In keeping with tradition for the past several years there won't be a Covered in Love block drive during March-April. This is to give us all a break and a chance to catch up. If you find yourself needing a charity sewing fix I'd like to point you toward the Hands 2 Help Drive. In particular, Mercyful Quilts is a selected charity this year which has essentially the same mission as CiL and operates in a California hospital. The regularly scheduled block drives will resume in May!
The first ten quilts from the Fall Tall 9 Patch Drive have been finished! Pam assembled and quilted these blocks sent in by Susan.
I can't get enough of these colors and I hope you feel the same. The blocks from Cindy were also assembled and quilted by Pam.
Irene sent in these blocks that Pam completed. I had to take a close up of the awesome saturated fabrics.
Lastly for this group from Pam, this quilt is made from blocks sent in by Jane and Kathleen. Usually I mix the block from a drive all together, but if there are sets large enough to make whole quilts from sometimes it's nice to keep groups together.
The rest of these quilts were quilted by Linda. This first one is her contribution to the drive that she made from her own stash.
Again, had to get a close up of those "nature" fabrics with the saturated colors.
Linda assembled and quilted these blocks from the drive.
These blocks look like they might by mostly from one maker, but I lost track of who. If you recognize your blocks let me know in the comments!
One of the things I really like about the Tall 9 block is how different they look depending on how you arrange them.
This FMQ sunflower design is one of my new favorites!
Yet another layout option.
Linda chose a interlocking boxes FMQ design that I think complements the layout.
And one last layout design. Which is your favorite? I think I like the plain rows best.
I'm including this quilt, also made by Linda, here for its similar color scheme. For some reason it seems retro to me?
Thank you, Pam and Linda, and everyone who contributed to the block drive!
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| One of the joys of a porch is a door mat. |
Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 900 so far! The January/February drive is running 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
Some really beautiful quilts came in a little while back from Patricia B. This stunner with the riotous jewel tones looks like the "Gypsy Wife" -now "Wanderer's Wife"- pattern by Jen Kingwell. (I'd be remiss if I didn't post a link here about why 'g*psy is a slur' and we should refer to the Roma people by their proper name. I had a Romani college friend who I learned from.)
Linguistic choices of the pattern name aside, this quilt is HUGE and it's soooo beautiful! The quilting is hard to see because it's all stitch-in-the-ditch, but it gives tons of texture.
This little star quilt is a contrast to the first one, with flannel and homespun plaids.
I really like the rich color palette.
One more small-ish quilt, a nice little feminine patchwork. You might notice the new photo background in these pictures. At long last the porch has been reassembled and reunited with my house! I am sore but very happy and it's a perfect place to take pictures.
Last but maybe best of all is this HUGE batik quilt with tiny, detailed piecing. This is the "Omigosh!"quilt pattern by Sue Garman.
The small squares are 1/2" finished. You can see my hand in the picture below for reference. I can't even imagine how long making a quilt like this must have taken.
I don't have an email address for Patricia so I wasn't able to send her a Thank You email. So, Thank You Patricia! So glad you found CiL and decided to join in.
Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 900 so far! The January/February drive is running 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
Some big quilts today along with some big news! This great big, beautiful top was pieced by Sherrill and quilted by Pam.
The big news is that after 7 years Covered in Love is expanding into a second hospital! As you may have gathered from my comments before, there are two very large hospitals in Tyler and they sit side by side. With everyone's generous support and many new people joining in we have now grown to the point that we needed to expand!
Back during the Hands2Help Drive last year Becky donated some finished and almost finished quilts and also a bunch of tops with backing and binding. We're finally starting to work on completing Becky's tops. Linda quilted these two on her longarm. She did a medallion design on the first quilt and side to side on the second.
The "new" hospital is slightly larger than the one we have been in and also has a larger chaplaincy department with 24-hour coverage. All of which means they will probably distribute more quilts faster.
This morning (2/10) I took the first load of quilts up to the new hospital and Perry and I met with their chaplains to introduce the charity and give them some ideas how to implement it in ways that work for them. It went great!
This interlocking circles quilting pattern (above) is one of my favorites that Linda does. Wendy, who helps with quilting for Cil, sent in this quilt of her own. Lovely bright colors!
I'm excited about the exciting new opportunities for CiL to reach more East Texans and I know you all will be, too!
Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 900 so far! The January/February drive is running 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
Nancy C. sent in 5 beautiful, finished quilts recently! This first one is a nice collection of batiks hand quilted with a straight stitch through the blocks.
I admire anyone who does any hand sewing at all! I avoid it as much as I can. I love the colors in this grey and blue quilt, below, and I also really like the secondary pattern that appears between the blocks.
Everyone has been asking how the Covid surge is going here. How quickly things can change! When I drafted this post a few weeks ago Covid was significant but business as usual was able to continue on in the hospital. Now numbers are back way up again, elective surgeries are curtailed, and I see the big buses every morning dropping off day shift and pick up night shift of the out-of-state emergency travel nurses.
There's nothing like simple patchwork! Especially set on point.
We're now back to school for a new semester with the nursing students and glad to be in person. (Although not this week due to the ice storm). I'm happy to be with a new group of students, just starting out as baby nurses.
Lastly Nancy sent in this seaside themed quilt with red and blue stripe and novelty fabrics.
Such a nice quilt for someone with a love of the sea!
Stay warm everyone!
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.
Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday
