Finishing Frenzy, Week 3

Another great week of finishing donation quilts for kids! It was a busy week with our family contractor Jeff having to fix some drain issues in the shower of the master bathroom. Thank goodness we caught it early and it was fixed with minimal hassle (and expense) over the course of a few days. The weather has been positively frigid here. Now if we’d only get some clouds and snow so it would warm up! 

OK, so let’s continue with the Fall Finishing Frenzy, week 3. This week I have four quilt finishes to share. The first is this red and blue checkerboard quilt that I finally got quilted. I showed the top about a month ago, but it was waiting patiently for its turn to be finished. I had/have so many projects in various stages of completion, that I decided to focus on nothing but finishing them for the rest of the year. 

The checkerboard quilt was quilted using a walking foot to quilt a grid in the light blue (denim-look chambray) squares. The finished quilt is 48x56, a good-sized quilt for an older boy. 

Next up was the delightful Rainbow Elephants quilt. Oh my, I love this little quilt!

Rainbow Elephants measures 40x47”. Thanks again for the elephant print, Nann!

Then it came time to quilt the two quilts using black scraps and bright fabrics (backing on the first and the cat fabric on the second) from my friend Wanda. 

This quilt doesn’t have an official name, but I refer to it as “the carpenter check” because of the three squares of a bright tool print interspersed . The 28 black string blocks really helped whittle down my stash of black strings! I oriented the string blocks differently in each row to give the quilt a bit more movement. 

Quilted in a basic stipple, it measures 42x48”. 

Next up: Black and Bright Cats, 40x49”.

I used blue thread to quilt the top and bottom strips, and black thread to quilt the rest. The backing photo shows the cute Tula Pink cats eyes fabric (which my friend Sally says is now commanding exorbitant prices) used to supplement the cat fabric. 

Here’s a closeup of some of the quilting. 

This week I also started dabbling in using up some of my brown scraps. First, I found a scrap print that had brown and a couple other colors (guitars and banjos), and cut 21 squares of 6.5”. Then I made 21 brown string blocks (by now you should know I loves me my string blocks!). Together these 42 blocks will form the center of a quilt I’m working on for next week. There will be an aqua stop border surrounding them, and a still-to-be-determined outer border. I figured the guitar print and masculine colors warranted a somewhat larger quilt size for an older boy. Here’s a peek:

The fabrics on the right will be the backing - either the browns together OR the blue denim-look. Fun fact: that lovely medium brown print is 36” wide. Yeah, it’s old, but it’s pristine! It was in one of the estate sale boxes that my friend Ruby found for me this summer!

Finally,  I sewed three “chocolate” crumb candy blocks which will finish at 6”.

The making of crumb candy blocks will be one of my 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. Today I’m linking up to the RSC’s Scrappy Saturday. 

Have a great week!

Finishing Frenzy, Week 2

It was a great week in the sewing studio and at Chez Kizerian in general. Bruce passed his CERT training (Citizens Emergency Response Training) through the Murray Fire Department and his ham radio club. YAY! Yep, even being one-armed he can tote training dummies, etc. This week I lost the last of my Covid weight gain (finally), and am now on track to begin losing the “older” poundage, LOL. The weather here has been crisp and cold, with occasional rain and even snow. Beautiful! Just like the old days. Maybe we’ll have a normal, snowy winter!

So, let’s talk quilting. Over the course of the last week or ten days I sewed up 28 black string blocks (that will finish at 6” each) as I try to whittle down my dark neutral scraps along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Down the center of each block is a strip of black-and-bright fabric. These 28 blocks joined 28 other blocks of bright solids and a “carpenter” print that had the same colors. This is the resulting quilt top:

I am so totally in love with this top! But the best part is the backing fabric, which was the inspiration for the whole color scheme and pattern. It was in the batch of fabric and scraps that sweet Wanda sent me a couple months ago. A match made heaven, I say. 

This cutie will be basted and quilted in the next week. Also serving as inspiration from Wanda was these bright cat strips below. At least I think they were from Wanda. I received so many scraps from several directions in October that I’m not entirely sure. But I’m thinking this looks like so many other cute animal scrap fabrics that Wanda has bestowed on me for Quilts for Kids, so I’m going with her!  

These width-of-fabric strips are just pinned on the design wall for now. In this month’s continuing effort to pare down some of my black scraps, I made two rows of vertical black strips with an occasional black-and-bright strip thrown in. The backing will be more of the cat fabric and some Tula Pink cat-eye fabric from her old Tabby Road line. I’ll show that next week. This top, like the first one, is slated to be finished up in the coming week. Then I have one more quilt planned for the black scraps for later this month. 

I did finish off the quilting of three other little quilts this week, which puts my Finishing Frenzy tally at 6. These first two were sent to me as tops by Jo Kramer (Jo’s Country Junction) to quilt, finish and be donated to a charity of my choice. As you know by now, Quilts for Kids is my choice.

The first one is a Dr. Seuss-themed quilt. I quilted it with loops. It measures 40x50”.

The backing was this cat fabric, which I felt was necessary since The Cat in the Hat was not represented on the front, hehe.....

The second quilt was this bright daisy-themed number, which measures 41x56”. Bruce likes this one best because..... RED. It’s his favorite color.  

I practiced some different free-motion quilting motifs with this quilt. Yes, I did do stipples in the red and blue strips, but the daisies were outlined with scribble-style quilting (my term; I don’t know what it’s really called. Do you?) and the borders were done in a wishbone pattern.

I find the kids quilts to be a good opportunity to practice new things on now and then because no one really cares if it’s only “meh”. 

My third and final finish for the week was this little basic patchwork quilt. I cut it out in Blue September, but never worked on it until this week. The lavender blocks stand out more in the photos than in real life, but other than that you can see it’s just a sweet mash-up of miscellaneous 4” blocks.

I used my machine’s walking foot to quilt a basic grid pattern. The backing is an older piece I’ve had laying around for awhile.  This soft little quilt finished at 40x48”. 

That’s it for this week. I’m hoping to concentrate more on finishing 5-6 quilts next week as I’ve got two basted and ready to go (an elephant quilt and the blue and red checkerboard), and four more tops that will be ready for basting by the end of today. 

Let the Finishing Frenzy Begin!!

For the month of November, I’m focused on finishing up quilts in my studio. I have such a backlog of quilts that are either pin basted and waiting to be quilted and bound; assembled tops waiting to be pin basted; groups of finished blocks that are waiting to be sewn into a top; and groups of blocks that need just one or two more blocks sewn to move them along. As my time and attention span permit, I’ll be flitting about the various piles and tasks, with a goal of finishing up at least 12 quilts this month. That equates to about three per week, totally doable. Some of these quilts will be Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts, either personal or going to Quilts for Kids. Some are Community Quilts that were sent to me by Jo Kramer (Jo’s Country Junction in IA. She runs this national program to move along quilt tops into finished quilts for charity), and some are just quilts sewn by me for our own gift-giving.

Here is my first finish. I sewed these donated scraps (triangles) and strips together into a top last month. The solid green and purple were from my stash. The edges look wavy here, but it’s really a flat and even quilt. I just didn’t take the time to straighten it before the photo. My bad.

It’s a wacky quilt that measures 38.5 x 46”. The quilting is a mixture of serpentine stitching, loops in the print outer borders and a stipple done in the nine center blocks. I used the last of my favorite green fabric for the backing.  

Next I began quilting up - and completed - two of the four Community Quilt tops from Jo. I’ll do the other two next week. The first one is farm animals alternating with a pastel checked fabric. This little quilt measures 38x38” and was quilted with loops.

The third and final finish for this week was the same checkerboard pattern (also finishing at 38x38”) with bright yellow fabric and colorful jellybean-like alternating squares. This time I quilted the print squares with loops (I knew it wouldn’t show up) and the yellow squares with some free-form floral motifs.

Here’s a close-up that shows it off a bit better. 

And then it was on to assembling one of several elephant quilts that are waiting patiently in the queue. Gotta love those elephants! My friend Nann sent me this awesome elephant print fabric. There was enough to use as the outer border and the entire quilt backing. Thanks, Nann!! This top is now ready to be basted and quilted next week.

And finally, I had some 4.5” pastel blue blocks (60 of them) from Blue September in the RSC that I had paired with other pastel (-ish) miscellaneous 4.5” blocks that had been in my stash for far too long. The colors are way darker in the photo than in real life, but it’s the best I (read: the camera) can do. I had intended to sew this top together in September, but then sciatica struck and it was set aside. Anyway, they’re all sewn together now, and this will be the fourth quilt that I intend to finish off in the next week. Stay tuned!

I’ve also determined that my crumb tumbler RSC project needs two more rows: a brown row before the dark red and a gray row at the bottom below the purple. The solid-fabric tumblers are cut, so I’ll take some time (hopefully) this week to sew up the necessary scrappy tumblers to finish this top off. 

Yesterday I sorted my drawerful of black (and black/white, black/bright) scraps into crumbs, chunks, strips of 2.5” or wider, and strings of less than 2.5”. I will be sewing black string blocks this week. I plan to pair them with solid (or tone-on-tone) bright colors for a hopefully lively kid quilt. I don’t have a particular setting in mind yet - we’ll see how many string blocks I get out of the black first. The wider strips can wait another week or two. I’m hoping to get at least two quilts with the black scraps done, although there are probably enough to do four or five. 

A group of my WW (formerly Weight Watchers) friends came over last Tuesday evening to play the card game Hand and Foot. It was organized by several of us who have grown into great friends, and several  others were invited. Even our leader Kris joined us, and she lives up by Park City! There were seven of us all together, and we had a blast. The snacks were all fruits and veggie trays, with some little WW snack bars (2 points) for anyone wanting a hit of chocolate. Several of the ladies are also quilters, so that was fun to have them playing along in the studio. I had moved two of my  four sewing tables aside. We played our games on two of the other tables and it was perfect!  Fun fact: Kris grew up in this neighborhood, and her boyfriend was Kurt S, whose family lived in this house (for 40 years) before us. So, she knew the neighborhood and the house, although we’ve remodeled or changed every room as well as the exterior of the house in our 20 years here! It’s a small world! 

Have a great week. Are you in a finishing frenzy before the hectic holidays arrive?

Just Another Month End

It’s been a week of cool, rainy weather. Nothing of note happened this week around here. It was just the stuff of everyday life - errands, sewing, housework, phone calls and visits to and from family and friends. One highlight (for me) was that I finalized the details with a new housekeeper who has been cleaning for other extended family members for decades. She will start with us on Monday, and return every other week. That’s perfect timing because on Tuesday night, several of my friends from our Tuesday morning Weight Watchers workshop are coming over for a game night here. It should be a blast, and I may get some pictures if they’re willing.

But you’re probably here for Scrappy Saturday, so let’s talk about what I got done to wrap up Green October. First off, elephants! These four blocks (pattern by Wendy Sheppard) will finish the blocks needed for another elephant quilt. 

So these blocks will be added to these piles, 

which represent other quilt tops in various stages of assembly. In total, there will be three more elephant quilts, a pink and blue patchwork quilt that I never finished last month, and a Community Quilt that needs a backing to be pieced. Once assembled, the tops will be pin basted and added to my stack of 7+ tops to be quilted. All of that will hopefully happen during November, which is shaping up to be my Finishing Frenzy! I’m hoping to turn out at least a dozen finished quilts in November.

But I did finish one quilt this week, so here’s that one. It’s the Little Green Bricks (block pattern from Sylvia at Treadlestitches)

Little Green Bricks finished at 42x48” and will go to Quilts for Kids. The back was mostly this green tree print (I’m refusing to call it a Christmas print, because evergreens exist in all seasons!):

I also sewed up some fun wrapped candy blocks, which will finish at 8”. This is a new Rainbow Scrap Challenge block that I’ll carry over into RSC23:

The centers are 4.5” crumb squares with flip corners, and that will not be enough size to help whittle down the crumb piles, so I’ll probably begin doing 6.5” crumb squares in addition to the candy blocks beginning in January. But for this year, I did use some crumbs to finish off one green placemat.

In November, I’m also going to try to finish up the last miscellaneous mixed-color elephant blocks in order to put together the final two elephant quilt tops before year end. And I hope to tackle my black, brown and gray scrap drawers - the black one won’t even close anymore. I’ve been saving ideas, and look forward to sorting those scraps and putting together some quilt tops. So much to do and never enough time!

I’m in a bit of a hurry this morning - can you tell? - to get going to our last Quilts for Kids scrap workshop of the year. I think I’ll just be taking along my solid scraps and Accuquilt 2” square die and cutter to cut squares for future Zipper quilt kits. Today I’m turning in three finished quilts, 180 multi-colored string blocks for kits, 45 green string blocks for kits, and one completed Zipper Quilt Kit. And I’m going to resist all the sweets they always bring so that I don’t backtrack on my good recent weight loss (which I may or may not discuss at a later date, LOL). But for now, time to pack up the car! Have a great week. 

October Nights

I love October! It’s been a glorious week weather-wise with warm sunny days, clear blue skies and cool, crisp evenings. Today is cooler with a 90% chance of rain this afternoon (YAY!) and snow likely in the mountains. We are ready! The garden is all put to bed and we *could* consider all our yardwork done. We still do have to cover up the patio furnitures and Bruce will close down the sprinkler system and disconnect hoses. If we do get another nice half day in the next week, we’ll do some final clean-up behind the sheds and spread some mulch. 

I honestly can’t remember how this week sped by so quickly. We did make a trip to Costco, got our Covid boosters and flu shots, and as mentioned we worked in the yard. I had a lot of laundry this week and some fall cleaning. And I’ve been working to hire a permanent bi-weekly housekeeper. Can I get a hallelujah?!? Sandwiched in here and there between all that I got some sewing in. 

This week in the studio I focused on getting some light and bright green blocks sewn to round out a lot of my 2022 Rainbow Scrap Challenge block sets. 

Four Framed Four-patches that will finish at 8” …

The bright green patch in the block in the bottom left really bothers me, but I’m not going to change it. When these blocks are mixed in with all their colored friends, it won’t be so noticeable. 

Next I sewed together last week’s Little Bricks blocks (pattern courtesy of Sylvia at Treadlestitches). Here is the 42x48” flimsy (quilt top):

But then I realized I should sew a few more of these blocks in greens to add into a multi-colored version that I’ll continue working on for RSC23. Eight more Little Bricks Blocks. I loooove sewing them! I’ve got some chunks of green fabrics that I’ll fashion into a suitable backing next week. 

The mess of scraps in green, brown and purple have been officially sewn into a top that measures 38.5x46”.  I don’t know why it looks bowed in this picture. It is square. But I do have trouble reaching up so high to get it on the board. I think I’m shrinking! 

Next came the string blocks. I had to set aside my multi-colored string bin to work on the greens instead. I’ll pick up the multis again next week, but will probably only sew 2-3 sets of 15. That means I will not make my goal of 300 multi-colored string blocks by the end of the month, but oh well. Any that I do sew will be appreciated by Quilts for Kids and will help reduce the string pile! So, here are my green string blocks instead, 3 groups of 15 (6” finished).

Finally, the last blocks sewn were these 4” bowtie blocks. They’ll join the other colors and I’ll continue making these next year until I come up with a plan. 

That’s what I have to show for the past week. I’m linking up to Angela’s blog for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s Scrappy Saturday. 

Next week I’ll get back to sewing *some* multi-colored strings. I also have about 6 green elephant blocks to sew, plus the final Bear Paw blocks, crumb tumblers and a placemat to assemble. But my primary goal is to pin baste between 6-8 little quilts in preparation for a “Finishing Frenzy” in November (or sooner if I can get to it).  But first, exercise!!!

Have a great week!

Chasing Squirrels

It was another beautiful autumn week here in the Salt Lake Valley. The daytime temperatures were in the low 70’s and evening temps in the high forties/low fifties, and more of the same is forecast for the next ten days. It normally would be cooler and wetter, but these aren’t normal weather patterns anymore. Regardless, I’m not going to complain. The extended nice weather is helping us to button  up all the outside work before it gets cold.

This week we pulled everything out of the vegetable garden except the tomatoes. They’re still producing, slowly, so we’ll let them stay on the vine to grow until we get a frost warning. This morning our arborist is coming (he’s actually here now)  to prune trees and trim bushes as well as to cut back the grape arbor and the Concord grape vine and climbing roses along our back wall. The wall separates our lot from a commercial property that was a large furniture store. The furniture store was vacated and sold early last year, and after a year of zoning changes, public meetings and revised plans, the building will be demolished at the beginning of November. The property was changed to a medium-density housing site, and two-story townhomes will be built. That’s no higher than the furniture store was, and is much preferable to commercial or high-density housing (apartments). All of that info is just to say that while they’re tearing down the old building, I hope they tear out the dang cypress bushes on their side of the wall that are half dead!

Between all the yard things and the exciting January 6 Committee Hearing, I was antsy, or should I say “squirrelly”? Yes, I did do my 60 string blocks this week as planned. I’m keeping on track toward 300 string blocks by the end of the month. But everything else was much more fun…

Let’s get the strings out of the way first. Our Quilts for Kids chapter uses them in sets of 15 along with 15 blocks of a solid color, and fabric for two borders. They make kits with those components for members to sew into quilt tops. Here are my four sets of 15 blocks on the right. The left stack is the blocks made previously.

Here is Alfie, my supervisor, checking out my progress. Apparently, 180 six-inch string blocks stacked up on top of each other measure 6”. Satisfactory. Carry on.

The highlight of the sewing week was finishing the quilting, binding and labeling of the quilt top Circle of Stars donated to me for QFK by dear McGill U in South Carolina.

I absolutely adore the variety of colors. Can you see the circles that the eye perceives from the star points through the nine patches? Circle of Stars measures 63” square.

The quilting is merely serpentine stitching in a vertical line so as not to take away from the beautiful piecing. But it adds a lot of nice texture. And the backing! I love the beautiful two-toned blue floral.

This quilt will make some teenage young lady very happy! Thank you, McGill! 

So after McGill’s quilt was finished, and in breaks from stitching strings, I couldn’t seem to focus on my planned list of sewing tasks for the week. I was supposed to pin baste 4 quilt tops. Meh. Let the pile grow a little more (as if 17 tops weren’t enough). Or start on my green RSC string blocks. What?!? More strings?!? Not this week, thank you. So, maybe I’ll do my green Little Bricks block (pattern courtesy of Sylvia at Treadlestitches) for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. October is light and bright greens. 

I had a ton of green scraps and strips in 2 ½” widths. Long story short, I calculated that I could easily make a 42x48” top for Quilts for Kids with 56 blocks in green. I found a partial jelly roll of Kona Snow for the background and away I went! They were chain pieced in about 2-3 hours. So, here are the blocks, soon to be assembled into a quilt top.

And then another squirrel came scampering by. This squirrel was a little bag of purple, green and brown scraps in the form of quarter-square triangles and strips, plus about a half yard of green solid. There were enough triangles to make 10 blocks, but I’ll only use 9. The other block will go into the Orphanage. This is what the mess looks like now, pinned up on the design wall.

It still needs some additions and tweaking. I ran out of the solid green and may have to use some white or lavender to beef it up, especially lengthwise. The leafy fabric on the left, which I used as a backing on another quilt recently, is the last of that print and will be a perfect backing. Stay tuned for progress on this mess next week.

Time to go hit the showers! We have a family brunch later this morning - our DGD Lauren is down from college this weekend and we’re celebrating. 

Progress

It’s been a busy, on-the-go week. Last Saturday we drove up to Syracuse (Utah, not New York, LOL) to visit Bruce’s daughter Stacy, our grandkids, and Stacy’s fiancé Chad. They just bought a 6-bedroom home to house themselves and their combined six kids. It’s a lovely newish home and it was great to see everyone again and we had a fun time.

On Sunday, Cousin Kim and I sewed and did puzzles as we usually do. I had an accident with the rotary cutter and cut off part of the tip of my left index finger. Between Kim and Bruce and the first aid kit, they got it to stop bleeding after about 10 minutes so they could clean and bandage it. By the next day it was doing much better, but I kept the gauze and bandages on until we were done working in the yard (putting the vegetable garden to bed, except the tomatoes) on Monday. After that, I switched to 2 regular bandaids. I’m a fairly rapid healer, so by today it only hurts if I press it (duh, so don’t press it, Cathy)… but the funny thing is that the side of my fingernail is also cut off where the rotary blade did its deed! You can be assured I’ve been way more mindful using the rotary cutter since then!

Much of my sewing time this week was spent custom quilting Kim’s large Halloween quilt. First and last time I will ever custom quilt a quilt with so much black in it! Made my eyes wonky! When she gets it trimmed and bound, I’ll show a photo or two. 

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s October color of light and bright green, I did manage to get three green elephant blocks sewn. Three down, six more to go…

 

The elephant blocks finish at 10”, and the pattern is Stomping Ground by Wendy Sheppard. I’ve made three quilts from them already, and have two more to assemble with these blocks. That leaves just three more elephant quilts to assemble beyond those, with the remaining green ellies I’ll make this month and the miscellaneous-print ellies next month. I’ll be sure to do an Elephant Parade (or “trunk show”) when they’re done! 

I also finished the last two Antique Tile blocks in bright green.

Here they all are pinned up on the design board. The placement is not final.

I won’t sash the blocks, but will add a thin white stop border and a wider border of the multi-colored print on the right. This will go into the pile of quilts to assemble beginning next month. It’s one that I plan to keep for future gifting.

I also got half of the beautiful quilt top quilted that McGill U donated to Quilts for Kids. What a pleasure to quilt her beautiful work. I’ll show that all next week!!

And the last of this week’s sewing, a little bit every day alternating with the Halloween quilting, was the 60 string blocks that I’ve set as a weekly goal in October.  Four groups of 15 blocks. 

I can just hear you saying “string blocks are string blocks. How do we know these aren’t the same blocks you showed last week?”  So, I’ll show the 120 blocks together…

Are you happy now? LOL

On the sciatica front, I’ve been (mostly) released from physical therapy. I have one more follow-up session in November before we close it out. The exercises have really helped. They’re relatively easy and I enjoy doing them. And I will continue with them, adding more resistance with bands, etc. I’ve been getting around pain-free. Bruce and I even participated in a Cancer Walk with Weight Watchers (WW) around Wheeler Farm this week. Also, I’m intent on doing a 5K walk with WW and the Utah chapter of the American Cancer Society on Saturday, Oct. 22 in Salt Lake City. We’ll see how that goes!

I can’t close this post without showing some gratuitous pictures of our cute cats. First, Darla. I found her snuggled in Bruce’s side of the bed one morning when he didn’t pull up the quilt all the way.

She’s such a diva! And here’s Alfie, pictured with his paw reaching out to nudge me. He was demanding attention, naturally. 

Have a great week!