Washing the quilts

At least once a year, we have to wash the wall quilts. Living on the edge of the desert as we do, we get lots of dust. Every once in a while, we get a sand storm that blows our way from Africa or Egypt. When that happens, the air turns a funny yellowish color, and we have to close the windows and doors, even if the weather is warm. And if you go outside...don't open your mouth or the sand will get in!
This is one of my favorite wallhangings. The pattern was in Quick Quilts from the Heart. The baskets (or Cake Stands, if you like) were all made from scraps. Some of the scraps were so little, they had to be pieced.

This one is a Broken Dishes quilt. The inspiration for this one was Gai Perry's book, Color From the Heart. I love this book. The main thing I learned from it was that you can use many variations of the same color in one quilt, and they will all work together to create something wonderful. In this quilt, I used lots of different blues and yellows, and they all got together to make an amazing blue and yellow quilt.

In case you think I washed these quilts and hung them out to dry on the line, no I did not. I dried them flat on a drying rack in the shade, and only hung them up to take the pictures. It's not good for a quilt to be hung from the line dripping wet. Also the sun here is really strong now, and the fabrics would be faded in a matter of minutes! When I hang up clothes to dry outside in the summer, I always hang them out of the sunlight, so they don't get faded. Of course, the good thing about this strong Middle Eastern sun is that the clothes dry really fast--about 10 minutes for a man's shirt or a sheet. Pretty cool. We save a lot of energy in the summer by hanging the clothes outside. The only time we need to use the dryer is during the winter, which is the rainy season, when it would take 3 days for some things (like towels) to dry completely otherwise.