Hands2Help Check-In

I finished this little baby quilt over the weekend.  It's from a few crumb block pinwheels I made sometime last year.

They were just right for a quick little baby quilt when sashed and bordered.  It measures 38 inches square.

The backing is pieced, as is the binding.  There were a lot of smaller strips pieced together for that binding, which I was happy to use up.  Incredibly, none of the seams fell exactly in the corners, so that was a plus. :)

This will be sent to Little Lambs as part of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge.

And in case you missed the previous post, this Trip Around the World quilt top was sent to MCC last week.

I'll leave you with a glimpse of my African Violet, which is going blooming crazy...

...and some fresh new additions to the flock!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for the Week 8 H2H Check-In.

~Paulette

Blue Sampler and H2H Quilt Tops Done

I finished a couple donation quilt tops and mailed them out this week.

You may recall from my last post that I was making a blue sampler quilt with the intention of donating it as part of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge.  There were a few hitches in the pattern, but I worked them out.  

Around the time I was finishing that top, I read a blog post on Jo's Country Junction where one of her charity quilt finishers, Ray in Florida, mentioned a Veterans Day church dinner this coming fall that he was involved in.  He requested if anyone had any patriotic quilt tops they wanted to donate for the event, to send them his way.

It just so happened that I had been thinking the blue sampler would make a nice quilt for a veteran as I was working on it.  So I decided to send it to Ray and then make a different quilt for Hands2Help.

Ray also noted in the comments section of Jo's post, "I could also use some red/white/blue UFO blocks that will finish at 12 inches. I can put some blocks together and make a sampler quilt out of the blocks." 

It sounded like a great use for some of the scraps left over from the blue quilt, so I made a few RWB blocks to send along with the quilt top.

I mailed out the top and blocks to Ray earlier this week, along with some red strips for the binding.  Ray intends to quilt it in red thread.  I think that's going to look great!

If you have any patriotic quilt tops or red/white/blue blocks that will finish at 12 inches, you might consider sending them to Ray.  His contact information can be found on this page of Jo's Country Junction blog, where he is number 18 in the list.

Having decided to pivot and send the blue sampler quilt elsewhere, I then did a fabric pull for a Trip Around the World top for the Hands2Help Challenge.  

All of these were either thrifted or gifted, not that I intended it that way, but it's the way it worked out.  It felt good to be finally giving these fabrics the opportunity to realize their full potential. Check out this selvage!

As it came together, I was digging the old-timey vibe the muted color combination was giving me.  There is a softness to it that I hope someone will find comforting. 

The top has now been sent off to MCC, one of the H2H 2023 partners, where it will be tied and sent to either Turkey or Ukraine, where the need is greatest right now.

That's the update from my sewing room.  What are you working on?

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop and Finished or Not Friday

~Paulette

Mistakes Were Made

Nobody's perfect.  As quilters, we can tolerate certain imperfections.  Sometimes they're what makes a quilt uniquely beautiful.

However, this sampler quilt that I've been working on has had me shaking my head on more than one occasion over the pattern directions.  That's it above on the design wall earlier today, partially sewn together, before I fixed the big star block on the lower right.

Granted it was a freebie pattern I found online and I appreciate that, but I'm also glad to have the wherewithal to notice the boo-boos and fix them.  Someone else may have given up in frustration.

It was possible I had goofed in constructing the half-rectangular units such that the points would be blunted once the top was sewn together (see red circled areas below).  In fact, I considered leaving it as is.  So what if the points of the stars didn't end where they should have?  Would the recipient notice and/or care?  Maybe, maybe not. 

But since I had leftover fabric and the willingness to investigate the error, I went back to the drawing board.  I remade a test half-rectangle unit per the cutting instructions and trimmed it to size per the instructions.  The result was... exactly the same.  Ugh.

It seemed to me I needed to cut the triangular pieces longer, but by how much?  I continued to make two more test samples before finally hitting upon the dimensions that seemed to work.  Turns out I needed to add 1.5 inches to the length.  That's not an insignificant "fudge factor."

My recalculations may not be perfect, but it's definitely looking better.  I may lose a tiny bit of the point in the seam allowance, but I can accept that.

Cutting directions were wrong for the pinwheel block, too.  It had me cutting fabric squares at 4.5 inches to make HSTs, but that was, in fact, the trimmed HST size.  I questioned it when I cut the squares, but I sewed it up per the instructions anyway...only to have to recut the pieces and do it again correctly.  Sometimes I can work against my better judgment just to prove a point, ha!

There were other pattern errors in the dimensions of finished blocks, and more.  You get the idea.

But these blocks turned out fine.  I used a light blue thrifted shirt fabric in the lower block.  The other large plaid in the quilt is yardage, not a shirt.

These wavy blocks are okay.  If I were to do them over (which I'm not), I'd pay closer attention to trimming them.  Hopefully, the minor jags will disappear with the quilting.

Anyway, I'm on track to finish the top after a few more minutes with the seam ripper. Yahoo! 

Linking to:  Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Check-In and Design Wall Monday

~Paulette

Cutting, Committing, and Cuffs

Sometimes what I do in the sewing room seems hardly worth mentioning.  Cleaning up, refolding fabric, making frankenbatting...those are the kinds of things I've been up to.  Necessary, but mostly background stuff.  Eventually, it leads somewhere.  

I picked up a few shirts at the thrift stores last week.  It used to be (and not long ago) that I could buy a decent shirt for $3.99, but now they're almost double that in price and then some if it's a name they associate with a premium brand, which seems weird to me because brand name doesn't always correlate to quality.  Wow, I sound like such an old person.  

Anyway, when I shop for shirts now, I take note of the tag colors that are 50% off and hone in on those.  I came home with a good armful of them, and a few other items.

(Thrifted zippers for bag making and some thread.)

(I think this thrifted shirt and striped fabric will become a bag.)

Over the next few days, I cut up shirts.  There ended up being a nice pile to add to the stash.

I usually toss the cuffs and collars, but I played around with them first.  The thought occurred to me that perhaps I could join the cuffs together for a table runner.  

After removing the buttons and giving them a good pressing, I butted together the cut ends and zigzagged them, then joined them all in a row.  At that point, I couldn't tell if the idea was "cool" or "crap."

Should I trim them off evenly and use the button plackets as an edging and finish it that way?  I mulled it over for a few hours and then decided to toss it in the orphan box to marinate and move on.  But as I started to do that, I passed the bookshelf in the sewing room and decided to try the piece out on top of it in place of the vintage fruit-themed dresser scarf that was there.

Well, well, well...  I liked it there!  A humble little runner under the old toy tractor my dad used to have for his grandkids to play with.  It'll do just fine, as is.

Now what's next? I pondered.  A few ideas were floating around in my head, but I needed to focus.  One way to help me do that is to make a commitment, so I went and signed up for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge.  

With that in mind, I started cutting out a sampler-type quilt from a free pattern I downloaded from JOANN and bought fabric for a few months back.  I really like those big wavy curves.  It's something a little different for a sampler.

I originally thought it would be a baby quilt, but it's more like lap quilt size. So I'm going to make it up for H2H.  At least, that's my thought at the moment.

Here's the first block on the design wall.  Turns out the fabric wasn't as bright blue as the pattern seemed to indicate, but that's okay.  It is a little brighter looking than the photo in real life, but more a muted navy than medium blue in any case.

What are you working on?

~Paulette

Hands2Help Quilts 2021

These are the two quilts I finished for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge 2021 hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

First up is a red and white quilt featuring the beautiful embroidery of Evelyn in California.  She sent me the sweet, animal-themed embroidered blocks and fabric to finish up this darling little quilt.  I talked about it at more length in a previous post HERE.  Click the link to see more pictures and closeups.

This quilt was sent off this week to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo.

The second is a baby quilt I finished and sent to Little Lambs Foundation.  This came together from some 2-1/2 inch squares left over from a previous project, which I sewed into nine-patches and then added  sashing and borders around it to bring it up to baby quilt size.

I'm working on finishing up more quilts for donation in the coming months, but that's the wrap for my Hands2Help quilts for this year's challenge!

Linking to:  Confessions of a Fabric Addict: Hands2Help - Time to Show off Your Quilts!

Fabric and Finishes

As mentioned in the previous post, my daughter recently brought me two big bags full to the brim with fabric from her coworker.  Here it is on my cutting table after I took it out of the bags and grouped it by colors and thus loads that I could prewash together.

I am allergic to cats and dust (not that you'd know it by the usual state of my housekeeping), so I  prewash everything before incorporating it on my shelves.  Time consuming, yes, but I actually enjoy the opportunity to pet each fabric individually as I take it out of the washing machine (and cut apart the mess of strings), dry the load, and then press each piece one by one.

It took about 10 days to get all of this new-to-me fabric sorted.  Here is everything afterwards, stacked on the cutting table.  There's some great fabric here!  The biggest piece is 3 yards of a Christmas print, but many yard and half-yard cuts, and a whole lot of fat quarter sized pieces.

I am so grateful to this person who wondered what to do with the fabric left from mask making in 2020 and passed it along my way.  I will certainly use it!  

Now for the finishes.  Several months ago, Jo of Jo's Country Junction connected me with a woman named Evelyn in California, who had a flannel quilt kit and a some other UFOs to be finished.  I agreed to finish them for donation.  You may have seen this pretty flannel quilt finish recently on Jo's blog (HERE and HERE).  

After I had pieced it, I sent it to Ray in Florida, a longarm quilter who finishes many donation quilts that come to him through Jo.  It was larger in size than I normally feel able to handle quilting on my regular sewing machine, so I asked Ray if he would be willing to longarm quilt it, and he agreed.  He did a beautiful job!  You can read more about this quilt in the links above, but here is a closeup he sent me of the quilting.

Then this weekend, I finally finished the second UFO from Evelyn.  She had sent some beautiful, neat-as-a-pin redwork embroidery blocks of cute animals, along with the instruction sheet to complete the red and white quilt and fabric to do so.  

Her blocks were so well done!  I really wanted to do her handiwork justice in finishing this quilt.  Here it is pieced together and on the design wall in mid-March.

I did use a different "white" when piecing the borders of the quilt (Kona Snow), as it matched the background of the redwork better than a true white did.  I pieced the backing from some of the other red and white fabric she'd sent, plus added a bit of my own to make the backing big enough.

Then it was time for me to quilt it.  The size was ideal for me to handle, at about 45 x 55, but how was I going to quilt the embroidered blocks?  I had a couple vague ideas, but no concrete plan, so I put the basted quilt aside for several weeks to allow my trepidation to settle.

Last week, having procrastinated long enough, I started in on the ditch quilting.  I still didn't really know what I was going to do around the embroidery, but I know that when I finally get over myself and take the first baby steps, momentum usually takes over. 

And so it did.  Ultimately, I just went with the flow and let the spirit and needle lead the way, block by block.  Over the course of a couple days, it was quilted!

Some blocks may be a little more inspired than others, quilting-wise, but overall I think it turned out well.

I used some red fabric from the new influx of scraps mentioned above in binding the quilt.  There was a long red scrap on the lengthwise straight of grain, which was perfect for this quilt.  

Having quilted more densely in the center than the borders, they threatened to become a bit wavy.  The lengthwise-cut binding helped corral it and made for a nice straight edge.

I will be donating this quilt to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo as part of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge 2021.  I hope whoever receives it will be uplifted by the playful, whimsical critters in this pretty red and white quilt.  Thanks again to Evelyn for entrusting a few of her projects to me to be finished, and to Jo and Sarah for connecting a community of charitable quilters!

Happily Gone to the Dogs

I had a wonderful visit from my daughter last Sunday.  We'd not seen each other since Christmas due to the pandemic, but now she and my husband were both fully vaccinated (my own vax is delayed due to recovering from shingles).  So we planned a get-together to visit and catch up (on hugs, especially), as well as exchange a few things.  

Namely, I had some kennel quilts for the animal surgery and recovery clinic where she works as a veterinary nurse.  It had been awhile since I'd made a batch of them (you can see previous ones HERE).  She reminded me of the size dimensions of the ones that get used often, on gurneys and such, so I pulled out the fabric I had left and got to work.

(Streak of Lightning Quilt)

What I mean by "the fabric I had left" is that whenever I can, I like to use repurposed scrubs for these small quilts.  It seems to wear well and stand up to frequent washings, even with bleach.  I had a lot of scrub jackets left that were all out of the same bright, multicolored fabric, as well as a some light green patterned scrubs fabric and some solid pieces in various greens and blues.

(Square in a Square Quilt)

Here are three of the quilts that came out of that.

(Stacked Coins String Quilt)

One is a streak of lightning type setting, the second is a square in a square, and the third is a stacked coins quilt.

I have to say, my favorite is the stacked coins.  It's string-pieced on 5x11-inch telephone book pages.  I was down to just strips and snippets of the solids by then.  Perfect for string piecing.

(Back of Streak of Lightning Quilt)

Backings are always a chance to get creative with leftover bits, too.

(Back of Square in a Square Quilt)

Along the way, I found some older fabric that had been donated to me this past year that said "doggy" on it.  It wasn't as sturdy as the scrubs fabric, so I began another streak of lightning quilt with the intention of making a baby quilt for donation.

When my daughter saw it, though, she said they'd definitely be able to use it at her work, so she took that one along with her as well.  

The apple pie fabric was another fun donated piece that got used up for the backing on this one.  

She says these quilts are already in rotation this week, which makes me happy and hopefully the dogs a little more comfortable, too.

They have apparently been very, very busy at the surgery clinic this past year.  Perhaps a silver lining in pandemic times has been that people are home more, spending more time with their pets and being able to prioritize to their pets' health needs. I know the staff at the surgery and recovery stay clinic are considered heroes by their clients, working hard to meet the needs of beloved furry family members at a time when their companionship is so important.

I said earlier that we were exchanging some things, and what my daughter brought for me were two big bags chock full of fabric from one of her coworkers, whose daughter had been making masks last year and had leftovers to spare.  Oh my goodness, what a generous infusion of fabric goodness!  I'll have some pics and more on that in another post.  She also brought me a new infusion of solid colored scrubs from a coworker, which have already been washed and cut apart for the next batch of kennel quilts.  And so the circle continues!

Linking to:  Confessions of a Fabric Addict - Recognizing our Hometown Heroes