Happy Friday everybody! This week's quilt is the mellow older brother of the bright patchwork I posted a few weeks ago.
This pretty patchwork of 4" squares was made by picking a focus fabric and then pulling fabrics that matched it. It's a Covered in Love quilt and, in fact, is already up at the hospital!
Meloney worked her magic again and quilted lovely leaves all over in a green thread.
The picture below shows a good closeup of the quilting and the center fabric was my "focus fabric" which inspired all the other fabric choices.
If you'd like to join in with Covered in Love's mission you can learn more on the main page or check out the block drive. The current Covered in Love block drive just began and it's a simple patchwork in Fall colors This drive will run until the end of October if you want to help out. More info here!
Time flies, and some how just like that it's time for another Covered in Love block drive! There was a wonderful response to the July/August star blocks, so I hope you will all like this block as much. I thought that with it getting toward Fall we would do a simple scrappy block in Fall colors.
This block is called "Scrappy Susannah" and you can find the tutorial HERE on "A Bright Corner". Our color scheme will be different from hers, but otherwise that tutorial is correct.
an example of Fall colors
Please select scrappy colors in the "Fall" color family. Think dark reds, browns, oranges, and golden yellows. For the background (white in the tutorial) choose an off white or natural fabric, prints and scrappy are ok. For an example of a previous block drive that used Fall colors you can see the "leaves" blocks from 2015.
Covered in Love makes quilts to give to patients who are dying in the hospital which their families can keep. At this time we have delivered over 220 quilts, thanks to so many quilters who have joined in!
I know a lot of you are old hats at these blocks drives, but there have also been several new quilters joining in the past few months! Basically, anyone can participate in these block drives and you can make as few or as many blocks as you like. If you participate this month that doesn't mean you're "signed up" for next month. You can do one block drive and skip the next, however is convenient for you. Email me at CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com to get my address or leave a comment here and I will email you, just make sure I can reach you.
Welcome to the Sew Some Love linkup! Please link-up any post about a project you're sewing for charity.
I've talked before on here about my wonderful do. Good Stitches sewing circle. These are the latest two NURTURE circle quilts to be completed for Covered in Love.
These two quilts were made in block-drive style by the ten members of our circle. Then Carla assembled them and Gabby quilted them. Didn't everyone do an awesome job?
The top quilt is made from the leftovers of "X Marks the Improv" blocks and the bottom one is the "Supersized Castle Block". They're in the stack for the next delivery to the hospital. What have you been sewing for charity?
This week's finishes are twin string quilts. Mina sent in a big ol' stack of string blocks and Kathy was so wonderful, she assembled and quilted them over the summer!
I like how Kathy made two different designs with the string blocks. As I was taking these photos I found some cute surprises in the fabrics.
Like those fish, above! Someone is going to get a kick out of those fish, I just know it. I visited with Chaplain Perry the other day and noticed he only had one string quilt left from last year's batch. He admitted these are some of his favorites.
Halloween mummies, witches, and black cats
As Louise said in her post, scrap quilts really are special because they give people so much to look at and to connect to.
Butterfly kitten wearing a tutu? Why not?!
The gift of a smile at a really dark time is one of the very best things you can give someone, and something I really hope we're able to do with our quilts.
Some surprised-looking owls
If you'd like to join in with Covered in Love's mission you can learn more on the main page or check out the block drive. The current Covered in Love block drive just began and it's a red, white, and blue star free-for-all. This drive will run until the end of August if you want to help out. More info here!
Welcome to the Sew Some Love linkup! Please link-up any post about a project you're sewing for charity.
I've been a busy bee lately, hope you've been finding plenty of time to sew, too. First of all I got the first two tops completed from the current Covered in Love block drive.
During the months of July and August any one can join in to make star blocks for Covered in Love through the block drive. Right now it looks like we're on track to make at least six quilts.
I also got my do. Good Stitches blocks done for the month. Louise asked for these wonky star blocks. By the time I made the 4th one I almost had it figured out! Rory was critical to my success, of course.
Lastly, I got the "tulips" WIP out again and began assembling it into a top. This one started off from some orphan blocks that were given to me and has just grown.
That's my week so far in a nutshell. What charity sewing have you been working on?
This is the bright patchwork top I made from charm packs before the summer. Meloney quilted it on her long-arm and she did a beautiful job with swirls in bright green thread!
This quilt is LOUD enough to stand up to green thread. It's 54"x72", a good sized for covering up with on the couch.
This quilt has already been taken up to the hospital along with 19 others, bringing our total to 220 for Covered in Love! 220 quilts made by donations from quilters around the world to bring comfort to mourning families.
The current Covered in Love block drive just began and it's a red, white, and blue star free-for-all. This drive will run until the end of August if you want to help out. More info here!
Yes, I'm finally home from my summer in Santa Fe. It was a good summer, full of ups and downs. Nice to step back from working on CiL a bit, but of course that just meant I had different problems to focus on :P
Tent Rocks, NM
My summer included:
a deathly ill dog, a midnight run around Santa Fe for blood to transfuse, and a miraculous recovery
facial shingles (not mine) which invaded an eye and led to post-herpetic neuralgia
a young-adult with Down Syndrome who caught chicken pox
multiple dental surgeries (not mine)
installing an IKEA kitchen
attempting online dating (marginal success, mostly stressful)
I feel like I'm forgetting some things, but that's a start anyway. I am glad to be back home to my regular, boring life! I was greeted by a knee-high pile of mail. Opening boxes is always exciting!
I've opened and sorted everything at this point. Yesterday I labeled all the quilts from the May/June block drive that Cynthia so wonderfully put together. Look for a post on them coming soon. Today I went to the post office, working on getting fresh tops out to the volunteer quilters :) The kitties are happy to see me, of course. Rey immediately resumed her post as block inspector.
There were some wonderful surprises in the mail. Aurifil and QT Fabrics both sent donations to CiL, thanks to Nicki K. who took it upon herself to ask around for me! I'll be posting more about them both later, but definitely think about showing them some love if you're in the market for thread or fabrics.
Jovie, the day she came home from the vet
And of course there were lots of blocks, tops, and fabrics sent in by wonderful quilters around the country. Your support not only keeps CiL going, but this summer it allowed me to go support my friends. Thank you all!
You may have seen my post a few weeks ago about my experiments with Shibori dyeing. You can either look at my previous post or Google "nui-shibori" to see more about how these designs are made. In the meanwhile I've I added a bottle of red dye to my stash and have tried a few more techniques.
For both of the onesies above I sewed through only the front or back of the onesie at a time, rather than through the front and back layers together. The designs come out a little bit finer when sewing through only one layer and it allows to put different designs on the front and back. The back of the heart onesie is below.
The heart onesie has already found its baby and is in use, along with the jellyfish onesie from the previous post :) Nothing makes a crafter happier. The faded heart t-shirt below is getting regular use already, too. The fade is created by clipping the shirt to the edge of the dye bath and lowering a bit more in every ten minutes.
For this one I did sew through all the layers at once, so you can see above how the back looks.
The t-shirt above was purely an experiment, with a stitch pattern in sort of a zigzag. It didn't come out like I expected (when do they ever) but after rinsing I liked the effect.
For both of these I sewed through the front and back layers. You can see their backsides below. I wasn't aiming for an American flag effect with the one on the left (I was actually thinking of those sliders on a sound control board), but I think now that I know the technique I could probably make one.
Fixing up this post has given me several new ideas and inspired me to get back to stitching! I hope you're all having a fantastic summer. I'm going to be back to my sewing machine and a considerable stack of mail very soon, so you can all brace yourselves for plenty of CiL posts coming soon!
Please enjoy these photos of Jovie, the prettiest princess
The new Covered in Love block drive is running now and it's a red, white, and blue star free-for-all. This drive will run until the end of August if you want to help out. More info here!
Listening to... I was introduced to Tex-Mex music this summer. A mix of traditional Mexican music with Bavarian influences that German immigrants brought to south Texas.
Sew Some Love is on hiatus this week. I thought instead I'd show you some pictures of my summer project here in Santa Fe. I've been helping my friends to install an IKEA kitchen.
before shot
Above you can see the left side of the kitchen area, which is where we started. I think July 5th was the day we officially began.
These are about 1/4 of the boxes that contained our kitchen. There were around 200 boxes.
First cabinet in. Assembling IKEA cabinets is basically like Lego for grownups. Installing them into a kitchen takes more construction knowledge and skill, so the the first time I am learning to use power tools.
Construction is even more similar to quilting than I always suspected it would be.
The left side of the kitchen is nearly done. We've made quite a bit of progress since this photo was taken a couple days ago. What do you think about IKEA? Love it or hate it?
