Karrin's Crazy World: May 2023

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Hands2Help 2023

It's time to link up quilts for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge for 2023. I finished up my quilts this week and took a picture of them.

The first quilt is for Quilty Hugs. I had cut these tumbler blocks out with my Accuquilt, and were leftover from a prior quilt.

The second quilt is for MCC. There is an interesting story to these flannel blocks. My daughter's MIL was moving several years ago and was trying to lighten her load in moving to another state and was going to throw these out. I told my daughter that she should give any fabric she wanted to get rid of. I think she had planned to make a raggedy quilt but never got around to it.

The last two quilts are for Little Lambs. I will be mailing these out on June 1st. These are made from Potato Chip blocks. You can see the You Tube explanation by Brenda of Conquering Mt. Scrapmore.

I will be linking up at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching

It was another busy week, another week of fighting the blasted mealy bugs. I found them in another room. I am currently checking all my indoor plants every day for any signs of infection.

After seeing granddaughter Kyleigh's plantar boxes, I ordered a metal one for myself. I got it all assembled, and spent Friday hauling soil and purchasing some vegetables. I bought 3 kinds of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, and some herbs. Friday was spent going to multiple stores to find what I wanted. My side yard, where John used to build his boats is vacant, gets a lot of sun, and I think is a perfect spot for my garden.

Tuesday I went with several quilting friends to the movies. We saw Love Again that I really loved. It had Sam Heughan from Outlander in it, and that might have influenced my opinion. I am looking forward to Outlander's new season coming up June 16th.

This past Wednesday was Community Service workday at my house, which meant I spent 2 days cleaning up my house.

This week I was able to quilt this little quilt for Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo for H2H this year. For Slow Sunday Stitching this week I will be putting the binding on and sewing it by hand.

I was also able to get this Gathered Blessings sampler done by Kathy Schmitz.

I have also been working on this secret project for the next blog hop, When Pigs Fly.

I'll be linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Head on over and check out what everyone has been up to.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching

This past week has had its ups and downs. The down part involves my indoor plants. I have been battling mealybug, first on one begonia, then it moved to most of my orchids in the living room for months. I have treated them with alcohol, Neem oil, and a soap insecticide. It got so bad that I had to cut the beautiful blooms off most of my orchids as the bugs were attached to the flowers. The mealy bugs start sucking the sap out of a plant and eventually destroy them. Then I found an online recipe which seems to be working for the orchids. It consists of water, Neem oil, baking soda and 10 drops of Dawn. They are still in the garage, being treated for dehydration, but the mealybug has not come back on the orchids.

Meanwhile last week, just before I was departing for the Begonia meeting, I discovered an indoors string of pearls encrusted with mealy bug. I tossed that out, there was no way to resuscitate that plan. The next day, I checked out the begonias in the kitchen window and discovered 3/4 of them with mealybug. I took those outside and went and bought some lady bugs at the local nursery and have been releasing some each evening, which reportedly will feed on mealybug. It is warm enough, that those begonias are going to stay outside.

One of the good things this week is that grandson Jaeger is home from college for the summer. He came over and helped me put up my new triple umbrella to help shade my plants since my neighbors removed their shade trees to put in a pool.

The foxgloves are getting really tall.

I have spent part of the week pulling weeds early in the morning as it has been getting up into the 90's this week. This is a wild morning glory that keeps going all over my garden, wrapping itself around my plants.

The third week of the month is always busy for me. There is Begonia Meeting on Tuesday night, and then Wednesday was guild meeting. This was the meeting they were handing out ribbons from the quilt show last month. This was not a judged show, but all that entered received a ballot to vote on their 1st, 2nd and 3rd favorites in each category. My mermaid quilt, "What Makes My Heart Sing" won 1st place in the Challenge quilt category, but I was the only entrant in that category.

This week I acquired a new grandpuppy. Our granddaughter Kyleigh got a Great Dane puppy this week. One of our friends' Great Dane had puppies. Kyleigh's puppy's name is Maple and she is a female and the sweetest thing. She is 8 weeks old.

Grandson Jaeger came to my rescue again Saturday afternoon. My walk-in closet's light burnt out Friday night, so I went and purchased new light bulbs. They are this circular kind. You need to put them in the brackets and then plug them in. I am short, and I couldn't seem to find the right angle to plug them in. Jaeger came over and figured out the prongs weren't spread apart enough and fixed that and was able to get them plugged in the right away.

Now I don't have to use a flashlight to get my clothes out. I don't think we ever changed the lightbulb in this lamp since we redid our closet many, many years ago.

This week I was able to remove all the bad stitching I had made last week on my longarm and quilted the two little quilts for H2H charity drive this year. For Slow Sunday Stitching this week I will be sewing down the two bindings.

I was also able to piece one more H2H quilt. I plan to get this quilted this week and bound. Hopefully will be able to mail all 4 of the quilts I have done the end of the week.

I will be linking up to Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Head on over and check out what everyone has been up to.

This next week will be another busy one, with workday at my house, a hairdresser appt, hearing aid appt, and trying to get yard work done, and quilting.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge, My Day

The Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge started Monday. This is hosted by the amazing Carol @Just Let Me Quilt. Today is my day. There have been some amazing projects the past several days. The entire list is below.

The challenge this time is to make something rose-colored, with glasses, positive words or combination. Thanks so much Carol for again challenging me. Pink is my least favorite color.

Several months ago, one of the members at Begonia Society handed me a bag of fabric and projects. Apparently during Covid people would give her these to make masks, and she no longer needed the fabric. In the bag was this kit for a table topper, using pink fabrics.

My granddaughter Kyleigh was over working on her T-shirt quilt the day I was working on it and loved it, so I gave it to her!

Thanks for stopping by.

The entire schedule is below.

MAY 15^TH

Just Let Me Quilt

Selina Quilts

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

MAY 16^TH

MAY 17^TH

MAY 18^TH

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge Starts Today

The Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge starts today. This is hosted by the amazing Carol @Just Let Me Quilt.

The challenge this time is to make something rose-colored, with glasses, or both.

The entire schedule is below.

MAY 15^TH

Just Let Me Quilt

Selina Quilts

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

MAY 16^TH

MAY 17^TH

MAY 18^TH

Thanks for stopping by!

ScrapHappy May

It’s time for showing off our scrap projects! ScrapHappy is open to anyone using up scraps of anything – no new materials. It can be a quilt block, pincushion, bag or hat, jewelry, dolls, socks or a sculpture. Anything made of scraps is eligible. Welcome to Hannah for joining us.

I've worked on several scrap projects this past month. I worked a bit on Winter Blues by Bonnie Hunter. I cut out a pile of my blue scraps to begin piecing the border for the quilt. I got half of them pieced but I need to piece the other half. This time next month I should have the top finished!

This past week I used scraps in two other ways. The past several years I have participated in the Comfort Quilt Challenge hosted by Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I am getting started a little late this year. But I used scraps to make 3 quilts last week.

I made two quilts made with Potato Chip Blocks. These are demonstrated by Brenda @Conquering Mt. Rushmore. They go together really quickly. I used the larger 2.5 x 4.5 inch rectangles.

The third quilt I made was using 5 inch squares. I acquired these from the mother-in-law of my daughter. Several years ago she was moving to another state and was trying to get rid of stuff she didn't need. She was going to throw them away, and I told her to give them to me. This will be another one of my charity donations.

That's it for this month.

If your scrap collection is out of control and you’d like to turn it into something beautiful or useful instead of leaving it to collect dust in the cupboard, why not join us on the 15th of each month? Either e-mail Kate at the address on her Contact Me page, or leave a comment on her Scrap Happy Post. You can also contact Gun via her blog to join. We welcome new members. You don’t have to worry about making a long-term commitment or even join in every month. Regular contributors receive an email reminder at least three days before the event.

Check out what the other members are making with their scraps this month.

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan (me!), Cathy, Tracy, Jan, Moira,
Edi, Sandra, Chris, Alys, Claire93, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Gwen, Sue L,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Vera, Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti, Debbierose,
Viv, Nóilin, Karrin, Amo, Alissa, Lynn and Tierney, Hannah

HQAL, Slow Sunday Stitching

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

The first part of last week, I was able to get some piecing done. I made two small 40" quilts for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt project hosted by Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict. These two quilts after I quilt them will go to Little Lambs. They were made entirely out of scraps. My quilting machine was giving me some trouble on Saturday so I need to rip out some poor tension stitching.

This one will go to the MCC charity.

I also made this bag for my friend Jandra. When granddaughter Kyleigh was over a couple of weeks ago working on her T-shirt quilt, we went up to Hobby Lobby to buy some interfacing, we found this Mickey Mouse Fabric. Jandra loves Mickey and Minnie, so I bought both fabrics, as did Kyleigh. Next time she has some time off Kyleigh plans to make a bigger bag. I found the instructions for the bag here.

Wednesday was basting day for the guild, and we had quite a nice turnout this time. I was able to spend the afternoon sewing.

Thursday I met up with my friend Jandra and we had a really good Mexican lunch, and then went a thrift store and a vintage store called Gypsy Chic. Gypsy Chic is open the second Thursday through Sunday of the month. We love this store, and we have missed the last couple of months it was open. They have pretty reasonable prices.

They have an outdoor section, and I was looking for something I could put plants on. It is sort of primitive looking but that is OK. Plus it coordinates with my blue house!

My neighbors recently have been putting in a pool, and they took down the trees that shaded my yard. I had a bunch of plants over this area, between my house and then fence. So the plants over here were getting burnt up. I'm going to keep some succulents on this shelf, but I moved part of the plants, including the cymbidium orchid over in this area. I just bought a big umbrella to shade these somewhat. I've tried assembling the base of the umbrella, but I think I need to wait till grandson Jaeger gets back from college the next few days to help me.

Friday was my mini group from my guild. It was at Nancy's house this time. She was the featured quilter at our quilt show last month. She took us to her favorite quilt shop, In Stitches which is in Dixon, CA. It is a really nice store, and I was able to find a few things.

After I left Nancy's house, I stopped by long-time friend of mine from our days of working at UC Davis Medical Center transcribing reports for the various outpatient children's specialty groups. Our children were young then and are now in their 40's. We lost touch somewhere along the way and I no longer had her phone number. It was before cell phones were invented. June was home and I met her grown up daughter and granddaughters, and they invited me to a late lunch to celebrate Mother's day and one of their birthdays. It was so nice seeing June again, and now that we have each other's cell phone #s we can stay in touch.

This week my slow stitching continues to be this Kathy Schmitz stitch along. I finished up several motifs this week.

This is the one I am working on now.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

I will be linking up for Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts. Check out what everyone is working on.

Thanks for stopping by!