Janet's UFOs (A long time coming)

Happy weekend everyone! We're half way through the first month of January already. Two pretty, rich-colored quilts finished for Covered in Love this week. Janet T. sent these two tops in ages ago and I just got the second one finished.

The rail fence top was quilted by me. The fabrics are very rich browns, teals, and purples with gold highlights.

The second top is a very large one using the same fabrics. The setting is simple, but shows off the beautiful Asian-themed fabrics.

My long-arm friend Meloney finished it with a feathery stipple in the perfect teal-brown variegated thread.

Thank you ladies! I'm getting back into the sewing groove after my Christmas holiday.  Fudge and Sundae are my consulting quilt inspectors, of course, provided they don't sleep too much on the job ;)

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 400 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

What to do with a modest baby?

A friend of mine is expecting a new baby soon, and so far the little scamp has kept their bits covered during the ultrasounds. I suppose they are modest?

I started off to make a gender neutral baby quilt using my 60 degree triangle ruler and pulling a color scheme to match this Van Gogh fabric I've had a long time.

In the end, I decided that one was too boy-ish. So I made a little girl quilt, pulling colors from a southwestern flamingo fabric I've had a long time. I think I must have found it in a remnant bin?

I found a bunch of too-cute fabrics for the front and some fat quarters to make the backing.  Once the mystery baby makes their debut the other quilt will be sent to Jack's Basket to celebrate another beautiful baby.  I delivered the quilts, along with an addressed envelope for Jack's Basket, to the Grandma-to-be over Christmas so she can take them to the birth.

Over the holidays I had about 3 weeks of downtime. A great opportunity to be surrounded by family, friends, dogs, and babies. I drank a lot of coffee, slept late, took the dogs for long walks and read a whole bunch of books.  Now I'm back home and back to work and gradually getting back into the swing of sewing.  I hope your holidays were also restful and enjoyable and your new year is off to a good start :)

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 400 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

Love for the Chaplains

Today's post is in celebration of some key members of the Covered in Love team, hospital chaplains Perry and Robert.   While I normally focus on the quilt-making side of the charity (for obvious reasons) Perry and Robert have the emotionally fraught job of actually matching those quilts to families and delivering them.

The chaplains' patience, tact, empathy, and self possession never ceases to impress me.  When one of my co-workers died suddenly in a car wreck recently Robert brought this Granny's Square by Debbie out of our stash along with some sharpies. The light colored backing made a perfect way for staff to write messages, a tangible way to grieve. The quilt was later given to her mother.

I've had this wall hanging in progress for a while now, destined for Chaplain Robert's office.  It was part of the great cat-pee-drawer-incident so it finally got finished. I like how to fabrics are mostly floral, contrasting with the image of the cross which is traditionally somewhere somber and gory.   I'm told it's a great conversation starter for Covered in Love ;)

I lost quite a few friends toward the end of 2018.  Obviously I deal with the realities of life and death all the time. And while I think that might help me some, losing friends, and young ones at that, is always a shock. First a young lady I knew years ago during the time I was sailing.  She was only 21.

Me on the right, Josie on the left

Then my co-worker, whose birthday is almost the same as mine. A friend from my theater days I mentioned a couple months back, whose family received a quilt.  And right before Christmas an ex-boyfriend, and current friend, who had gotten two quilts from me before (here and here).

Nate, on the beach in Arcata

I hope your New Year has gotten off to a good start.  Here's to the New Year and to a less eventful 2019.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 400 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

Variation on a String Block {Jan/Feb CiL Block Drive}

Hello! And welcome to the Jan/Feb Covered in Love block drive post.  For the past three years we've made foundation pieced string blocks following this tutorial and made 50 string quilts!   (If you're new to CiL or the block drives skip to the end of the post for information.)

The annual scrappy string drive is a big hit with piece-rs, with me, and with the patients who receive quilts.  Hopefully this year's slight variation on the foundation pieced string block will still be a big hit with everyone. I thought i might be fun to mix it up and do something a bit different this year.

(If you had already started making some of our usual string blocks in anticipation of this year's drive, go ahead an send them in, too. I always have a few extra around I can put them together with.)

Cut a scrap piece of fabric to about 13.25 or 13.5" square (I always use old bedsheets, after you make one block you'll have an idea of how much lee way you need). Choose a square or rectangle piece of red fabric (any shade of red) between about 1.5"-3" square.  Place it at the corner of your foundation square right side up.

Pull out your string scrap box and place a strip along one edge of the square right side down. Sew a quarter inch seam through the foundation square, fold down the strip and press.

Continue adding strips, alternating sides log-cabin-style, sewing them right though the foundation square and pressing after each addition.

As you add each strip let them overhang the outside a bit.  Better to be too big than too small.

Like our usual string blocks, strings should be less than 2.5" wide. Any colors/patterns are allowed; "ugly" fabrics encouraged ;)  Straight lines and 90 degree angles can be approximate.

And that's the gist of it. Just keep adding strips and pressing.  If you have too much overhang underneath a strip just trim it with scissors.

When you get close to the edge of the foundation block press one last time. Allow your cat a few minutes to bask on the warm surface before moving to the cutting table.

Trim the block to 12.5" square, making sure not to cut off too much of the red square in the corner.

The foundation backings do make the finished quilt heavier, but not by as much as you'd think. On a scrappy quilt like this one, especially blocks made by so many different people and shipped across the country, they are invaluable to prevent stretching, warping, and fraying of seams.

I hope you enjoy these blocks and they help you to lighten your scrap bins a bit!

This block drive will run through February. You can make as few or as many blocks as you like and send them along to be assembled into quilts. The quilts are given to patients who pass away in a local hospital and the families take them home. Learn more about our charity on the main page here.  For the mailing address email CoveredinLoveTX@gmail.com or leave a comment (make sure you leave an email address for me to reach you at).

Quilt delivery!

You can also support Covered in Love with monetary donations (send a check or use the Paypal link on the left side bar), by volunteering to assemble and/or quilt tops, and by donating supplies and materials.  Send me an email at CoveredinLoveTX@gmail.com for more information.

Merry Christmas / Happy New Year from CiL

Thanks to Priscilla for donating these tops to Covered in Love that I finished for this week's post.  I hope you all had a great Christmas and you've got some fun plans for New Year.

This large, beautiful, vintage-looking Birds in the Air quilt will be a real treasure to someone.

I found the perfect vintage train travel fabric among Sandra's donations for the backing.

Next, a very non-vintage disappearing nine patch in bright purple, blue, and neon green. 

I added some peacock fabric from Sandra to make it a bit wider.

And I found some more peacock themed fabrics for the backing, too.

Finally, this nine patch chain top with some great novelty fabrics.

I quilted all three of them with a medium stipple and they washed up warm and cozy.

Covered in Love had a great 2018, here's to an even better 2019!

Yep, more peacocks on the back!  If you want to participate in CiL's last block drive of the year it isn't too late. Check the information at the bottom of the post and get your blocks in within a couple weeks. Or wait a few days and the post for the January block drive will be up!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 400 so far! The Nov/Dec drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

True North

It's rare these days that I have a personal quilt to share, but I'm going to have a few this Christmas!  This quilt was originally intended to be a present for Christmas 2017. Only one year late is practically on time by most quilter's standards!

The quilt is large, 80x100" approximately, which was necessary because the recipient is so tall.  I did flying geese set in a Dutchman's Puzzle pattern on point. At the edges the geese thin out and in one corner some geese are breaking free, becoming 3D, and flying away.  It's a similar design to this quilt, which ironically I named "Fly South".

The colors cross fade from dark purple to light and dark yellow to light.  Although it took me for-ev-er to get this quilt done I'm really glad I did it and really happy with how it came out.

I made the 3D geese with two methods so that they would get bigger, as if they're popping out more and more from the quilt, as they went along.

I found the perfect backing in 108" width to go along with the quilt.  I'm excited that this finally got done right in time for Christmas (if a year late). I hope you all have a warm and Merry Christmas surrounded by family and friends!

Kittens: Waffles and Leena have now gone to their forever homes, leaving Sundae and Fudge.  Sundae has her paws crossed that her potential adopters will work out soon!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 400 so far! The Nov/Dec drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday