish Along.  But I want to show you the great vintage sheet that cousin Kim found for me - it’s in the bottom of the picture below. Pineapples!  It’s going to be the backing and possibly the binding, too.

It was a mad dash over the last couple days to get the kennel quilts done this month. At the beginning of the month, before I started on the scrap blocks, I pieced about a half dozen of them. But then good ol’ Sally at The Objects of Design sent me some great selvages, and several of them had generous amounts of kitty fabric still on them. How could I not use those? So I pieced some more tops. Then there was my yellow crumb slab - another kennel quilt. I finally ended up with 12.

First, these three. In these I used the blocks and pieces and other black and white bits (see the animal print backing?) left over from a quilt I did for my brother-in-law last February.

I matched up Sally’s generous selvages with the last of my pink Laurel Burch kitty fabric to make two pink quilts.

Other leftover blocks (blue and some green) that were left over from my Rainbow Rails vintage sheet quilt were added to some blue strips of kitty fabric that I had leftover from the three kitty quilts I made last year for my granddaughters. By the way, if you can go back through my quilt gallery (link is just under the header) to refer to the quilts I’m talking about if you care to.

The fishy flannel, below, was a small piece I found in a thrift store for 69c, and it did a couple kennel quilt backs.

More kitty print fabric, a yellow scrappy backing and another great selvage from Sally.

Here is an out-of-focus close-up (sorry) of that paw-some selvage fabric. I’m surprised Molly let Sally send it.

And finally, the quilt made from the yellow crumb slab (both front and back) AND my favorite - a total hodgepodge of leftover scraps of cat fabric. Waste not, want not, right?

The color for July in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is blue. I have a large drawerful of blue scraps. Along with my blue blocks this month, my goal is to make 2 pillow shams to cover either the 2 Euro-sized pillows or the two large rectangle pillows for our bed to match the Aria quilt I finished last fall.

My Weight Watchers is going well. I’ve pretty much learned the program and have settled in for the long haul. I had a very successful first weigh in (lost 4 pounds). Although I don’t plan on giving weekly updates (you’re welcome), I may mention my progress now and then.

One final thing. I added a “Subscribe by Email” widget to my sidebar, if that makes it easier for some of you.  :-)  And now...... back to sewing.