Boy Quilt for PCQ

 PC Quilters support several charities, among them Southwest Family Advocacy Center which provides consolidated services to children and families dealing with traumatic situations, particularly abuse. Sadly, they are always in need of quilts for boys. PCQ held a sew day last week to make boy quilts. 

Someone had already pulled panel prints and coordinating fabrics and kitted them up. Each of us was to take a kit and make a top. Backing too, if possible. If we didn't finish it during the sew day, we should take it home and finish it. 

I chose a kit that had an eagle panel combined with some blue batik. 

It would have been simple to just border the panel, and that would have been fine, but there wasn't quite enough of the batik. And that would have been boring. So I looked through the clubs bins of fabric and found a couple more pieces I could work with. The goal was a top finishing about 45" x 60". 

Since I worked on my geometric print quilt (see previous post below) and finished it for the boy quilt drive, I wasn't able to finish the eagle top at the sew day. I brought it home and finished it. 

When I was searching for coordinating fabrics for the top, in one of the bins I found a perfect fabric for the backing so I nabbed it at the same time. It's a digital print in an ombre gradient in the same colors as the panel. The panel is a digital print, too, from the same company, but they had different design and collection names on the selvages so they weren't planned as coordinates. Sure worked well, though. Since it wasn't big enough, I added leftover forest print and blue batik from the top and a piece of batik from my own stash. 

I found the perfect fabric for binding in my own stash, a teal sketchy grid left over from the backing of my pickle dish quilt. So now I have the top, backing, and binding ready to go back to the club, where someone certified on the long arm will quilt it. 

It's unfortunate that there's such a need for these donation quilts, but I'm glad to be able to help out. I hope it brings a measure of comfort to an older boy in need. 

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Alycia Quilts

Social Sewing

 I had the opportunity to sew with PC quilters on Friday afternoon and again all day Saturday. Friday was to do my own thing, and Saturday was to make donation quilts for boys for an organization that the PC quilt club supports. 

The sewing room is wonderful - everything you could possible want or need, right there. They even have a couple of loaner sewing machines if you're so inclined. I brought my own. 

On Friday I worked on basting and quilting a top I had kitted up to work on during a September trip. That vacation got cancelled so I finished the top at home, but I don't think I ever blogged about it. Anyway, now the top was finished and the backing was ready, so it just needed to be quilted. So that's what I worked on Friday. Since this was always intended to be a donation quilt, and it's great boy colors, it'll go to the club's boy quilt drive. 

On Saturday I was able to finish the quilting and bind it. It's now labeled with the club's donation label and in one of those cabinets with other finished boy quilts, ready to go. 

This quilt started with the backing - literally! I ordered a remnant of geometric print wide backing, and used some for the blocks on the front along with solid or near-solid fabrics from stash. It finished at 48 x 60", a good size for a boy about 8-12 years old. 

A fellow quilter helped me take photos outside. This is just out the back door of the sewing room. 

After I finished this quilt, I worked on one of the kits the club had already packaged up for boy quilts. I brought it home to finish, so that'll be for another post. 

It was really nice to get together with other quilters and sew. Everyone here is so nice!!! I'm glad I had the opportunity. 

Link-ups:  Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt

My First Arizona Finish

 Flimsy, that is - 

Here it is on the design wall. It finished at 44 x 64".  Made entirely from spare parts and stash. 

It was fun to raid the spare parts drawer and sew on something while my sewing room was still in work. I like how this developed and turned out, and I can definitely use this idea again for future donation quilts. 

Since it's sunny almost all the time here, I took some photos in my back yard. We either have full, strong sun, very deep shade, or mottled shade cast by the Palo Verde trees. It was bright and sunny when I took these photos. I'll have to figure out a better time and place, or how to compensate for the brightness. 

Most of the yards are surrounded by walls, like this. Our yard is unusually deep for PebbleCreek, and we have two Palo Verde trees. 

In other news, since I didn't make the list for the charity sew day on Saturday, I signed up to use the club's sewing room this afternoon. I have something I want to layer and baste, and I can push a couple of tables together and do that there. No more crawling around on the floor!!!

Then I got a phone call last night, from the club's charity chair, asking if I still want to sew with them on Saturday. YES! So I'm in and I'll get to spend the day with a few other quilters, making boy-themed donation quilts. I'm looking forward to both opportunities in the club's sewing room. 

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Alycia Quilts, and Wendy's Quilts and More

 

Arizona

We've been enjoying Arizona so far, even with the frustrations about getting the hardware etc. we needed for the house. One day a couple weeks ago we went hiking in the White Tank mountains, just a short drive away from where we live. The Phoenix valley is very flat and is surrounded by mountains. We're on the west side. The White Tanks are near us to the west, and the Estrellas are near us to the south. Here's the view from our hike, looking back toward the valley. 

We saw plenty of saguaros on our hike. They only grow at certain elevations, but there were a lot of them along our hike. This grand old man is well over 100 years old. This is very typical of what the desert looks like around here. 

A few days ago our neighbors invited us and another couple over for happy hour. All of us have recently moved here so it was nice to get to know each other a bit. They live across the street, on the golf course, and their yard faces west. They have a fabulous view over the golf course and a wide open area that hasn't been built up yet. Beautiful sunset!

Our back yard faces east, and is walled all around like most around here. I like that we have shade all afternoon and evening rather than sun blasting in (we do get sun in the morning which is nice). We're often visited by Gambel quail. They're pretty goofy looking - they have a topknot that hangs over their forehead, they don't fly much, and they follow each other in a line wherever they go. Here they're on our back wall and on the ground back there. 

PebbleCreek participates in LifeLong Learning (via Zoom these days) and Monday's program was about Arizona State Parks. It was a very good program, excellent presenter, and now we have quite a list of parks we want to visit.

Today DH is riding with a bicycle group. They're doing an 18 mile ride today and he's been riding a lot to get into shape, so he's going along. 

I took a "tour" of the quilting club's sewing room last week. Members are allowed to use all the equipment as needed. They have a long arm machine but you have to take their training and get certified to use it, and during Covid, they're not doing training. Due to Covid, only 10 people can be in the room at one time, so sign-ups are required. I thought I signed up for their charity sewing day on the 20th, but evidently something went wrong with my registration so I'm not on the list and I can't go. I'll try to sign up to use the room one afternoon next week to see if the registration works this time, and to meet a few people. 

We're settling in and it's starting to feel more like home, we're meeting people and starting to do stuff, and we're enjoying it here. 

Shelves!

 We finally found the rest of the hardware and shelving we needed. DH spent the better part of a day installing everything. He's so good to me! 

Now I have all my fabric stash sorted by color or type and put away where it won't get faded by the light. 

Rather than put the baskets in rainbow order as I had them in the old house, I decided to be smarter about it and put the ones most frequently used in the most accessible areas, and the ones least used in the hardest to get to places. 

The big baskets on the bottom hold battings and backings, and I have more batting tucked away on the bottom left of the closet. We'll install one more narrower shelf higher up at the top of the closet, and we can store seldom used stuff up there. 

(The totes of files are there temporarily until we get a new file cabinet or something for them. Eventually we'll figure out where we want it located permanently and we'll get a piece of furniture.)

My sewing room is totally workable now and I'm looking forward to using it! 

Link ups: Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt

Not Quite Finished...

 ...but getting closer. I found a grey in my stash that works for the sashing. And just for a pop of color I found an orange for the cornerstones. 

I'll trim it up and get rid of the excess points.  Because it's all bias edges, it needs a border. There's enough of the grey sashing fabric left for a 2" border all around, same width as the sashing. That will bring the top to 44 x 64".  

Maybe a finished flimsy next week? 

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Progress, with a Temporary Solution to the Fabric Storage Problem

After laying out the blocks in an on-point setting I had leftover blue four patches. The plan is to use them for partial blocks for the side triangles. 

Good plan, except that I don't have enough. I raided the scraps and made as many more as I could, and I'm still short a few. I'll need to get into my yardage to cut more. 

Time out while I figure out how to deal with my stash storage problem. It could be months until the Closet Maid shelves are back in stock, so I need a temporary solution. My fabrics, backings, and battings are all in 6 big moving boxes that haven't been opened yet. They're all labeled "quilt fabric." I have no idea which colors are in which box. 

I used to keep my fabric stash sorted by color in baskets, and I really want to do the same here. Everything - yardage, FQs, and small pieces as big as a fat eighth or larger - is kept together. These are the fabric baskets, and the shelves I need are for these baskets to live on in the closet.

 

I've unpacked all the fabrics from the moving boxes and re-sorted them by color, and for the time being the baskets are lined up around the edge of the room. Definitely not ideal, but at least I can get to the colors I need. 

Now that I can get to my blues, I can cut some more pieces for the remaining four patches I need. I can also see what I have for sashing. When I was playing with this layout in EQ, I liked grey sashing the best. I'll have to see what I have that could work. 

Maybe I'll have my first Arizona flimsy finished soon!

Linking up with Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Raiding the Parts Drawer

If I can't get to my stash because it's still packed, awaiting shelves, what can I get to? Ah hah! The parts drawer is accessible. 

In it I found some four patches left over from a mystery with Kevin the Quilter a couple years ago. There are enough blue four patches for 10 of these nine-patch blocks. 

The PC Quilters support a charity that's in need of boy quilts, 45 x 60".  Maybe I can do something with these parts and make a boy quilt for them. Quilts for older boys are the focus of the sew day coming up later this month that I signed up for. Maybe I can bring this along and work on it. 

Here are blocks on my design wall. If I use 2" sashing and 2" borders, this quilt will measure 43-1/2 x 63-1/2". I hope that will be acceptable; if not, I'll save this quilt for Hands2Help. 

Yes, my design wall is completely installed. The flannel arrived and DH and I got it mounted and smoothed out, and now the wall is not only ready to use, it's actually being used. It's starting to feel like home here now!

And since I actually have a design wall - with something on it - I'm participating in Design Wall Monday over at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. Also linking up with Love Laugh Quilt.