Nurturing Quilts

I struggled to take pictures today with high winds and bright sunshine, but I did get photos of these two quilts sent in by Jenny and made by the Nurture circle of do. Good Stitches.  

Our circle made these scrappy blocks last year and Jenny assembled and quilted them with a pretty leaf motif.  

Next, the group made these "Sunflower" blocks which obviously became the inspiration for the CiL Nov/Dec block.  The block is one originally made by Molli Sparkles. 

Again, Jenny did a beautiful job with the quilting.  

Everything is melted here now and it's a balmy 70 degrees. I had to post one more picture from last week, though, of Fudge being displeased at the snow.  

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 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

Assembling Foundation Pieced Batting

I know a lot of people have been curious about how the Jan/Feb string blocks that are foundation pieced onto batting will be put together.  I took advantage of the snow days to start putting some together so you can see.

I sorted out red and orange blocks for my first quilt.  Step one is to put right sides together and sew with a fat quarter inch seam through all the layers.

Step 2 is to finish the seam. I've done this before by finger pressing the seams open and stitching over them with a triple zigzag (visible in close up photos on this post).  

I decided this time to push the seam allowance to one side and top stitch it down about 1/8th inch from the seam.

And basically that's it. I like to assemble mine in columns and then join those into rows.  Make sure to push your seam allowances in different directions so they will nest. 

It does take longer to basically sew every seam twice, but it's worth it because of how easy the quilting is!

I use glue basting to put my quilt sandwiches together.  (More details in this post).  Since there isn't really going to be much quilting, just enough to tack the backing onto the top, the glue can be sparse.

I FMQ'ed 6 wavy lines across the quilt, through the center of each row. 

Trim, bind, and ta-da! All done.  I hope this helps answer some questions for you, feel free to ask in the comments if you have any others :)

Like many of you, we've had tons of snow and cold weather. I'm told we're breaking 100 year records. Fortunately we have had power and water throughout, knock on wood. Sundae and Fudge were very curious about the snow, I think the bright sunny day confused them into thinking it would be nice to go outside. They dash out the door and straight down the steps before realizing the problem...

Nope, nope, nope.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 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

Louise's Hobo Heart

Hello and happy weekend! It's incredibly cold here and I hope you're all keeping your toes warm, wherever you are.  The kitties and I slept very warm in piles of fluffy blankets last night, but it's supposed to get down in the single digits soon! Part of the reason I missed posting last week is because the overcast weather is keeping me from taking any new photos. 

I do still have a few photos in reserve, fortunately.  This awesome scrappy heart quilt was put together by Louise. You can read more about her approach on her blog here. She based it on a pattern called "Boho Heart" by Jen Kingswell which at the time wasn't available yet. 

I know that I recognize quite a few of my UFO blocks in there; and I wanted to post zoomed in photos so you can see if you spot any of your own. 

I love the bright wild pattern and all the colors. Louise found backing fabrics to match, too!  

Stay warm!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 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