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

What I Did When I Wasn't Blogging - Part 1

I made progress on a few things during my March and April blogging hiatus.  I finished a couple of quilt tops I'd been working on.  Here is my Scrappy Trip Around the World.

I usually got a better sense of this quilt from a side view as I was putting it together.  Not sure why that is, maybe just the greater distance as I stood in the laundry room door versus straight in front of it.

And here's the Hole in the Barn Door quilt top.  I love the colorful scrappiness of both of these.

I wasn't sure how to border this quilt at first, but it seemed to be asking for more color beyond the blocks themselves, so I sandwiched a strip of scraps between an inner and outer gray border.

I've sent these to local longarm quilter Sandy and I'll probably see them back in a few months for binding.  There's no rush as I will probably be keeping these, at least for the time being.

* * * * *

A few weeks ago, I sent some quilts to Rachael and Becky of Quilted Twins.  Becky has been  heading up a massive relief effort for Ukranian refugees in Poland.  She and her husband and team of helpers have been doing great work providing supplies and other essentials to Ukranians displaced and otherwise affected by the war.  Her sister Rachael in Florida was gathering quilt donations to be shipped to Becky through the end of April.

* * * * *

The hubs and I enjoyed some nice nature walks, even though winter seemed to be taking her sweet time leaving.  We caught some early spring migration as we walked the marsh trail one cold but sunny March day.  It was fun to see and hear gorgeous trumpeter swans, as well as other swan species, geese, and red wing blackbirds.

A pair of trumpeters flew so low over our heads we could hear the "zizz-zizz" of their wing feathers vibrating.  Who knew their beating wings made such a neat sound!  Their trumpeting sounded like the honking of an antique car horn to me, but that was really cool too!  (Click the link to listen to a sample.)

* * * * *

I read and/or listened to some interesting biographies and memoirs, including the audiobook versions of Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper, The Boys by Ron Howard and Clint Howard, and Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci.  Two thumbs up on all of them!  

The audiobook versions were narrated by the authors, which I enjoyed.  I will say that on Vanderbilt, though, I also got the hard copy of the book from the library to read some of the chapters myself.  While Anderson Cooper does a fine job overall, he read a little too fast for my liking on some of the more descriptive chapters about Gilded Age parties and opulent decor and who wore what, etc.  I needed to imagine those scenes at a more leisurely pace.  (I also found it a bit odd, to be honest, that he pronounced "satin" like "sadden"—and there was a whole lot of satin in one chapter in particular, which, incidentally, did not sadden me one bit!)

* * * * *

My sister came over to sew with me, and we made some throw pillows together.  Probably 10 or more years ago, she gave me some Debbie Mumm Christmas fabric of six different Santa panels.  She'd bought it for herself in the 1990s but didn't make anything with it.  I didn't do anything with it either after she gave it to me, just put it away in a drawer.  When I was decluttering the sewing room in the beginning of the year, I showed it to her again and we decided to make a day of it and sew the panels up as pillows for her.  This fabric was truly "old enough to vote," as my dad used to say.  (I say: Can we procrastinate or what!)

As it happened, I had some nice coordinating fabrics in my stash for an assortment of different borders and pillow backs, so we sewed up all six pillows over the course of what ended up being couple afternoons together.  It was fun to have a sewing partner and to finally get them done—months before next Christmas, I might add!  ;)

I'm going to break this catch-up post into two parts.  Stay tuned!

~Paulette

Finishes and Starts

I visited a new-to-me quilt store with my daughter recently called Blue Bar Quilts.  What a neat place!  So many beautiful fabrics, I was a bit overwhelmed by it all but in a really good way.  I should've taken more pictures of the store, but at least I got one right when we came in, before I went into full ooh-ahh mode as I wandered among the pretty bolts.

I can show you what I came home with, though.  Most of this is for Christmas and other secret sewing, so I won't be elaborating more until those projects are done and gifted.  Fun stuff, though!

What I am happy to reveal is that I finally quilted the redwork baskets quilt top that I had finished a few months back.  You can read more about that HERE.  Evie had sent me the beautiful embroidered blocks to put together into a quilt to be donated.  While I rehabbed from finger surgery (and then procrastinated some more), it patiently waited for me to figure out how to quilt it.

Ultimately, I decided that simple straight-line quilting inside the embroidered spaces was the way to go, but I didn't want to make tracks all over that pretty stitching.  Just enough to keep the layers together and not detract from the embroidery.

The baskets of flowers seemed to have a somewhat overall V shape, so I did some doodling on paper and finally went with a V overlaid with an inverted V within the embroidered blocks.  Above you can see the painter's tape, which I used as a quilting guide, marking some V's.  I'd quilt a couple areas at a time and then rotate the quilt 180 degrees and repeat the process.

I did end up going back and making a horizontal line through the center to make sure it didn't puff out too much in the resultant diamond shape.  Hence the V's turned into A's, but whatever, it worked.  You can see the quilting better in the back view.

Now it's been mailed off to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo.  Yay, I'm doing the finished quilt happy dance!

While I was at it with the quilting foot yet on the machine, I quilted the streak-of-lightning baby quilt made with Star Wars fabric scraps.  

Both that and the "Little Farmer" baby quilt will be donated to Project Linus.  I'll drop them off this week at the local collection spot.

Here is what's currently on the design wall.  These are the scrappy string Hole in the Barn Door blocks to date.  I like them a lot!

I'm considering how (or whether) to sash and border them, and whether I want to make a few more blocks or call it quits with these.  I'm leaning toward just stopping with what I currently have done, but we'll see.

The weather has turned cold and we had our first snow of the season this weekend.  Our silver maple tree in the back yard is always the last to drop its leaves, and when it finally decides to do it, it's over in just a couple days.  It was beautiful to watch the snowflakes and the green-gold leaves swirling through the air at the same time in a race with each other to the ground.

A Couple of Small Quilt Finishes

I finished a couple of small quilts this week.  Hooray for progress!  I also finished physical therapy for my hand.  Whoop-whoop!  

Fortunately, I didn't need the splint for the left middle finger that may be developing trigger finger.  I'm just supposed to keep an eye on it and make an appointment with the hand clinic if it gets worse.  The left pinky finger that had surgery will just take time to heal completely and the swelling may last up to a year, she said.  I went down a size in the compression sleeve, from a large to a medium, so it feels like things are going in the right direction.

Anyway, quilts...  Last time I mentioned I was able to practice my quilting again on a small scrappy piece.  Since then I finished binding it and have given it to my niece's little girl, Jade, as a doll quilt.  

Jade's going to have a new little sibling around Christmastime, so I'll be starting a quilt for the expected baby soon.

This little doll quilt was made from scraps of scraps of scraps!  Scraps from mask making were turned into a Scrappy Rail Fence quilt, which yielded scraps for this doll quilt. 

The other small quilt finish is what I'm calling Little Farmer, for the farm-themed scraps it's made from.  These were leftover bonus HSTs and other scrap pieces from the County Fair quilt I put together recently.

Don't you love it when you get another whole quilt from the main quilt?  I had enough leftover fabrics for the pieced backing too.  It ended up about 45 inches square.

I imagine little ones, as they get a bit older, playing with toy tractors on it, weaving through the "fields" of corn, hay, wheat, etc.  Here it is with the John Deere tractor and wagon that my daughter and her cousins all used to play with at Grandma and Grandpa's house some 30 years ago.

I quilted it with a simple meander in a gold colored thread.  I think it turned out really cute!

This one will be donated, but I'm not sure where yet.  I have to review my list of donees and see where the best fit for it may be (size-wise, etc.).

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Redwork Baskets

Last week I put together a donation quilt top from some beautiful redwork embroidery blocks by Evelyn (Evie) in California.  You may recall she also embroidered the animal themed blocks in this quilt.  Her work is meticulous! 

This time it was 12 basket blocks that I worked with, each one a little different, but all very beautifully done.  

I'm still trying to use my stash whenever possible, and sometimes that leads to interesting fabric combinations.  I went back and forth between some of the options I was considering, but hopefully I've done her blocks justice in the end.

I wanted to make this lap quilt size, so I needed to add as wide a border as I could eke out of that outer red print fabric.  With a little creativity, I was able to cut an 8-inch border.  The top measures around 49x59, which seems like a good size.

As far as the quilting goes, that will have to wait until my hand is a bit further along in its recovery.  Or I may send it off to be quilted and donated.  We'll see.

I'm four weeks out from surgery as of tomorrow.  I'm supposed to start squeezing exercises, beginning with a sponge and progressing to a stress ball.

The bruising on the tip of the finger is almost gone.  The scar is healing, but still a little scabby especially at the crease of the joint.  The finger still tends to swell during the day, so I wrap it when it gets too sausage-y.  The therapist gave me a sample of a support tube (think compression stocking type thing) for the swelling, but it doesn't fit well so I just use the stretchy wrap.  

I can make a loose fist, and I'm typing this post with all 10 fingers, so there continues to be steady progress.  Hopefully by next month, I'll be able to squeeze the brakes on my bike so I can go for a ride!

County Fair is a Flimsy

What I had anticipated 10 days ago would be a quick finish of the Debbie Mumm County Fair quilt took a week longer, but now it's officially a flimsy, a completed quilt top.

It seemed that just when I thought the end was right around the corner, there were a few more steps.  All those big 24-1/2 inch blocks needed corner triangles (some in three different fabrics).  And since I'm the kind of person who gets antsy after an hour and a half of anything, even something I enjoy, it took, well, as long as it took.

I'm very happy with the end result, though.  Well worth the time spent.  

It's a big one, too, at 89 x 89 inches.  I had to climb over the furniture to get a good shot of it, taking up just about all the floor space available in the room.

I noticed while final pressing it that I had one little piece of fabric reversed so the back side of the fabric was showing.  Not obvious enough to take the whole block or section apart and redo, though.  I doubt anyone will notice, and word has it the quilt police are as easily distracted by squirrels as the rest of us, so no worries!

This quilt project was a kit that came to me via Jo's Country Junction, when Jo was looking for people who might want to finish and donate some of the things that came to her from her readers.  The reader who sent this to her was "Connie in Wisconsin."  Connie had most of the quilt already cut out and bagged according to the six block-of-the-month instructions that went along with it, and had begun piecing on some of the installments.  I was able to figure out where she'd left off with each bit and take it from there.

The copyright date of this quilt pattern was 2003.  It may have taken awhile, Connie, but we got it done!

The top and fabric for the backing and binding are now on their way to Ray in Florida, who will quilt and finish it for donation.  I love being a small part of the village of quilters busting UFOs like this for a good cause.