The Village--a 2010 completion

Applique figures

The book, "Baking Cakes in Kigali" written by Gaile Parkin, inspired me to make this quilt. It was a Thread Tales or book club book and quilt. 

The story was about Angel who baked cakes for members of her community. She kept an album of cakes that she had made. Angel created each cake specifically for the recipient. Angel was a creative artist! 

I had nine random blocks that I "won" in 2008 from the guild block of the month. We were supposed to bring any block that was set with Sharyn Craig's twist and turn sashing technique using Christmas fabrics as the sashing. 

Sharyn was coming to the guild to teach a workshop and the BOM committee chair wanted to get us ready for Sharyn's visit. We were to choose a block that was a leftover from another project or one that didn't make it into a project. Sharyn believed that one could take any grouping of blocks and turn them into a quilt. These blocks were a challenge to turn into a quilt!

Close up of houses in the village

Two of the nine blocks were my own. One was the basket block and the other was the modern looking block that had a "window" in the center of the block. The basket block was a practice block for a retreat that I attended and the modern block was a leftover block from a previous guild block of the month.

Quilting of trees in border

I had the privilege of being a participant in one of the last classes Sharyn taught before she stopped traveling to teach. Her class opened my eyes to so many possibilities that I hadn't considered. I started asking myself a lot of what if questions. If you don't recognize her name, I suggest that you google her as a quilting author. You might recognize some of the many books that she wrote. Some of which, like "Setting Solutions" and "Great Sets" are in my personal library.

But, back to the story of building this quilt! The blocks reminded me of album pages so that was my "start." I set the blocks with pieced sashing that made a star. I liked the gold print fabric. This fabric was in my stash for a long time; but, either I didn't have enough of it or it wasn't quite the right fit for the top I had in mind. For stars, however, it was the right fabric! I knew that I wanted to use it for the binding and the back too.

There are kids in the story so I looked through my books for an applique pattern of a kid. I found a boy and a girl. I cut out enough applique to span the width of the quilt. Stitching a narrow zig zag along the edge of the shapes, I appliquéd the pieces to the background.  My original thought was to use white thread so that the figures represented cookies. After making a sample, I decided, black thread was less obtrusive. When it was time to quilt this section, I used black thread to quilt some simple lines in the figures. 

Close up of the extra and practice blocks

I wanted houses to represent Angel's "community." I used scraps to "build" the houses, windows, and doors. I had fun choosing different fabrics for my village. I also wanted the windows to have light coming from inside the houses so I chose yellow fabrics. I stitched in the ditch to quilt the houses. I liked how the yellow made the houses "glow."

Pieced back of the quilt

At the end of the story, Angel talks about traveling from Rwanda to a place where pine trees grow so I chose to piece a border of pine trees. Again, I used a variety of fabric scraps to represent pine trees. When I quilted these, I used the edge of my free motion foot to echo quilt a curved line in the trees.

I quilted the background with stippling. I pieced the back with the rest of the gold print and the rest of the background red print. I even used my "practice" blocks because I needed more fabric! I still didn't quite have enough so I used a chunk of the black that I had used for the applique. It was a good way to use that gold fabric that I liked; but, hadn't been able to use in a project! 

I completed this project in August 2010. It measures 52 inches wide by 64 inches tall.  I think Sharyn would agree that I did well not only completing the challenge of incorporating these "anything goes" blocks into a quilt but also using red, green and gold fabrics to make a quilt that didn't speak Christmas holiday even though there are Christmas themed fabrics around the blocks!

June 26 was my five year anniversary of writing this blog. For the most part, I've consistently posted on Sundays and Wednesdays.  Many of you have read each of the 475 posts I wrote! I thank you for reading and commenting! Blogger updated their format and the last couple posts I've written have been using the new format. It is supposed to be easier for people reading with phones and tablets. 

Since it is the end of the month, I will list my training number which is 32 people that I trained in Healthcare Provider CPR.

Regarding Covid 19:
Worldwide: 10M confirmed cases; 5.08M recovered; 499K deaths
United States 2.56M confirmed cases; 783K recovered, 

Label of finished quilt

127K deaths
Oregon: 7, 818 confirmed cases; 202 deaths

News from the U.K. is that researchers have developed a Covid vaccine that is now in the trial testing phase.

In the U.S., there are about 21 states which are seeing an increase in Covid cases. The media reports that these are due to people not following social distancing guidelines. Going out in groups, singing in church, drinking in bars appear to be the biggest instances. The media has not mentioned protesting as not following social distancing guidelines or being a cause of the increase in Covid cases.

The age of a Covid positive person is 30-40 instead of over 65. People with underlying health issues continue to be the hardest hit.  There are reports of some people not feeling well more than 100 days after having the virus.

This week in Oregon, the community center opened for fitness programs; but, the pool, showers and locker rooms remain closed. The governor issued an executive order to people living in seven counties within the state requiring people to wear a face covering when in a public place. These are the counties where there is the most increase in covid cases. My husband said he saw a couple people turned away from entering the grocery store because they were not wearing masks.

The Seattle, Washington Mariners baseball game that my husband and I had planned to attend in July to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary was canceled. Our London daughter reported that a friend who is British; but, works in Boston, Massachusetts followed the isolation guidelines. The first day that he went out when it was "okay" for him to do so, he contracted Covid. He is recovering.

Finished quilt

I continue to miss reading, cooking, sewing and hugs from the grandkids. I miss face to face encounters with my friends and quilting community members.

Regarding the protests: Late Thursday night and into early Friday morning, a group of several hundred protesters set fire to a police precinct in northeast Portland and barricaded the exits while people were inside. 

Protesters set fire to area businesses as well as vandalized others. The outer wall of a salon was scorched. No other business were burned. Other businesses now have broken windows and graffiti painted on the walls. A number of these businesses are black owned.

I am thankful that no lives were lost and no injuries were reported.

The current Portland police chief stated that the demonstrators have cost the city 6.2 million dollars. This figure does not include the straight time of officers that were pulled from other jobs to cover the demonstrations. (Last week, the city council voted to cut 16 million dollars from the police budget.)

I have no words as I continue to stay as isolated as possible.