More of your orphan blocks and UFOs

 

Hello, again! Louise here with another batch of quilts made from the parts and pieces that YOU have sent in. Let's start with the one that was the closest to completion when it arrived. I think this style is called a "Baltimore Album." The central blocks and several borders were finished and I only needed to add the final 2 or 3 borders to bring it up to size. I'm pleased that I had fabric that coordinated really nicely with the greens and deep reds of the center. While these are classic Christmas colors, the design isn't overtly "holiday."  It's such a pretty, classic design and I think it turned out really nicely!

This next quilt is made from super scrappy nine patches and shooflies pieced by Priscilla. Her blocks are so precise that sewing them into groups of four is easy and relaxing! No trimming, no fudging, just smooth sailing.

Because the blocks contain pretty much every color available, I had fun experimenting with an unusual sashing in mint green dots. Suddenly all the mint green in the blocks pops out! The result is a bright, happy quilt. The binding is a purple floral that was premade and donated. When I noticed tiny mint flowers in the binding, I knew it was perfect for this quilt!

Quilt number three is a sampler style in light blue/green/peach/brown. Tina H. donated about a dozen finished blocks plus the extra scraps from her project. Using the scraps, I was able to sew up a few more blocks.

The nice thing about sampler quilts is that any block design will play nicely with the others! That gives me a lot of flexibility when using the scraps. However, I still only had 17 blocks. 

Because my studio is a bit messy, I have other projects piled up around me, and these sweet animal panels were casually hanging around nearby. Hey! Those animals match the block colors EXACTLY.  Boom! Three more blocks to make 20 for a nice 4x5 layout with thin sashing. Who donated the animals? Let us know in the comments!

And once my eyes started looking for blue and brown fabrics, this mallard duck design obviously had to become the backing. Almost looks like it was planned this way from the start, doesn't it?

Quilt number four was a slam dunk in terms of coordinating the fabrics, because 95% of it was donated together by Christine B. This is lovely, very high quality fabric with the most wonderful soft hand. The scraps from Christine were mostly precut triangles and 3.5" half square triangle blocks, with a few width of fabric skinny strips.

I put all those triangles next to my machine and kind of mindlessly stitched them together in between other projects. After a while a few of them said they wanted to be big stars. Some wanted to be smaller squares in squares. Between the two types of blocks and the remaining skinny strips, a modern column quilt was born!

For the backing, I used part of a HUGE Lone Star top that Kat was gifted from a thrift store. It's hard to make a flat top in this design, so I had to really cut it down to get a usable chunk. Even though the combination of navy, coral, orange and pink on the front is unusual, the Lone Star matches it really well! 

And finally, here is a quilt that was donated in a completely deconstructed state: as a jelly roll! Does that count as an orphan? Maybe not! It's nice to have a chance to create a quilt completely from scratch, especially when someone provides fabric as pretty as this. 

These modern hexagons are made from a "Botanicals" jelly roll donated by Christine B (I think). I added a gray border and binding to float the hexies, and quilted with a dot-to-dot lobed design. 

Backing is extra blocks plus a modern orange stripe that was also donated. In case you can't tell, I really love making these quilts from your donations. I love the challenge of puzzling together leftovers and scraps into a coherent whole. As each piece of the puzzle arrives, I get to admire different fabrics and new block designs, picturing in my mind who created it. It helps me feel more connected to both the greater quilting community, and the families that receive the quilts. 

Thank you again for the privilege of fostering your orphans and sending them along to their forever homes! Kat will return next week with more Covered in Love news.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far. The January/February drive is running now, check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.