Back on track with my self imposed schedule

 I have mentioned it before but I really function best on a schedule for myself and am thankful to Stephanie for explaining her method to me - it works and I love it.  First week of the month is binding and organizing projects and themes I want to work with for the next 3 weeks. 

For some crazy reason, the first 5 months of 2025 have not felt good with my quilting activities but am now caught up and back in the groove.  I have lots to share with you... where to start? 

June was "Aunt Gracie" month and hopefully you know what those fabrics are?  I had a container full of mine and then collected more from our legacy fabrics that were on tables at two different guild meetings.  I couldn't help myself from grabbing more because, they were colour coordinated!!  The quilter who died obviously loved creating order in her fabrics the same way I do.  So, I had 3 containers of these fabrics.  I am still working with them and have cut fabrics to take to Saturday sew ins with modern guild. 

My containers of fabrics.  I cut some into 10" squares and since there was a stack of 5" squares, I decided to cut more.  So many ideas of what I could make but where to start?  My first thought was to make preemie quilts for the local NICU and they like them 30" x 36" so are easy to make, simple to quilt and quick giving a nice feeling of accomplishment.  

I also needed to make "Gator", the pattern of the month by Villa Rosa/Running Doe so cut some of the rectangles I needed for that project.  

I played around with split 9 patch with my 5" squares.  

I also decided that if I cut some strips, I could make L blocks which are mindless stitching.  

4 Patches seemed like a simple and easy pattern to make.  

 

For the split 9 patches, I laid out my neutrals first and then added in the other 5" squares to complete the block.  I did not fuss or take a lot of time... literally took the squares as they came from the container. 

Gator got pieced which was a very simple pattern and fun to make. 

I then decided on some happy blocks for the charm squares that were multiplying in my container.  

These were the split 9 patches and I made two quilts that are slightly larger than preemie size but our guild donates to a variety of places that have children in need of a quilted hug. 

And look!!  down to 2 containers.  One has fat quarters or smaller pieces and the other has larger pieces of fabric.  So neat and tidy!  

Three of the preemies are finished and two of the split 9 patch are waiting for the quilting and binding to be done (end of July in quilting week).  

The traditional guild I belong to has asked for fabric bowls to be donated and will be used for a fund raiser at an event that they will have a booth set up for promoting the guild.  I cut out a large number of them using my GO cutter and also used up a lot of my vegetable and food themed fabrics.  My Wednesday group took one each to use as inspiration if they wanted to cut some of their own and stitched the ones I handed out.  I finished the rest and they are off to the sale table. 
 

We had a dear quilting friend lose her fight with cancer and a friend of hers is slowly emptying her sewing room.  A few of us offered to help out and our Wednesday group has been going through the fabrics and projects as they come to us.  We are each taking a few to finish up in her memory.  These were maple leaf blocks with the red fused to fusible backing and I cut them out and added them to some backgrounds and have already used two in a Quilt of Valour. Thank you Ingrid. 

Jumping back to the Aunt Gracie's... these are the happy blocks I am making and starting with 10" square and slicing off two 2.5" strips and from the remaining, 2.5 strips in the other direction leaving a 5" square.  I cut two at the same time and mix up the centers.  More simple and easy stitching.  

This is another of Ingrid's quilt tops that were in a set of blocks and a Wednesday Diva put the them together and handed to me for quilting along with backing, batting and binding.  Another project for the last week of July. 

Onto June's finished projects.  I worked daily with my B-line home quilting system to get the tops on hangers quilted and finished, ready for donation.  This first one is Oopsie - A Bonnie Hunter 2024 leader and ender challenge.  I did make some every month last year using the Rainbow scrap colour choice for every month.  I made a lot!  

Gator is finished.  A cute quilt.  

A finish using one of Ingrid's tops that she had pieced.  I quilted and bound it and it will go back to her family for them to decide the final destination.

A row by row.  If you scroll back to Feb or March in my blog, this lived on my design wall for 3 months while I dithered about putting the rows together.  These rows are from 2015 (maybe 2014?) and were patterns handed out by quilt shops all over North America and each shop also had small kits available to make the row as it was pictured on the cover.  I shudder to think how much I spent on those kits and there are still many left for me to work on.  The traditional guild I belong to handed out patterns for row by rows and some with the fabric kits to members last December.  They had been donated by someone like myself who has hung onto them for far too long.  I offered to take any rows members completed and didn't have a use for because I thought they would be great for a Quilt of Valour.  The theme of this particular year was water and that worked perfectly for us here on the West Coast. I made some of these rows and some were contributed by Abbotsford guild members.  But, the best part - it is completed.  The worst part... I still have lots of kits that need to be made.  

This is Oopsie number 2 and I used up most of the blocks.  I had a few leftover that I messed up on and added the corner pieces to the wrong corners of the blocks.  Annoying, but oh well.  

This final quilt is another of Ingrid's that I finished for her family.  It is stunning and fun.  

And of course, because it was Canada Day earlier this week, I had to pull out my Canadian themed runners and table toppers.  

I have the next row by row ready to quilt and I used two of Ingrid's maple leaves in this one.  More water themed rows.  

These are some fun water themed rows that I have decided will make a quilt for a child.  I have pulled fabrics to border each one and it is in my bag ready to take to Modern quilt Saturday sew in.  

I am feeling good and have ideas for July.  There are the rest of the Aunt Gracie blocks to complete and I will also get the row by rows bordered and put into a smaller top for quilting.  I am determined to make one or two rows monthly which means I might be finished by this time next year?  I have some fleece fabrics to stitch around the edges for donation to Modern guild and there are assorted projects calling my name along with more of Ingrid's to finish.  

I joined Running Doe's quilt along AGAIN... this is the third time and they run for 6 months but it challenges me to make quilt tops from patterns I probably wouldn't look at if they weren't sent to me to make.  My Rainbow scrap challenge blocks from the last few years are waiting for me to finish them up as well.  But, I do see more empty containers than I used to have and shopping for fabric, other than backings, isn't something I do very often so fabric going out is definitely more than fabric coming in.  

Happy belated Canada Day to my friends here at home and Happy Fourth of July to my friends living south of the border from here.   

Failing as a quilter/blogger these days

 I am really failing at blogging - lots of ideas in my head but feel like I spend too much time on my computer most days so don't stop and type out a new post.  I really do admire my blogging friends who write a major post daily.  

Gardening and yard work seems to be taking my time but, am happy our front yard is looking so much better after all the parties held by raccoons this past winter.  The first picture shows the front lawn after a gardening company did some repair, added topsoil and grass seed as well as a treatment for the grubs that the chafer beetle lays (which is what the raccoons are digging for and creating a mess).  Lot of flowers have bloomed and I have planted dahlias, thanks to good friends giving us bulbs. 

 As for quilting, I am trying to finish up all the rainbow scrap challenge blocks made over the last few years and getting quite close to the end of containers.  The big challenge in June was to stitch the "oopsie" blocks which were Bonnie Hunter leader and enders and I had a large stack of them.  I did them using the rainbow scrap challenge colour of the month last year.  There are enough blocks for two quilts and the tops are now made, waiting patiently on hangers to be quilted. 

I did manage to finish and quilt the Running Doe May challenge of the pattern Kaleidoscope which were butterflies. I made two... using 13 blocks.  The original pattern used 12 but the blocks are very large (16") and the finished quilt would have been larger than I like for donating to our guild We Care program.  The smaller one has gone to the guild and the larger one will go to Ronald MacDonald house. 

 
 This was made from a block that was a rainbow scrap challenge in  2024. I made lots of the small blocks and then put them all together into a quilt and am smiling because I see one of the edge blocks is upside down.  Oh well.  

I also worked on this batik scrap quilt that started off with me stitching four patches from leftover bits and pieces and then went through my strips that were not full width of fabric and used those for the frames.  I think I did reduce my two containers of strip to 1.5 containers.  This has since been quilted and has gone to Quilts of Valour for an injured member of the Canadian Armed forces.  I was rushed when it was finished and didn't get a picture of the final quilt.  

A dear quilting friend who I lived near and enjoyed spending time with over a cup of tea died a few years ago and her son wanted to return a quilt to me that I had given her.  This is a Lone Star made in 1981.  The advantage of adding a label is that you would never remember all the details of when you make a quilt.  

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I took this picture of binding strips laid out on my ironing board because I heard a complaint from a fellow quilter who was annoyed because she was making binding out of a fabric with no clear right and wrong side and she had a seam on the wrong side when she was joining the pieces.  I always line my binding strips up on the ironing board and press them in half before I join them to each other.  I like pressing the shorter strips rather than one massive long one.  And, there is no chance of stitching the seam on the wrong side of the fabric.  I finger press the seams open so once the pieces are joined, easy to then add the binding to the quilt.  

My peonies took forever to bloom this year but they are lasting nicely and look fabulous.  

A short blog... but it is done!  I think I am back on track with my monthly planning and last week of the month will be quilting tops and getting them bound so will have more to show you.  

What happened to April? It seems to be early May?

 I don't know why April came and went without me accomplishing much but I want to blame the sale of our house in Arizona.  The realtors wanted the house empty and when we last were there, everything was left ready for us to return and,  other than having the fridge emptied and laundry done, it was all as if we were coming home any moment.  So, a massive undertaking to empty the house from a distance.  My husband isn't well enough to travel and he isn't really capable of living alone for the time it would have taken me to jump in my car and drive down there... grab what I really wanted to keep and sell the rest and get back home.

It has taken our realtors over a month to go through the sewing room, the bedroom closets and drawers, the laundry room and kitchen as well as other nooks and crannies including two bathrooms and hall closet and empty it all. I spent a lot of time on Messenger with video calls, pictures via texting and long phone calls as I made decisions about what to keep and what to price things I didn't need or want.  Finally, this past weekend, there was an estate sale and also a pending buyer!  So all their work getting the house completely empty seems to have been worth it.

Usually, snowbirds sell their house with all the basics... furniture, appliances, kitchen equipment all there and linens, tools, whatever is in the house stays.  But, apparently, there are many "local" buyers and not so many snowbirds looking to purchase a home in a senior retirement community.  Gardener was hired to clean up the fruit trees and tidy up the front and back yards.  Then, everything I decided I could live without got put up for sale.  I invited the quilting group and tennis group to visit the house and get first pick.  I tried to remember my tennis friends by inviting them to choose a quilt or table runner if they saw something they liked. 

 All is done and now, the next task is to pack up what I want with a list in each box of items, country of origin (new because of tariffs on goods entering Canada) and thrift store value on used goods.  An annoying job but nothing can cross the border without that being done and, hopefully, most of what I want is from countries outside the USA.  

As for quilting... I have been picking up quilts from the home of the modern quilters... one of our members has a long arm and allows the downstairs of their home to be the storage and sewing area for drop in guild members.  I am bringing home quilts and binding them, returning and picking up more.  An easy way for me to pitch in and help the guild. A couple of pictures that don't do the quilts justice but, have returned 9 that needed binding. 

I have been working on leftover bindings for Quilts for Survivors.  They are requesting finished bindings, measured and ready to use to be turned in at Quilt Canada in June.  Their goal is to go around the world in inches. I am doing my best and have about 3000" at this time. 

My April finishes are minimal.  This project on my design wall is what I am currently working on and it is made from a set of Rainbow Scrap challenge blocks from last year.  I need more so have dug out more scraps in a variety of colours to add to the number of blocks. 

I included this and you will see that nothing has happened with it since last month.  It really needs for me to focus on finishing it! There are lots more rows waiting to be included in a quilt top.

This was the Running Doe (Villa Rosa) sew along for April.  The pattern is Sky Diamonds and I used a lot of scrappy fat quarters to make this.  All the fabrics are Canadian themed prints.  It seems a bit busy but, used up scrap fabrics! 

These are garlic knots, again, another Rainbow scrap challenge from 2024. 

My rail fences from scraps made sometime in the last few years for the Rainbow scrap challenge.  A bit of a different setting that I saw called Wharf but really, was just adding in a strip between the blocks and setting them horizonally.  I still have a big stack of these blocks to deal with. 

A quick project from the Missouri Star Christmas Advent mystery box last December and I made a table topper. The instructions were intended to produce a pillow top with chenille strips on it but I decided a small topper was more useful for me.  I don't need more pillows in our home.

Lots of yard work being done because our weather has been great for this time of year. I am keeping the front lawn watered and watching the grass seed germinate from a month ago.  A very slow process. 

Our bottom hedge got trimmed and that meant some time spent gathering the trimmings and getting them from this lower level up to the driveway level.  Thankfully, great neighbours helped and it was done much faster than I could have done alone.  A new weed wacker and I got the grass on the bottom two levels all cut down and everything is temporarily tidy. There is still a lot more tidying and weeding to be done but an hour or two daily is enough for my aging body, especially after a morning of tennis.

Not much quilting but I do have a tidy yard and an empty house in Arizona.