One Monthly Goal for May

OMG! I almost forgot to name my OMG - One Monthly Goal - for May! Many thanks to Patty at Elm Street Quilts who hosts this monthly challenge to keep us focused on our goals and the finish line.  :-).  I’m going to link up to her goal-setting post and get my stitching game on (since it’s one of the only games in town, LOL).

I’ve been participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for years, and I love when I’ve been through all the colors and can finally finish up a quilt from blocks that have been sewn in all the colors. I started making Garlic Knots (more traditionally called Arrowhead Puzzle blocks) early in 2019. Last month, I got impatient and needed some regular (read: mindless) sewing between other projects, so I finished up the red and yellow blocks, which were the only colors remaining. 

So now, my goal for May is to get these blocks sewn into a quilt top (flimsy) and then basted, quilted and bound. In other words, I want to totally finish this quilt and tick it off my UFO list in May. 

These are just some of the 8.5-inch (unfinished size) blocks, but I have more than enough now to make a quilt with 80 blocks, with 3 left over. It should finish at about 64x80”.  I look forward to playing with these blocks to determine the color layout and pattern I want to do.

I hope you’re staying safe and healthy, and that the weather in your little corner of the world is behaving itself.

We Miss You, Paula!

Welcome to the Quilted Legacy Blog Hop, where we are honoring a friend who would have been 79 years old today. Paula Budinger was a prolific quilter and a personal friend to so many of us with whom she crossed paths over the last several years.

I first met Paula on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge linkups about 4 years ago. Over the months, as we wrote back and forth oohing and aaaahing over each other’s blocks and quilts, a friendship formed. We exchanged telephone numbers and tried to talk and gab about our quilts and our families about once every couple months. She became ill last fall and after a hospital stay was released into a rehab hospital. On February 8 of this year, Paula passed. So here we are this week, many of her friends gathering together to remember this remarkable woman. You can see some of her quilts at her blogs. From 2013 to 2018 (approximately), she blogged at Blogger HERE. After that she switched to Wordpress HERE.

Before we get to the quilts, I wanted to let you know that there will be prize drawings for following along on this blog hop! At the end of the post, you’ll see the links to all the participating blogs AND a list of the prizes. All you need to do is enter a comment whenever you visit a participating blog. How many you visit is up to you, but you’ll get one entry for every comment you make. I’ll talk more about this again below.

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A quilt that Paula made in March of 2018 is what inspired me to make this quilt (which turned into these quilts) in her honor. Paula belonged to a local quilt guild (she lived in Wisconsin) that supported the Project Linus charity. Making simple kids quilts from bright and lively fabrics was one of her joys. So, I channeled my inner Paula and decided that giraffes, yellow and green colors, and a simple layout would be the way to go.  

Giraffes #1

This is just a simple quilt. The focus fabric was some cute giraffes, and the yellow and golds, green and white of the print dictated the color scheme.  Because of the personal health issues in my immediate family (unrelated to Covid-19, which is also a major stressor), I chose to do very simple piecing - Happy Blocks and variations thereof.  I know Paula would have approved!

The white printed background fabric is also giraffes. It was a smallish piece, and I used it all to frame the alternate blocks. The gold strips were leftovers in my stash, and the giraffe fabric was added as a wider border on the top and bottom to give the quilt some length.  It finished at about 40x50”. It’s partially pinned and partially hanging from my design board, so please excuse the wonkiness.

The quilting was just a simple loop design. I used more of the giraffe fabric on the backing and binding in hopes of using it up!  This will be a donation quilt for Quilts for Kids.

Another closeup. It really is cuter and much more vibrant in person than my camera (aka my iPhone XR) can capture. 

But wait, there’s more! Here is Giraffes #2. The giraffe fabric was still going and going..... so I cut the remaining fabric into 20 more squares and pieced a second quilt because why not?

Now these quilts aren’t exactly Lookers, if you know what I mean. They aren’t meant to be. They’re cute-ish, simple and very soft and cozy. Perfect comfort quilts for some child who loves giraffes. And so that’s why you’ll see all sorts of scrappy strips and bits as I did my best to extend the remaining greens and matching golds and yellows into a workable size.

I made a mistake and tried quilting some fans on this quilt, starting at the bottom. It quickly became obvious that this was a missssssnake of epic proportions. I switched to doing echoing scallops that looked absolutely terrible on the front.  After a hissy fit and crying jag, I pulled up my big girl panties and unpicked all but a couple rows of the scallops. Then I finished with just a basic horizontal serpentine stitch with my walking foot.  I’m only showing you this hideous quilting so we can come back to this post in a few years when I’m a world-renown fan quilter and we can laugh together hysterically (without masks on). 

And finally, the two finished quilts, ready for their labels.

So, that’s my stop on the Blog Hop. But there is a lot more quilty goodness that’s been created to share with you today and for the next couple days. Here’s a list of the quilters participating with links to their blogs.

Wednesday, May 6

Karen @ KaHolly
Kate @ Smiles From Kate

Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of my Quilting Life
Bernie @ Needle and Foot

Linda @ My Sew-Called Quilts
Cathy @ Crazy By Design

Sue @ From the Magpie’s Nest

Thursday, May 7

Kate @ Smiles From Kate
Diann @ Little Penguin Quilts
Rose @ Something Rose Made
Nann @ With Strings Attached
Mari @ The Academic Quilter
Louise @ My Quilt Odyssey
Susan @ Desert Sky Quilts

Friday, May 8

Janice @ Color, Creating and Quilting
Kate @ Smiles From Kate
Joy @ The Joyful Quilter
Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
Edi @ Edi’s Crafting Life
Carol @ Quilt Schmilt
Preeti @ Sew Preeti Qilts
Emily @ The Darling Dogwood

And now for a list of the great prizes. Thank you to all these ladies for their generous donations. And a double thank-you to Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts, who allowed us to use her design for the blog hop button. 

Lorna, Sew Fresh Quilts, $50 gift certificate for her pattern shop.

Yvonne Quilting Jetgirl, 2 PDF patterns of choice.

Bernie Needle and Foot, $25 certificate for her shop.

A fat quarter bundle from Figo Fabrics

A set of quilty gift cards from Initial Thought by DMF  Note cards set 1

A pattern of choice from Karen, Sugar Free Quilts

A $30 gift certificate for Doris, Cactus Queen Quilt Co

A PDF pattern of choice from Joanne, www.etsy.com/shop/CanuckQuilterDesigns

$25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop (donated by Janice Holton)

HERE IS HOW THE PRIZE DRAWINGS WILL WORK:  You will get one entry per comment per blog visited. The more you visit and comment, the more entries you will have. The comments will be open until May 15, at which time our Blog Hop hostess, Janice Holton, will tally up the entries and use a Random Number Generator to determine the winners. They will be announced on her blog and on all of ours, too, so be sure to check back. Oh, and make sure that your comment contains a way for us to contact you. If it doesn’t link back to your blog or an email, please be sure to leave it in your comment. 

Good luck! And thanks for stopping by!

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Finally, a special thank you to Janice Holton for putting together this blog hop. You can visit Janice here:

Blog:  Color Creating and Quilting

Etsy Shop:   That's So Janice

Welcome May!

Believe it or not, after all the trauma of April (and March, come to think of it), we are doing well here in our little corner of the world. Thank you to everyone who has so kindly sent messages of encouragement, support and friendship. We have been overwhelmed with messages of support in every form imaginable (even edible, LOL) and are are truly humbled and grateful.

Bruce is doing really well, and this is only a few days post-surgery. There is still wound care to deal with, and he says there is pain at the site where the right arm was amputated. He sometimes feels as though the arm is still there, although there is no phantom pain (which may mean there is no phantom pain YET). We’ll take it one week at a time. He returns to the surgeon in the coming week and for every week this month. Interspersed with that will be visits to the prosthetist to begin the preparation for an eventual artificial limb later this spring. Bruce’s sense of humor is intact, and life is continuing as normally as possible during this pandemic. We have no illusions that it will be 100% smooth sailing, but we certainly couldn’t have hoped for a better start to this new phase of life. We are counting our blessings.

Last Thursday, Hill Air Force Base did a state-wide flyover of four F-35A (Lightening 2) jets to honor the medical professionals and other front-line Covid-19 responders.  They were in our area about 1-ish in the afternoon, and many people in the neighborhood (including us) were out with chairs and cameras to take pictures and cheer. This isn’t the best picture, but it’s cropped from a larger one. It was nice to see and talk to neighbors - from a distance, naturally.

Spring has arrived, and the warm weather has meant that we can both enjoy sitting out on the patio, drinking our coffee (or whatever) and enjoying the fresh air, birds, garden. I’ve begun the arduous task of spring garden clean-up, but the sprinkler system is going, the patio is cleaned off and set up, and family is coming over (adults who will maintain 6’ social distancing) this weekend to help us in the vegetable garden. We will get it roto-tilled (we have a tiny one for raised beds), and then with Bruce supervising and directing, the drip irrigation will be set up. If we have time, we’ll plant the veggies. If not, I can do that on my own during the week.

The new May color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is dark greens. We did light and bright greens in January. I could do some dark greens strip blocks, but I’m not much  in the mood for dark anything. I was hoping we would have a refreshing, fun color to work on like Yellow! Or Pink! *sigh*  So I may work on my yellows or pinks anyway instead. Or in addition. I have enough of those colors to spread out over more than one month, and it will be cheerier than working on just green again so soon. And/or I may just work on finishing my previous RSC projects that are waiting in line. As you can see, I’m really decisive and focused... not.

Some sewing did get done this week. After I finished all my April light blue RSC blocks, I decided it was high time to use up the remnant chunks of the light blue impressionistic floral fabric I’ve used for 2 quilt backs. Since I was only up for mindless sewing, I decided to do 10” (finished size) Happy Blocks. The blocks will need to be sewn together, then this can be quilted and donated to Quilts for Kids.

And I’m not exaggerating when I said I was only up for mindless sewing. Over the last 2-3 weeks I’ve managed to make 2 other quilt tops for an upcoming (next week) blog hop I’m participating in. Both of those little quilts are Happy Blocks too. Simple and virtually brainless work (unless someone cuts strips in the wrong size. *cough*) One quilt is done. The other one is totally messed up. I tried a new quilting pattern (a simple Baptist fan variation that my friend Louise calls Unitarian fans). Mine turned out to be Satanic fans. After the first row, I decided to switch to simple inverted scallops. I was trying to channel my inner Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Or simple sunsets. La dee dah...The more I quilted, the worse they looked. Think nausea on heat-wavy pavement. It is truly worse than the very first quilt I ever free-motioned quilted (and I am NOT kidding). I gave up. Now I have half a quilt to unpick, but that will have to wait until my eyes unwonkify. That’s the technical term for what happens when your eyes unhook from your brain and go rogue; two of everything.

Alfie and Darla have been upset that I haven’t posted any pictures of them lately. I don’t want to displease the furry overlords, so here is a picture of them regally posed at the front door last evening. The birds were outdoors flying around paying their respects. Or maybe they were just taunting them, I can’t be sure.

The Other Shoe Drops

I finally quilted and bound my On Ringo Lake quilt. It’s a simplified version as I used a good number of the pieces for On Ringo Pond, which I finished last month. This one will be a personal quilt for cuddling, as I like them not too big and heavy.

The final measurements were 54.5 x 64”, and I quilted it in a simple stipple. There are a lot of piecing 

“missssssnakes”, but I really don’t care. I’m just not focused enough to piece together hundreds of little bitty pieces going this way and that.  

I would’ve preferred to have a nice border on it, but I used all the border pieces on the first Ringo quilt, so this is what it is.

The colors are yummy, though, as I switched out the browns for grays. And about 95% of the orange fabrics are from Tula Pink’s Salt Water line. I used this same fabric line in blues for Salt Water Wedding back in 2014.

The backing was a piece that I picked up a few years ago from Connecting Threads.

So, it’s all washed and fluffy and crinkly (just like me!) and I’ll use it as my new lap quilt. I like to rotate them. Do you do that? 

My Bernina had to have the foot pedal cord replaced, but it was only in the shop for a couple days, so that was nice. While I was there to pick it up, I got all the supplies for the 2 Blocks of the Month I’d missed due to sheltering in place. We’re still practicing that, of course, but I did go out and visit the store curbside, with mask.  Anyway, here are the two blocks. The first one is a bit odd because, uh... I messed it up royally. But in my defense, they didn’t give us the right amount of fabric to cut the necessary pieces, so I had to improvise. 

And these are the mostly same blocks I’m making with a busy US State-themed background. I give myself permission to skip uncooperative blocks (I’m looking at you, purples) or substitute others. So, I only did the 4-patch economy squares. And yes, I agree that that pink pinwheel in amongst the flying geese is hideous. That will be getting switched out before I sew the blocks into a flimsy.  It will be a small donation quilt when done.

And here is my Rainbow Scrap roundup for April.  Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog.

Yield: 1 Scraptastic Star, 9 Split Nine patches, 17 selvage hexies, 9 Twin Sisters blocks and 16 string blocks.  That’s 52 (smallish) blocks; a light month.   

If I have any more quilt finishes before month-end, I’ll catch those on the next post.

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Just when we think life can’t get any more complicated... OK, fill in the blank. Here are your choices:

(A) Donald Trump becomes President 

(B) You lose your job

(C) You catch Covid-19  

(D) You have to have your arm amputated 

The answer is not (A) because DT is already a bloated windbag President (my blog, my opinion). And it’s not (B) because we’re retired, so jobs are not a worry for us. We do, however, worry about our kids and friends and neighbors. And it’s not (C), because we’re all healthy here (got tested this week). So, if you said (D), the arm amputation, you would be correct. Unfortunately.

Bruce had an appointment last Tuesday with a radiologist to discuss the possibility of using radiation to kill the remaining cancer cells in his right (dominant) arm. Long story short, the doctor discovered another tumor had popped up seemingly overnight on his forearm. It’s about the size of a large pimple, but truly it wasn’t there a week ago. Anyway, we (I was requested to join the consultation) were sent back to his original orthopedic oncologist (Joan D. Miles - we love her!) and the consensus was that now is the time to stop playing whack-a-mole with the cancer. And we certainly don’t want it to metastasize to his lungs. So, Dr. Miles and Bruce decided that amputation was the next step. Like NOW. Well, technically, it’s on Monday the 27th. I raised a feeble suggestion of waiting until after Bruce’s birthday on May 3, but they just looked at me like I was an alien (I get that a lot).  

Bruce's first thought was that this provides a lot of new humor possibilities. And we were surprised at how great the grandkids think it’s going to be that Grandpa will have a robotic arm (eventually). They already thought he was cool before because he calls Brussels sprouts “turtle heads”, but the RoboGramp thing just thrust him into superstardom in their eyes. 

We, of course, know that the reality will hit pretty hard. As much as we’ve tried to prepare for this, knowing for years it was an eventuality, there is going to be a difficult adjustment period. The prosthetist told Bruce he will mourn his arm like a lost loved one. But, it’s time. We are ready. And best of all, we have each other and loving family and friends. Oh, and we don’t have Covid-19, so there’s that. 

Finally, I don’t know what my blogging schedule will be like for the next few weeks. It may continue as normal, or I may go dark for awhile. Heck, for all I know I could be shoving Bruce out of my way so HE doesn’t take over my blog. It could happen. Thanks for all your past and ongoing good wishes. Your kind messages mean the world to us. Stay safe. We’ll “see” you soon! 

Just Another Day in Paradise

... if by “Paradise” you mean being quarantined in your home for the start of the second month of a pandemic while your husband recovers from major surgery, one daughter files for divorce and another daughter loses her canine rescue furkid to pneumonia/sepsis; then, yeah, we’re having a Grand Old Time here at Chez Kizerian. Oh, and did I mention that we had another 4.2 earthquake this week?

The truth is, you feel better after shedding enough tears. At least I do. And even in the best of times, the road of life is bumpy and littered with land mines. Life in the year 2020 has been a white knuckle ride for most of us. But I’m seriously trying hard to let go of the negative stuff and hold tight (no white knuckles) to the good stuff. Bruce is getting better, every family member is healthy. Our pantry is full (restocked today). And no one at the grocery store died today, not even the guy who got perturbed at me because I wouldn’t let him go past me against the directional arrows in the aisle. He blustered, “You mean I have to go all the way around!?!”  I just smiled behind my mask and pointed to the arrows, but was thinking “Call the waambulance, you entitled jerk!”

But enough of this already!  Let’s check out what’s going on at the Scrappy Saturday linkup today, where the only blues being shared are of the light blue scrappy fabric kind. This week my sewing consisted of these 16 strip blocks measuring 6.5” each, unfinished. 

That finished up all my RSC light blue sewing for this month. As it stands now, I think I’ll just save the little crumbs and leftovers for the next time we do blue (dark values) and combine them all into a crumb-pieced blue scrap basket. 

But, Nine-Patch Madness, or 9PM as I like to call it, is a finish! This was my April OMG One Monthly Goal), and I’m linking up to the goal finish blog post at Elm Street Quilts. 

Oh how I love this quilt! It measured 60x72” before I laundered it, but may have shrunk a bit in the process of getting all those yummy Quilty crinkles! The quilting was just simple loops. 

The binding was a perfect half yard piece of this purple check that matched nicely with the sheet used for the backing. 

Oops! Underneath you can see a sneak peek of another project I’m working on, to be revealed in early May. But I’m already on to the next project, which will be quilting up On Ringo Lake this week. Unfortunately, the cord to the foot pedal on my Bernina (Bernadette) has a short in it and I’ve ordered a new one. I don’t know how long it will take to come in to the dealer, but they need the actual foot pedal so they can attach the cord. So, I’ll  be sewing via the start/stop button, which I hate, but it’s do-able. I just don’t know how it works with free-motion quilting, but I’m about to find out. If it doesn’t go well, I can switch to my back-up Brother machine (Bob) and quilt with a serpentine stitch. 

Let’s wind up this post on a positive note - a little story I forgot to share last week. On Monday morning, April 6, I was talking on the phone to Cousin Kim when three cars turned the corner of the street in front of our house and drove slowly by, honking their horns and waving. The cars were all decorated, but I couldn’t read the signs. So I went out on the porch (phone in hand so Kim could hear all the racket). Then slowly, one by one, more cars turned the corner and followed along in procession. Turns out that it was the faculty and staff (and families), each in their own vehicle, of the local elementary school. They organized a parade route along the streets within the school boundaries and let all the kids’ families know to watch for the parade. The vehicle windows were rolled down and the occupants were waving, shouting “we love you,” to the kids and honking and blowing kisses. The signs said all sorts of things like “Your teachers miss you” “Longmont Rules!” And “Stay Safe, Stay Home”. The cars just kept on coming, decorated with balloons, streamers, signs, flags, stuffed animals. Kids quarantined at home stood out on their lawns, waving back to their teachers and favorite faculty members. It lasted about 8-10 minutes on our street alone, with at least 30 cars in procession. The kids I saw were so excited! Heck, so were the rest of us who don’t even have kids in school. It was just such a fun and thoughtful thing to do. I’ve seen on Google that these teacher parades have happened here and there throughout the country this month. I love how people are striving to stay connected! 

I’d love to hear any anecdotes you may have heard about or experienced during this time of sheltering in place! Have a good week, friends. Stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands!

First Year of April

Is it May yet? OK, ok, I know it’s only the eleventy-hundredth day of April. Bruce asked me what day it was this morning, and I told him it was Sssssssaaaaaaatttttttuuuuuurrrrrrdddddaaaaaayyyyy. And then I realized that meant it was Scrappy Saturday and I’d better get my rear in gear with a blogpost.

Would you like to hear about my ma*k-making this week? Just kidding. Although that comprised most of my sewing this week, I don’t want to share it any more than you want to read it. Suffice it to say that it’s been going on, and the end is in sight. After the current dozen is finished, I retire.

Nine-Patch Madness is a finished flimsy. And I want to thank Jennifer Caplinger (Life’s Little Adventures) again for her inspired pattern for these blocks. I could drool over her basic and beautiful quilts all day. But if I did, someone would probably lock me up.  So you’ll have to check them out and be inspired yourself.

9PMadness joins Harambe Sisters 2 and On Ringo Lake in the To-be-Basted pile.  I’m going to try to get to those this week, “try” being the operative word.  And speaking of basting, what are you having for Easter dinner? We’re in a quandary here. Should we have the traditional ham or the traditional spaghetti?

Bruce is home from the hospital, after a week-long stay. After all the running around in the cootie-filled world to get his prescriptions, 4-point cane (needed for walking because of the huge groin-to-knee incision they made to harvest a donor vein), another trip back to the surgeon’s office at the hospital because he had a fever (slight infection, not the virus thank heavens), and a trip to the grocery store, we are home to stay. And at the grocery store, some idiot man in front of me in the line was blathering to the cashier about how he just couldn’t stand to wear a mask. You’ll be glad to know I let him live.

Anyway, let’s talk sewing some more, shall we? Here are my 9 Twin Sisters blocks for April.

And nine Split 9 blocks.

And a Scraptastic Star...

This is what my four Scraptastic Star blocks look like together. Four blocks down, five to go. Pretend they’re pressed nicely.

Finally, since I want to finish up an old Rainbow Scrap project, Garlic Knots (more traditionally known as Arrowhead Puzzle), I sewed up the two remaining colors that I needed. Here are six red ones ...

And seven yellow/gold ones

I only needed 10 more blocks, but sewing 13 will give me a little fiddle room to weed out another color if it’s too dominant when I begin arranging them next year month in May.

That’s it from the looney bin here at Chez Kizerian.

Attitude is Everything

My friend Terri keeps reminding me of what her grandmother used to say:

This has come to pass, not to stay.

I love Terri! Those words are helping me keep my attitude positive during these trying times. You know, these “fun" times when we’re all quarantined to avoid a killer pandemic while our husband is hospitalized from a major cancer surgery and we can’t visit.

But Bruce is doing very well and will be coming home on Monday. The surgery was 8 hours long and the three surgeons took veins from his left leg to transplant to his right forearm where they removed two cancerous nodules and an artery. He has good blood flow in his hand, no blood clots (they’ve monitored him closely) and a top-flight medical team. The floor he is on is dedicated to post-op recoveries; no Covid-19 patients or staff. We talk twice daily by video chat, and he is back to his silly, wise-cracking self. I miss him and so do the cats. Alfie lays in Bruce’s recliner regularly, keeping it warm for him. And both he and Darla sleep with me at night to cuddle and protect me.

But let’s talk about sewing! There was some of that going on this week, although (understandably, given the above), not as much as usual. I posted a couple finishes mid-week. Since then, Angela at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge posted our April color, light blue. Too close to March’s aqua for my personal preference, but I can do this! We’re used to the days running on and on in sameness, so this actually fits right in! We all have those scraps that need to be sewn, so let’s buckle down and get to it!

I did whip my way through all my light and bright blue selvages and tamed them into a lot of half hexagons. There are about 16-18 of them, plus one long strip of leftover bits. I’ll count them before month-end.

The rest of the scraps have been sorted and I’ve got a nice big pile of light blue strips to make blocks out of. The Twin Sisters blocks have been cut (no picture) as well as lots of 2.5” squares for my Scraptastic Star and Split 9 blocks. There probably aren’t enough leftovers to make a Creature (single color) quilt, but I have a plan. Stay tuned.

I’ve been sewing ma*ks (who hasn’t? yawn...). They're for my daughter-in-law. She’s a physical therapist, and their office has run out of masks. This is just a few of those I’ve sewn.  There are more with elastic and a bunch with ties. She is doing a drive-by visit today to pick up a couple dozen.

On the design board are the 9-Patch Madness blocks. I’ve tweaked the arrangement a bit since this picture and will begin sewing these into a flimsy today. These bright, bold colors make me so happy! And I can’t wait to see what others are sewing over at Scrappy Saturday.

Well, I’ll keep this post short. I have a busy social calendar today. First I plan to play in the sand, then head to the local water park (scoop the kitty litter box and take a shower). Then I’m going to visit the local wildlife refuge (fill the bird feeders). Next I’ll be visiting friends from all over the US and the world (via their blogs), time travel to solve a murder mystery (read in my current book). When I get back from that, I’ll probably go tinker with my favorite machinery (sewing machine) before heading out to an exotic restaurant for dinner (leftovers in the refrigerator). I’ll cap the day by cuddling with the remaining wildlife (Alfalfa and Darla) in front of a roaring campfire (the fireplace).

Try not to be jealous.