Becky & Kathy

Happy Weekend, quilters! I'm showing off some tops made by Becky and quilted by Kathy on her longarm. Both of these ladies are really really good at what they do, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Lots going on around here! The Pitt Crew kittens (the orange litter) are up for adoption. One of the kittens has already going to a home and mama is spayed. They are fully little cats now. They are wild and playful and climbing all over their little room. Mama is ready to move on to empty-nester life. 

I have taken in another litter, orphan bottle babies (don't ask me how that happened... I was on a lot of cold medicine at the time.) There are 3 of them and they are estimated to be about 2-3 weeks old.  I've had them about a week and they are doing well, gaining weight, and keeping me awake at all hours.  The older kittens seem huge in comparison!

In other fun news, I went to grown up D&D camp a couple weekends ago! It was near Big Bear in Southern California, at 8000ft elevation. It was a ton of fun and in addition to playing lots of D&D I got to do archery, sword fighting, and mini painting.

Eighteen years ago while in college I took archery classes with my friends. Imagine my surprise to find out that muscle memory still works! I won the archery contest at camp and got a badge for my efforts. 

Lastly, I have a couple of old quilts in the local quilt show next weekends. I'm not expecting to win anything, but it's nice to participate.  Whew, no wonder I've been worn out! 

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Comforting colors

Hello, friends! Louise here to share more quilty goodness made from YOUR orphan blocks. Let's dive right in with this soft and sweet sampler. This arrived as 24 completely finished blocks featuring a lovely variety of pieced and appliqued designs. The maker also donated the scraps, so I had enough to make one more simple block for a 5x5 layout. A chunk of the matching blue was just right for the binding. I just love how the angular pieced blocks play against the rounded applique florals, don't you?

This next quilt is made from a single fabric line, I think. The fabrics are gorgeous! It was donated as smaller blocks that I put together into the larger stars. You can't go wrong with classic stars.

Next is this sweet little panel with an angel and a cat in a vegetable garden. I removed one row of the panel because it featured two animals with X's in the eyes, and that just struck me as odd? Perhaps the artist is from a culture where X eyes don't mean roadkill, but I couldn't unsee that! A few orphan blocks in similar soft colors brought it up to a baby quilt size. 

Quilt number four is an example of using just a small handful of orphan blocks to make an entire piece. These 13 purple squares really caught my eye and I wanted to keep them together and let them shine. So I set them on point with lots of background fabric for this geometric design. I hope a purple lover really enjoys it.

Last but not least, another baby sized quilt featuring a wonderful donation of 21 teensy tiny paper pieced blocks. Yes, all those geometric block are only 3" finished! From the various fabrics and handwriting on the paper backings, I think these might have been a block exchange from a guild. I set the blocks alternating with little teddy bears from a cute panel, then added sashing, cornerstones and borders to finish. I think of it as the Teddy Bear's Picnic quilt, perhaps with a toy tea set.

Thank you to all who have donated blocks, scraps and fabric to Covered in Love!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

Quilters Quilts

Happy Friday, quilters! This week's quilts were all made by CiL's dedicated quilters.  This first top was made by me from a bag of scraps someone sent in. Linda quilted it on her long arm and finished it off. She found the perfect binding to match. 

Linda also sent in this neat quilt. I thought the backing fabric was really beautiful, kind of watercolor florals.

These next two were came from Doris. Sometimes when I get a box of quilts back there are bonus quilts in there!

This past weekend I attended a sew day for Quilts of Valor at the local League of the Arts. I made 14 blocks and we also got to see a presentation of a quilt to a former army medic, so that was really special.

Hope all is well where you are! The kittens are growing like weeks and should be ready for adoption soon!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Chained Up

Happy Friday, quilters! I actually have a personal quilt to show off this week. I made this for a friend's birthday earlier this year.

The pattern is a free one from Generation Quilt Patterns. I made 14" sq blocks set on point. This does require partial seams around the center block, but still quite simple and quick to assemble.

The blue fabric was an ombre and I cut strips horizontally (the opposite of usual) in order to get a range of blues. Laying it out in order to keep the blues in order was a bit of a challenge but it worked out.

I looked for a fun backing fabric and found this one full of wizards and faeries. It was more turquoise than it had looked in the photos, but still works.  I don't make personal quilts very often these days, so this was a fun one! 

I took updated glamour shots of the foster kittens

 Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Lutheran Quilts

 

Hello, friends! Louise here to share some lovely quilts donated to Covered in Love by Penn-Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church and Brush Creek Evangelical Lutheran Church cooperative ministry. They are located in the Harrison City-Irwin, PA area. Aren't the quilts beautiful? All are clearly carefully planned and lovingly sewn. 

As you enjoy the quilty eye candy, I'd like to share some thoughts about orphan blocks and how they end up in my hands. Kat receives donations of blocks from many quilters, and most don't have any explanation of why they have been sent. She forwards them on to me in a big box of exciting, mystery blocks.

Here are my theories on why blocks become orphans. 

1. The sewist's skills have improved, or the 1/4" seam that wasn't. We all know the importance of that scant quarter-inch seam. It takes time to get it right, and if you're just starting to make a particular block, sometimes the first few will come out the wrong size. I receive quite a few 8.25" blocks, 12.95" blocks, even 8.25" x 12.95" blocks. 

2. Tastes change. It's easy to fall in love with the latest, greatest fabric line only to cool your jets about it a couple of years later. Maybe she bought a fat quarter bundle of the cutest unicorn design and started a quilt for a child, only to find that child now is going through a goth stage. Time flies!

3. She bit off more than she can chew and the blocks are too hard. The Double Wedding Ring king size quilt is such a classic and many a quilter has met her match trying to finish even making all the blocks.

4. The sampler turned out to have too many challenging new skills and she hates making some of them.  Applique, paper piecing, AND curved blocks? Argh!! It's okay to learn that you never want to embroider another stitch. However, it does make it tricky to finish that 20 block sampler.

5. She made a major mistake on a complicated block. 87 tiny pieces and three right in the middle are turned wrong. Why does my circle of flying geese look like one is heading north for the winter??

6. She made a major mistake on ALL the blocks. I've seen beautiful sampler blocks in gorgeous fabrics all carefully trimmed to 8" instead of 8.5". So many points trimmed off accidentally. Ouch.

7. She made extra blocks that just didn't make the final cut. Maybe one fabric in the line wasn't as pretty as the others, or the contrast of the values wasn't quite as bold as the other blocks. It's smart to make 26 blocks when you need 24, just in case, but two must be banished. Because let's face it, most people don't need two matching potholders to go with their bed quilt.

8. She finished the beautiful pieced center but hates making borders. I get it; borders can be boring and tedious. It's absolutely fine to donate that center because I *love* making borders. And binding, too. Something about long, uniform strips of fabric floats my boat.

9. And finally, she thinks her batch of one-off orphans can't play well with others. These are her mistakes, her extras, her frustrations. The weird colors that don't match her stash. Seven blocks in a ziplock bag in a drawer. 

Here the good news: Louise's Home for Wayward Blocks has a place for ALL of them. I have seven storage boxes of orphans, in every color, design, size, and quality of construction. Big, small, not-square, points cut off, colors from the 1985 Sears catalog, half-appliqued...all have a place and all will eventually find their tribe and make it into a quilt. I love working with your orphan blocks and appreciate that it takes a village to make my Covered in Love quilts. Thanks for sending them in.

And thanks again to the Lutherans who stitched up these gorgeous quilts!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

Beth T

Pattern "Splitting Squares" by Canuck Quilter Designs

Happy Friday, quilters! This week I have quilts to show sent in by Beth T. starting with this Fibonacci pattern one. Thanks to Beth! One of our most consistent supporters. 

In better cat-news than I shared last week, my foster cat Stuart has been adopted! Happy tails to the best orange boy!

GE Designs, Strippy Stairways.

With the foster room freed up I've been given a new foster kitty family of a Mom and 5 kittens who were two weeks old (now four weeks). I've named them all after characters from The Pitt.

The are extremely cute and very orange. I think they're going to be long haired kitties. They mostly bumble around their play pen looking for milk at this point.

Mama is very friendly and also very LOUD. She has a lot to say! Fortunately she's quiet all night, but if she can see me she has the siren going.  She's very small and probably not very old, herself. She's doing a great job growing fat babies. 

After a hard day at work there's nothing better than getting in the kitten play pen!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Linda & Becky

Happy Friday, Quilters! This week's quilts are tops by Becky, quilted my Linda. Thanks ladies! Things have been a bit dramatic around here. 

I got a nasty cat bite and infection that had me limping for a week. It's been long enough now that I can start to find some humor in it. 

Fudge had a psychotic episode on the catio due to the presence of a stray cat. In the past I've thrown a blanket over him and bundled him up (he snaps out of it as soon as he's in the house) but this time I wasn't careful enough and he latched onto my leg.

I'll spare you the pictures, but suffice it to say I had a bad bite/scratch that got a pretty good infection despite oral antibiotics. I ended up in the ER with a fever to get a bag of IV antibiotics. 

And then because I went to the ER animal control got involved. Fortunately Fudge has his rabies vaccine so he could quarantine at home. Mom has been getting a big kick out of telling all her church friends that a man with a bullet proof vest and a gun came to arrest Fudge. 

Also at the same time I lost my wallet and had to replace everything. And the antibiotics gave me thrush and I couldn't eat because my mouth hurt so bad. And I had to work the entire time, limping around the hospital. It was not a fun couple weeks. 

Fudge, with no thoughts in his entire head

The furry little criminal has no knowledge or memory of the entire incident. The animal control officer took his mug shot and he sniffed the camera. 

In my next life I want to come back as a cat. 

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2026 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday