Brrrr!

   

Happy Friday, quilters! I hope you're all staying warm! We've been having a cold snap here in Texas. The kitties and I are taking advantage of heating pads and electric blankets to stay cozy.  

The two quilts in today's post were tops sent in by Donna. Volunteer Pam did the quilting on this large Scrappy Trips quilt with vintage fabrics.

This smaller top of Donna's I quilted on my machine. I like the winter-y fabrics and it will make a good wheelchair lap quilt. 

Thanks to Donna and Pam! Don't miss out on the CiL block drive going on now, links below.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Jan-March block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Ginny & Linda

Happy Friday, quilters! I hope you are warm and your New Year is off to a good start.  

These quilts were all tops made and sent in by Ginny and quilted by Linda, starting with this patriotic/military quilt. Linda quilted it with stars and it has the perfect backing and binding. Patriotic quilts are always some of our most appreciated.

Next up a pretty pinwheel quilt. Looks like a jelly roll pattern, lovely batik fabrics. I really like how she used the corner trimmings to make the HSTs in the corners.

Linda did some loopy feathers to complement the fabrics and design.

I had the perfect batiks donated a while back to make the backing and binding from.

This pattern is called 'Heart Rhythms' I believe. I love the color palette in the fabrics. 

And Linda chose the perfect feathery spiral to quilt it. Thank you, ladies!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Jan-March block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Three Years Later {Tall 9 Block Drive Wrap Up}

Happy Friday, Quilters, and Happy New Year! At long, long last the Sept 2021 Fall Tall Nines block drive has wrapped up. Only 3.3 years after it launched. This was a HUGE block drive and these blocks have been my nemesis. Every time I thought they were all quilted up I would find more.

These first two quilts were made from donated blocks by Cynthia with Many Hands Many Hearts. She chose a nice fall-ish panto with leaves and pumpkins for the first one.

This second one, also quilted by Cynthia, has straight lines. I am always a fan of geometric quilting. 

These last three tops were all made by Donna and quilted by Sundance. 

I've enjoyed working with Sundance Quilting this past year to help finish CiL quilts and I do recommend them if y'all are looking for an affordable commercial longarmer. They've been wonderful to work with.

This drive produced almost 50 quilts, which is CiL's largest drive ever by a large margin. 

Obviously it's wonderful to be so supported and be able to bless so many grieving families with quilts, but it did make me quite overwhelmed with the task of getting them all assembled and quilted. 

Many thanks to the dozen or so folks who helped to get these done over the past three years. They're beautiful quilts and if I were going to choose a block drive to go over the top there couldn't have been a better one. 

The new block drive for Jan-March 2025 has just started, you can find the link at the very bottom of this page, if you want to join in!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this block drive, nearly 100 of you! I can't wait to see what we make in 2025.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Jan-March block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Jan-Mar 2025 CiL Block Drive

Happy New Year, Quilters! And welcome to the Jan-March 2025 Covered in Love block drive. To start off the year I thought we'd make a version of Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesty block.  I made a scrappy version years ago (above) and it is a fun block to make.  More details on the block drive "rules" at the bottom of the post.

I picked this color scheme: seafoam, grey-blue, brown, rust orange, goldenrod and butter yellow. Each block will need two fabrics that read as solid, textured solids and small prints are good. Make sure your two fabrics contrast with each other. The instructions make two mirror-image blocks at a time.

Start with two fabrics cut to 13.5" square.

Mark a diagonal line on the back of one of them from corner to corner. Place the squares right sides together and sew 1/4" on either side of the marked line. 

Cut on the line and press to make two half square triangles. Trim your HSTs to 12.5".

Stack the HSTs right sided up with the diagonals oriented opposite to each other. 

Cut vertical slices 2.5" wide through both blocks.

Separate the top layer from the bottom layer and reverse the order of the strips as shown above. Sew the strips together and you should get two mirror-image blocks measuring 10.5" x 12.5".

This drive will run from January - March (3 months). 

In case you haven't ever participated before, the idea in a nutshell is that you can make as many or as few blocks as you like. Contact coveredinlovetx@gmail.com for the mailing address and try to have them in the mail by the end of March. All the blocks received will be combined into quilts for families who lose loved ones in east Texas hospitals. 

Tops by Becky {Merry Christmas!}

Merry Christmas, quilters! I hope you've all had a lovely holiday and are warm and snug. This week I have several tops donated by Becky. These first couple were quilted by Pam. I love the bold fabrics and how saturated the colors are.

Becky has a knack for choosing simple patterns and bold fabrics that really sing together.

Pam did a great job quilting this one with a stipple in the white spaces so that the texture enhances the design. 

Lastly, a really LARGE top of Becky's that I sent to Sundance to be quilted. I chose a pretty interlocking sort of geometric design.  Thank you to Becky, Pam, and Sundance!

2024 is coming to an end and I cannot believe it's 2025 already! CiL turns 10 years old in 2025! I will be resuming the Covered in Love block drives in January, so keep an eye out for that post soon. 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Pantry Jars Quilt {Sorted}

Merry Christmas, Quilters! I am working in the hospital today, but I'm off this week. I hope you're all having a fun holiday. 

I thought I'd do a bonus post today to show a personal quilt I made recently. I like to listen to a lot of YouTube while I sew and over the summer I got into a food channel called Sorted. 

So I did what any reasonable person would do and made them a quilt! (You know what it's like when the inspiration bug bites.) I decided on pantry jars, which is a design I've never made before. 

I looked at a lot of quilts as inspiration and had fun adding elements like these books with funny titles from selvedges and the spice bottles and wine.

I also did several larger containers of fruit and veg in crates/boxes/bowls. I just stabilized those and then did raw edge applique.

I quilted wood grain on the shelves and the crates and stitch-in-the-ditch around the jars, and then stipple in the background.

To my surprise and delight the guys actually opened my quilts during a segment on their Christmas live show! The entire show is behind a paywall, but you can see most of their reaction here. 

I'm tickled by how excited they got about the backing. I bought 2 yards of a novelty food print and then pieced the rest from scraps. I guess all quilts are, by definition, two-sided? 

There's nothing more gratifying as a quilter than seeing something you made be appreciated and used in the spirit it was gifted.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

PS: the Covered in Love block drives will be back in January, so keep an eye out for that post in about a week. 

Tops by Jo

Happy Friday, quilters! I've got a few more quilts to show you this week. These tops were all made and sent in by Jo. this first one was sent in to Sundance Quilting to be finished.

Sundance did this cute ladybug motif, and I really like the rainbow backing and binding I found to complement it. 

This top, made from batiks, was quilted with a stipple by me here at home. 

For some reason this one didn't photograph particularly well. It's stunning in real life. 

I LOVE this quilt design with various sizes of flying geese. I really like the white space in it. 

It uses vintage 30's looking fabrics and Sundance did a big loopy flower design for the quilting.  Thank you Jo!! And Merry Christmas to everyone.

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday