Fast finishes from friends

Hello, friends! Louise here again with a couple more quilts made with YOUR orphan blocks and donated projects. I love having a stash of blocks in a variety of sizes, styles and colors. That way, when a great central panel like this handsome horse falls into my lap, I can surround it with just the right combination. These all came from my "autumnal colors" box, featuring browns, golds, reds, and oranges. A few hints of blue highlight the mountain stream the horse is splashing through, too.

On the other extreme from muted autumnals comes this vibrant piece! Wow! Whoever stitched this cool improv applique top has a fantastic color sense. Purples, coral, blues...I love it!

I decided to pick up the spring green and purple elements for the borders, and ended with black to contain the exuberance and frame it up. Since all I had to do was add borders, quilt, and bind, this piece came together speedy-quick. I hope it makes someone smile. 

Thank you again to the many hands that sew up and donate raw materials for these Covered in Love quilts. I couldn't do my part without you!

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

 

New Summer Block Drive

Hello Quilters! Time to wrap up the Winter block drive here at CiL and move onto Summer. This time we are doing a disappearing nine patch block inspired from the blog Chris Knits Sews, she is doing them for a Rainbow Scrap challenge this year.

For each block you will need (9) 5" squares from:

• blue (true blue, not teal or aqua)
• white/cream 
• black/grey
• (if you want inspiration, I realized it's the same color scheme as this block drive we did years ago)

This is a good way to use up leftover charm pack squares if you have them. You will also need 1.25" strips from the closest thing you have to a cheddar yellow (can be a textured solid or read-as-solid.) You'll need (6) 1.25" x 5" long strips and (2) 1.25" x 15.5" per block.

Sew your squares into a 9 patch with the yellow as sashing between the blocks. Press seams toward the sashing.

Now comes the disappearing part. Slice your block through the middle in both directions. You can find the middle by measuring 2.25" from the sashing seam line into the center blocks.

Rearrange the blocks as you like, turning them so that 2 of the littlest squares are diagonal from each other in the middle and the other two are pointing out at opposite corners

Sew the blocks back together and press. You're done! My math says your block should be 15", but mine was 14.75", so don't stress if you aren't perfect.

This block drive is open to anyone who wants to participate. The blocks will be assembled into quilts for families who lose a loved one in East Texas hospitals. You can make as few or as many blocks as you want. I don't know exactly how long this drive will run, but probably through October or so. If you need the mailing address please email me at CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com.

Little quilts from big hearts

 

Hello, friends! Louise here with more quilts made with your orphan blocks and donations. Last week Kat shared some beautiful finishes from the potato chip block drive. Those were larger Covered in Love quilts for adults. There were just a few drive blocks left that she sent to me, and I made this much smaller piece for the neonatal unit. 

This little quilt used some orphan four- and nine-patch blocks in bright colors with white backgrounds. I surrounded a nice panel of fish and water fowl for a quick finish.

Here's a close up of the quilting. This curved hook shape is my go-to free motion motif. I find it very quick and simple to do, and it gives great texture.

Here's a "jelly roll race" style piece, but instead of 2.5" strips, the maker used 1.5" strips. It arrived as one big chunk, but it was just a bit wonky and hard to make rectangular. I sliced it into five columns, flipped every other one, and sashed it with bright blue. This allowed me to ease the irregularities out and I think it turned out pretty nice in that scrap-happy way.

This super cool circle came to me raw edged, so I carefully turned a hem along the outer radius and machine appliqued it to a neutral background. 

The fabrics are gorgeous, especially the purple floral with golden accents. The final piece reminds me of the Big Blue Marble photo of Earth from space!

This orphan project showed up as about 8 finished blocks with birdhouse fabric as the large focal squares. There were also bits and bobs of the blender fabrics and background white. I remembered I had a VERY similar birdhouse fabric in my stash, so I sewed up enough more blocks to make a baby sized quilt. Can you tell there are two different focal fabrics? 

Finally, how about a little zing? High contrast magenta, teal and goldenrod were donated already sewn into strip sets, so I cut them into rail fence blocks. I laid them out in this stairstep design and found some psychedelic trees for a border. A very similar yellow binding ties it all together, easy peasy!

Many thanks to everyone who sends in orphan blocks and spare parts. I love using them as the raw materials for Covered in Love quilts.

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

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Once You Pop You Can't Stop

Happy Friday, quilters! I have more of the block drive potato chip quilts to show.  These first two quilts were assembled by Becky and quilted by Doris. Big thanks to those two ladies!

I love the classic patchwork look of these blocks and Doris did a great job with her quilting, as always.

I'm really fond of this yellow fabric with blue flowers on the backing. I'm pretty certain this is one of the ones my local quilt shop friend gave me when she closed her shop.

Big quilting swirls to complement the blocks. 

These last two quilts were assembled by me and quilted by Linda. I sort the block into semi random piles and then assembly line put them together.

Lovely spiral star panto from Linda. 

My parents garden is going strong now. I've been making vinegar salad with our cucumbers and taking extra strawberries to work (I don't like strawberries, but I'm told they're very good.)

I need to start freezing out excess strawberries to make pies and stuff with. I have also heard that you can freeze tomatoes whole, have any of you ever tried that? What about cherry tomatoes? What to do with all the tomatoes we can't eat is a problem every summer. I dried a bunch last summer, but it barely made a dent. 

I'm off to go pick now. Hope you all are well, and thank you so much to everyone who makes CiL a success!

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

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Cats...

 Sorry I missed yesterday, I'll get back on the wagon this week. Here are some cute pictures to tide you over.

Freshly flea bathed, they hate me a little bit

These two gorgeous girls are from the litter that the stray had at my aunt's house. They have gone to their new home with one of my work friends where they are being snuggled by two little girls.

Don't let the stink eye fool you. After drying off and warming up on heating pad they were all purrs.

My 4 week pottery class finished and these have now been glazed and are awaiting their final kiln fire. I did have one complete loss. And there is one on the far right that looks like a toilet bowl. But overall I'm tickled with how they've come out.

Stuart continues to be just the best boy. You can tell he's very stressed. 🤣 I have been thinking about looking a bit further afield for a home for him and traveling if necessary to get him there. So if anybody out of state wants to give him a home let me know.

Pastel Hugs from Lori

Happy Friday, quilters! I hope this weekend finds you all well. I have more quilts from Lori to show.

The ones in this post have a lighter palette and some really pretty fabrics, which I did my best to photograph.

We've started eating garden cucumbers this week, although the tomatoes remain stubbornly green. In another week we'll have more than we can eat. 

The second batch of Spring baby birds in my carport have flown the coop and a third mama bird is scoping out a nest site. 

I'm taking a 4-week wheel thrown pottery class at the local league to the arts and really enjoy it. This week we trimmed the bowls and cups we had thrown in the first two weeks and I managed to carve through the bottom of two of mine. Always humbling to start a new hobby.

I think the quilt above, with the gray and solid strips, is my favorite of this batch. This last one does funny things to my eyes, although it's not as bad in real life as in the photos.

These fabrics are really vibrant and I love how trippy the design looks. Thank you Lori!

If you are interested in more of my day-to-day (cats, quilts, books I'm reading, garden) you can follow me on Instagram @katandcat775.

Some sewing for a personal project this week

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

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Cactus Quilt

Happy Friday, quilters! I've been meaning for a while to you show off this non -CiL quilt I made for a friend. You know I don't make many personal quilts these days.

This is for a friend who love succulents. I started with a focal fabric with the cactus pattern, then chose solid fabrics to pull colors from time patterned fabric.  For quilting I did vertical stripes to echo the ridges on cactuses. 

 

It felt like a the triangles I cut should have made a bigger quilt! I guess that's always the case.

Spring is springing here. We have green tomatoes and tiny cucumbers growing but not ready to pick yet. I know soon enough we'll have more than we can possibly eat 

For the backing I used this fabric panel with some ombre fabric. I really like all the colors in the succulent blooms.  I'm happy to say that the quilt was well received and is already being enjoyed. 

Orange boys being orange. That's Stuart on the ground and Fudge climbing.

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

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday