Finally - Some Sewing Time!

Oh my gosh, I have missed my time at the sewing machine! Not just a few random minutes here and there, but several hours of uninterrupted sewing, cutting, pressing, organizing scraps and planning. And it finally happened this week! It was so much fun; relaxing with music and no commitments over my head. I had two whole afternoons this week to sew, along with the usual sporadic bursts of time. 

First I sewed up all my green strings into 20 blocks of 6.5”, unfinished. I forgot to take a picture of them all laid out, but that’s OK. All through the year as I’ve been sewing string blocks, I’ve said I didn’t have plans yet for them. Finally, I just decided to once again - because I’ve done this in years past - safety pin them in batches of 15 for Quilts for Kids. They match them with fifteen other 6.5” fabric blocks, and put together kits with fabric for two borders. They’re actually fairly popular with some of our chapter members when they’re available. But I digress.

So, here they are with the other batches of 15 blocks per color that I matched up. I’ll donate them at our October QFK workshop. There are 120 blocks total, representing most of the string blocks made this year. Except the white/cream ones; they were left over from last year. For the other colors, I guess there weren’t enough to make a 15-block set.

Next I decided to organize my brown scraps. I cut lots of strips in 3” for a project I’m mulling over, as well as 2 ½” strips. I pulled out 2” strips for zipper blocks if they were long enough, but otherwise they went into my string pile. Take a look. The tomato pincushion is for scale.

Sewing brown string blocks will be my project for the coming week. That is, after I finish up the It’s a Jungle Out There top, which only needs two more seams.

The rest of the checkerboard blocks are sewn together and just need to be attached after another black horizontal strip. I just ran out of steam yesterday. But here they are, pinned up to the design board for this afternoon’s sewing session!

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Our neighbor Andy came over on Wednesday morning and painted our accent wall. It took us longer to tape it off than it did for him to paint it. It looks wonderful and is what I was aiming for. 

Anyway, the furniture is back in place and I’m on the hunt for wall things. I’ve pretty much decided to move in our big living room clock over the couch, but I still need a nice floor lamp and some plants. So the before and after pictures will wait until that’s done. Maybe I should stop sewing and start shopping, LOL. But I will show a couple little vignettes of the remodel.

Counter corner with charcuterie board and fruit bowl.

This dining area window with new shutters looks out onto the courtyard. The little table was gifted to me by my friend Maureen. One of the extra dining chairs resides here when not in use.

It was a relatively quiet week except for the wall painting and the housekeeper doing a deep post-remodel cleaning. Bruce even worked on the cabinet he’s assembling for the office nook in our bedroom and I cleaned and reorganized the garage of packing boxes and garden stuff. We’re getting ready for the coming cold months. 

I still have to get a plumber in here to move the stop-and-waste valve from the crawl space up to the main level. My car needs servicing this week, we have dentist appointments. But for fun, we’re taking a drive in the mountains (in a convertible!) to see the fall color and have a picnic with friends. Life is good!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Autumn Arrives, Thank Goodness

Here in the Salt Lake Valley, we’ve had a nice cooling down as autumn takes charge. Those miserable days of 100+ temperatures (Fahrenheit) are just a memory. The days now are pleasant and the evenings are coolish. We plan to get out in the courtyard to put away furniture, cover the barbecue, and pull the annuals. Also, the contractors have finished the kitchen remodel and are no longer using the garage as a staging area and/or workplace for painting or cutting things. So we’ll also take time today to reorganize the garage and find storage for the leftover materials like flooring and tile. And now that all my china and cookie jars are unpacked and displayed, we will knock down all the packing boxes to store some of them and recycle others. 

I’m not ready yet to show Before and After pictures of the remodel, because one accent wall has to be repainted. After all the paint samples I got and weeded down and fretted over, I ended up going way off base. The color is too light and has yellow undertones. Totally my fault. My friend Joan has a guest bedroom with the best sage green walls, so I picked up more paint samples, went to her house, and I was able to match the exact shade. Turns out it was Sherwin-Williams Sage. How it got eliminated before, I don’t know. Our neighbor Andy has volunteered to paint the wall for us - he enjoys painting and helping others. I’m going to swallow my pride and take him up on it. 

I need to get cortisone shots in my right shoulder again, which I regularly do about every 8-9 months. If I like how the accent wall turns out - and I know I will - I can paint the little entry wall in October with a decent shoulder. 

So, at least I have quilting/sewing things to post this weekend, unlike last week. I did attend a Quilts for Kids workshop last weekend and taught another volunteer how to piece string blocks. It was good to see old friends after our summer break! Now that the cooler weather is starting, I’m feeling a powerful (nesting?) urge to sew. This past week I was also able to make 4 batches of jam in two mornings: two raspberry, one peach (that didn’t set and is now “peach sauce”) and one raspberry-peach. 

Oops, I got off on a tangent there! So let’s check out the green scrap blocks I did this week. As a refresher, I’m focusing on browns and greens this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. We only had one green month in January of this year, and green is one of my biggest scrap colors. So, I’ve opted to do more green to complete needed blocks for this year’s planned RSC quilts. In October I’ll focus on black and gray. 

First I completed two more 12” (finished size) Scrappy Star blocks. One is light, one is bright. 

Here’s a photo of the two new green blocks matched up with their brethren from January, olive and dark.

I now have 19 out of 20 blocks complete. Next month I’ll do a final block in blacks/grays. 

Here are three more Color Sticks blocks. 

I’m working on green string blocks for next week, in hopes of making some discernable progress with green scraps. Oh, green! In my scraps, on my walls, in my eyes! I love green!! It’s also my brother’s favorite color!

My friend Nann sent me some batik Scraps (thanks, Nann!), and I’ve been busy this week sorting them into colors and sizes for cutting. I’m going to match them up with more of my African fabrics (both my own and those from my friend Wanda) to make another quilt for myself kinda-sorta like the It’s a Jungle Out There quilt (see 2 posts ago). There was no progress on that this week. But I do plan to make a concerted effort to work on it this week because it’s for my doctor who’s retiring and (see above) I need those cortisone shots. THAT will light a fire under my butt!

Couldn’t resist sharing this campaign sign I saw. Yeah, I’m a crazy cat lady and proud of it! Besides, the cat looks just like our Darla!!

My finger (rotary cutter accident) is mostly healed and doing well. Bruce is doing great, and life is good! See y’all next week or on YOUR blog! 

September to Remember?

This has already been an eventful September, one I’m sure will stay with me for the rest of my life. And we’re just hitting the first week mark! But I’m doggedly remaining cheerful (if not naive) as I work through this. Do you remember an old musical (and book) called “Stop the World - I Want to Get Off”? (1961). I was only a little kid when it came out and I never did see it, but the title has always stuck with me. It pops into my head now and then when the going gets rough. But I’ll share more about the ups and downs this week at the end of the post. That way, it’ll spare those of you who are just here for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks. 

September’s colors for the RSC are dark neutrals. I believe next month may (or may not) be the same, but regardless, I will be working on them for two months. There’s brown, black and gray scraps that are threatening to take over my sewing room. In addition, I need more time to work on my green scraps this year. Usually we devote 2 months each to the greens and the blues, but when we did greens in January, I was getting the old house ready to put on the market and did not do justice to my scraps. So, in September I hope to focus on brown and green, and then in October I’ll focus on black and gray. At least, that’s the plan. 

So here are the three blocks in brown that I sewed up *last* month, when I mistakenly started on the wrong color!

Two Color Sticks blocks (pattern by Cynthia Brunz)

And one Scrappy Star Block (courtesy Julie’s Quilts and Costumes)

All the blocks for the It’s a Jungle Out There quilt top are now sewn. I’m beginning to sew them together and will try again this week to finish the top. But this past week was a real sewing bust for me as I had an accident involving a rotary cutter.

Sometimes the plates we’re spinning or the balls we’re juggling just come crashing down and we have to rethink what and how much we are doing. It’s a recurring issue for me, taking on too much, getting overwhelmed, crashing and burning (figuratively speaking), then rinse and repeat. So, on Sunday, while Kim and Ruby and I were sewing and cutting fabric, listening to music, gabbing and laughing, I sliced the tip of my left index finger and fingernail off with a rotary cutter. Not paying enough attention. Being too much Tigger and not enough Owl. 

They took me to the Instacare where the doctor was able to get the finger to stop bleeding. Then it got cleaned and bandaged (nothing to sew back together as it was gone) and I was sent home. The fingertip will grow back. My self-confidence may not. It’s going to be a slow, deliberate process.

And then came The Intervention. Kim, Bruce and Ruby kindly lectured me to take on less responsibility, relax more, pay attention/be more mindful in the present. And they are right. I’ve given my notice to the HOA Board that I’ll not be running for an office in November. I will make more time to relax and do things I enjoy. I will no longer multi-task (talking on the phone while cooking, laughing and joking when I’m rotary cutting, daydreaming when I use my curling iron on my hair). Paying attention to what I’m doing. What a concept! 

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Only minor progress on the kitchen this week. The flooring (baseboard) trim was installed. The painting begins on Monday. The hood fan was never ordered from the manufacturer by the supplier we bought it from…they had a change of management and it fell through the cracks. But our general contractor got on it and they put a rush on it, so it should arrive and be installed sometime between Wednesday and Thursday of next week if all goes according to plan. This was the first real glitch in the process (well, other than Bruce and I getting Covid and having to postpone everything for a week). 

Bruce had two visits to the VA hospital this week - various clinics there - as part of the screening and exam process for getting benefits. Eventually. And he has two more next week - one at the VA, and one at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. I’m trying to get him to eat without being reminded and to eat high protein foods as his doctors have stressed. He’s getting better about it, because I told him I will not babysit his food intake. And he feels lousy when he doesn’t eat enough and/or properly. Cause and effect. Duh.

The kitties had to go to the vet yesterday, and since Bruce had his own doctor appointment, I had to take them myself. It was an epic battle. The cats managed to open the bathroom door (where I had them stashed while I got ready). I have no idea how they did it. Then I caught Alfie again and put him in their carrier in the back bedroom while I hunted (chased) Darla. When I got her and took her into the back bedroom, the carrier was empty and Alfie had busted out of the carrier, which was heavy duty plastic and made for two cats. There were eight locking clips that he managed to thwart! I found him hiding under a bookcase and eventually got them both into the carrier securely. Talk about Little Rascals! I couldn’t use the carrier handle to transport them, but rather had to pick the whole da** thing up by the bottom and wrestle it into the car. Smooth sailing from there. They got their exams and shots and clean bills of health. But we have to buy two new individual carriers. Oh, and change Alfalfa’s name to Houdini. 

Today I’m going to make a couple batches of raspberry and raspberry-peach freezer jam. My son Ryan and daughter-in-law Kim are coming over for dinner tonight. It’s a belated birthday celebration for her as she was in Italy last month for her birthday, and we had Covid. Should be fun! Then the rest of the weekend will be devoted to relaxing and sewing. Life is good, especially when you pay attention!

Ninety Percent

The kitchen is ninety percent finished! That’s a great number in a kitchen remodel when it includes running water! More about the remodel later in the post. But come to think of it, 90% a good number for our post-Covid recovery as well. We finally tested as negative a couple days ago, after two weeks of yuck. Bruce still has a lingering cough and I have a bit of congestion, and we are both working to build back our general stamina. But it’s good to feel good again!

Since I completed all my orange scrappy blocks for August in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I focused on sewing up some 16-patch blocks for the It’s a Jungle Out There quilt. But when I say “focused”, it was a pitiful showing, because it seems the universe conspired to keep me out of the sewing room for all but one afternoon this week. I was either still feeling yucky, or had an HOA budget meeting to attend (by phone as I was still contagious at that point), or the contractors were noisily doing their respective things. 

Anyway, here is the mess of blocks, pinned up on the design board. 

Rather than explain the layout I’m doing, I’ll show you a quick sketch of my plan. The panel with sashing and 48 blocks will make a quilt that’s approximately 60x76”, a good size for a lap quilt to be gifted.

Last week I had 20 blocks remaining to sew. This week I matched up fabrics and strip cut all the remaining pieces for those blocks. That took more time than the sewing!

But I did get four more blocks sewn and have four more in various stages. One good afternoon should see these finished! 

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This week was the Big Week that really saw the kitchen come together. So on Monday morning, the cabinet guys were back to attach the final upper cabinets on top of the quartz countertop for the appliance station. 

In the afternoon on Monday, the tile guys came and set the tile for the backsplash. Then on Tuesday, they grouted and cleaned them and installed the window ledge. Note that there is uninterrupted tile; no outlets. I’ll explain that momentarily.

On Wednesday, the electricians were here all day to install the light switches, install the under-the-cabinet LED light strips and plug-ins, and hang the pendant lights. The electrical plug-in strips are mounted behind the lights under the cabinets. In the area around the sink and stove, there are actually nine outlets that you can’t see! When they were done, this is what it looked like.

Please excuse all the cleaning supplies and other junk in these pictures. Cleaning things during a remodel is a constant process. 

We also ordered three flush-mount lights in this same style as the pendants to use in the entryway and down our L-shaped hall. That was a last-minute addition, but we’re considering them an additional project, not part of the kitchen/dining remodel.  They’ll take a week or two to get here.

There are also three electrical outlets on the island; one on each side closer to the working end of the island, and one at the other (seating) end of the island to plug in vacuums and the like.

Thursday was a three-ring circus. The window coverings company came by at 9:30 to give us a bid for the plantation shutters for the three big dining area windows, and a shade for the smaller window over the kitchen sink. The electrician also arrived to install one LED light that he’d broken the day before. Then the plumber arrived and the window people left. So, the electrician and the plumber worked side by side. The electrician finished up and left. The plumber installed the dishwasher, the garbage disposal, and the faucet. But the faucet wouldn’t stop leaking, so we opted for a new one. So the plumber went to the plumbing supply place to get a faucet. He texted me three pix and I picked the one I liked, and he headed back. Meanwhile, Lowe’s came by with the new refrigerator and stove and hauled out the old ones. 

The appliance guys installed the refrigerator to the plumber’s awaiting lines. But they couldn’t install the stove because the 220v plug wasn’t finished. So…. The electrician had to come back (Friday morning) to do that. 

So here’s what it looked like at that point. 

Running water! That’s what I’ve missed most in the kitchen during this remodel. The fan and vent hood still needs to be attached. That and the painting and window coverings are the ten percent we’re waiting on. The painting and hood will happen next week. 

On Friday, the six dining chairs and the coffee table were delivered, and we ate dinner in the new kitchen for the first time. 

The refrigerator sticks out too fat in my opinion, but I guess we’ll have to live with that. I had no idea what a behemoth it was! They had to take the doors off to get it in the house. There is still ample room, though, to walk by.

So, that was my week. When the remodel is totally complete after the shutter installation, I’ll do a separate post with before-and-after photos of the kitchen and dining/family room area. 

Have a great week!

When is a Summer Cold NOT a Summer Cold?

Answer: when it’s Covid-19. Seriously, Bruce and I have Covid. We naturally cancelled our usual Sunday gathering last weekend (that includes Cousin Kim and friend Ruby) because weren’t feeling well and didn’t want to pass on our “colds”. Ruby came by later on Sunday and dropped off (literally dropped off on our doorstep, then ran!) a couple Covid tests. We chuckled - until we used them and found out we were both positive. Oy! We’ve wracked our brains - such as they are  - to try to figure out where we were exposed, to no avail. 

And so began a week of missed friends, family, meetings and appointments. The painters were rescheduled and will come in two weeks to do the kitchen/family room painting after Labor Day instead of before the countertop installation. The countertops in the kitchen renovation were installed on Friday, and I’ll have photos later on in the post. Bruce had to reschedule appointments at the Veteran’s Administration, I missed HOA Board meetings and Weight Watchers, and we had to reschedule our appointment with the window treatment people. But we got in lots of naps, and the kitties loved having Mom and Dad around 24/7. Needy little buggers!

We’re still testing positive as of today, but we’re hopeful that we can begin with a clean bill of health by Monday. I’ll spare you the descriptions of misery and boredom, except to say that we never lost our sense of taste or smell. And while I didn’t even feel like sewing much, I did do some. We also watched a fair bit of TV (the DNC) and I read and played video games. 

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Here is the little bit of sewing that I got done over the course of a Verrrrry.Loooong.Weeeek. I had enough orange scraps to make eight 6.5” scrap blocks and one column (only partially shown) of strips to finish out my orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s August color.

So, for the last week of the month (what? how did that happen?), I’ll get to focus on my African and batik fabric blocks. I did get six of those sewn this week too. 

I’ve sewn 28 blocks of the 48 total I’ll need to surround the jungle animal print I’ve shown the last couple weeks. Maybe by next week I can start bringing the parts together into a top. On the other hand, the week after is good too, hehe. 

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And here are the progress shots of the kitchen with quartz countertops installed. The two installers knew we were sick, but didn’t care as long as we stayed away, which we did. It only took them a little over 2.5 hours to install everything. Here are the pix in no special order (because Blogger does as it da** pleases):

Above: The island. Electrical outlets still to be wired in. I’ll spend the next couple days (depending on my energy level) cleaning out the drawers and making a list of dividers (etc) to pick up at IKEA. It’ll be substantially cheaper that way rather than ordering from the cabinet makers!

The shelves and cabinets will have LED lighting strips added when the finish electrical work is done. 

Above: the cabinet guys will be back on Monday to install the beverage station/microwave cabinets on the wall above the counter here.

Yeah, it still looks pretty rough in here with the staining on the walls left over from where the old Formica backsplash was. Our new tiles will be installed next week! In the meantime, you can see the light veining in the quartz, and the double stainless undermount sink in place. 

A closeup of the island top. 

The seating will go around this end of the island. We’ll fit 4-5 comfortably and could probably squeeze in six if necessary. The six chairs (and refrigerator and stove) all get delivered next week. 

The paint will be white on the ceiling and a creamy white on the walls, except for the accent wall in the family room area, which will be Sherwin Williams Baize Green. To me, green is a neutral.  We’ll see how it all comes together. If I hate it, paint is easy to change! 

So, stay healthy my friends. This variation of Covid is highly contagious. They’re still working on the Fall 2024 vaccine, so hopefully this variant will be covered. 

Where’s the Tiger? And Kitchen Remodel Week of Waiting

Our kitchen remodel continues. We knew from the timeline given to us before the project started that this past week would be the one with little to nothing happening. The quartz countertop templates were made the previous week, and their construction is in process. Next week we’ll have painters here Monday through Thursday, and the countertops installed Friday. But this week they only installed the cabinet hardware and most of the crown molding. 

The new refrigerator will slide in here (above). We’ll meet with a designer next Wednesday to measure three of the four kitchen/dining area windows for shutters. The fourth window, a deep ledge for plants over the kitchen sink is a wait-and-see item for me. Depending how the winter sun behaves through this window when it’s low in the sky, I may eventually put a valance there. But for now, nothing. 

Obviously, the island doesn’t have the countertop yet, but it does have the hardware! These drawers will be handy for pots and pans, Tupperware and other things. It will be nice to have an abundance of storage!

The sink will go into the big hole in the above photo, and the pull-out drawer - adjacent to where the stove will be - houses two lower spice shelves and three containers to house bigger cooking utensils, like spatulas, wooden spoons, and the like. 

The bracing at this end of the island will support the rounded quartz countertop/table. We did go out furniture shopping again this week and bought six swivel counter-height chairs. They, along with a new coffee table for the family room, will be delivered on the 30th. We are well and truly closing in on an end-of-the-month finish!

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I enjoyed spending time this week sewing some orange string blocks in keeping with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s color of the month. I sewed 16 blocks at 6 ½” (unfinished size).

Next week I’ll be working on crumb blocks and a scrappy orange coin column. 

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And where did that pesky tiger on this jungle panel go? Hopefully, back to Asia where he belongs. But do you see his outlined ears peeking out? I thought it wouldn’t bother me, but it did. 

So, another little fabric patch will be added there. Here it’s just pinned in place, but it will work well. I used more Dean Russo fabric that I found in my stash that matched perfectly. It probably came from the same fabric line.

It was my friend Wanda who mentioned “ghost block”, which perfectly articulated the patch idea I was mulling over. And with that help, I did actually sew patches in checkerboard fashion, and then added and subtracted a bit here and there. It was a fun exercise in camouflage. 

Other than that, not much else is new. Bruce had a cold this week that I think he passed it to me. Ugh, summer colds. But it’s not serious, of course, although we felt it best to stay away from the swimming pool this week. Summer is waning, and I’m ready. How about you?

Waning Chaos - Kitchen Remodel Week Three

This week saw significant progress in our kitchen remodel project, and I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s weekly party during Orange August. 

Last week I did do a blog post (see Chamber of Chaos Week Two, here), but I didn’t link up to the RSC because all my sewing was the wrong color! But this week I corrected all that. In addition to the remodeling progress, I got some quality sewing time in, and I have so much to share. I had another migraine mid-week, and I’m beginning to wonder if it might be related to the dust and noise (in addition to or instead of the stress) of the remodel. Time and my MRI on Monday will tell…

Where to start? Let’s see… how about I share my orange sewing first. I started with three Color Sticks blocks, 9.5” unfinished size.

They’re so fun and easy! Next up were five windmill blocks, 8.5” each:

My black and white scraps had nearly outgrown their drawer, so I’ve been using them as the background fabric for the windmills. I’ll need to use them again next year with another block style to keep them under control. 

I also sewed two of Julie’s 16-patch stars. I love these blocks!

My new project this week was starting blocks for a quilt that I plan to make and give to my doctor. He’s been my primary care physician since 1983, when I moved to Utah 41 years ago. I’ve been dreading the day when he retired, but as he’s five years older than me, I knew it was coming soon. Over the years Dr, Vogeler delivered my daughter Megan, and we’ve talked often about Africa (he’s been there 6 times; me - only once) and gardening. To him I am “Cath” and to me he is “Doug”. So, I decided to make him an African-inspired quilt containing African fabrics. 

So I channeled my Inner Wanda (Hansen) and began sewing 16-patch checkerboard blocks using African fabrics and batiks. After sewing a dozen or so, I remembered an African-themed fabric panel I had, so I decided to include that. Here is a rough idea of what I’ve got so far.

Does anyone see the problem? No, it’s not the size of the panel (the artist is Dean Russo and this “It’s a Jungle Out There” panel is a collage of some of his creature paintings) or the creative piecing I’ll have to do to eventually finish this top in an eventual 60x72”-ish size. It’s this: there is a tiger among the animals, and there are no tigers in Africa. Why didn’t I notice that before I bought the panel about 4 years ago? Dang! Why did they do that?!? Why didn’t they put a cheetah or gorilla there, both of which he’s painted? I’m so frustrated! Maybe I can piece something over it. Or …??  Any ideas? 

Aaaanyway, I’m going to continue to work on this. I may have some fabric that works with this line that I can use to make some changes (she said, not really believing it even as she typed it…).

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So, on Wednesday, our new maple kitchen cabinets were delivered. Here they are, boxed up.

On Thursday morning bright and early, the cabinet crew arrived and began installation. The following pictures are from the end of the day. The installers will be back on Tuesday to add the door handles/drawer pulls and mount the crown molding. There are no countertops yet, although on Friday the templates were made by the counter people.

Below: this is where the stove and fan/hood will go. Remember that our stovetop was cracked when the demolition crew dropped an old cabinet on it? The replacement part was ordered, but then cancelled when they realized it would cost nearly a thousand dollars just to install it. So instead we were given a credit of $1000 to buy a new range. So we purchased a new range and refrigerator this week. They’ll both be delivered on August 29, a day before the appliance installers will come to button everything up. 

Alfie and Darla are busy inspecting the cabinets. 

Once everything is painted and the remodel is complete, we’ll have new shutters installed in all the kitchen/family room windows except the one over the sink. That has a deep window ledge and a good outside eave overhang, and my plants will look great and thrive there. 

The picture above shows where the refrigerator will go, and the dishwasher next to it on the left. 

Above: Once the countertops are installed, the upper cabinets (coffee/appliance station) will be installed in that blank wall space. For now, they’re still boxed up and sitting next to the crated new dishwasher in the dining/family room area.

The photo below shows the pantry wall. I decided that two shelves looked better than three crowded shelves. My cookie jar collection - at least some of it - will be displayed there. 

And that’s it for this week’s tour. The only thing happening next week will be the above-mentioned cabinet hardware and molding installation. But that will give us time to rest and recover and clean up all the dust that is EVERYWHERE.

Have a good week, friends!