Suzanne's tops

Happy Friday, Quilters! Almost a year ago 2 friends worked together to make 5 quilts top for CiL, they even shipped a bolt of fabric for backing. We seem to have finished all of Suzanne's quilt tops first, so Kathy's will be upcoming. This first one is Suzanne's top quilted by Linda. 

This next mosaic top was also made by Suzanne and was quilted by Doris on her long arm. Thank you to all our volunteers!! 

Becky M. has recently started to help with assembling blocks into tops and she's done most of the Scrappy Mountains blocks from the block drive earlier in the year. I can't wait for you to see them, they look so good!

The current block drive is linked at the bottom of this post. These are larger blocks than we usually do so the tops will be different to assemble. One finished quilt has already been sent in and looks very cool. 

This last quilt is again top by Suzanne, quilted by Linda, with one of my favorite spiral pantos. 

Here is another of my recent pottery painting projects. I've been experimenting with ways to incorporate quilty designs.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Quilting by Doris

Hello quilters! Happy Friday.  I have two quilts this week from one of CiL's long arm quilters Doris.  This first quilts top was donated by Becky and then quilted by Doris. The second quilt is one of Doris' own that she donated to us.

How does time seem to pass so quickly? Summer is almost over and the nights are finally getting  cooler. Today is the kitty baby's estimated birthday and they are turning 7 years old. All of your quilts continue to be a blessing to families in the hospital. 

I love the wavy quilting panto on this very patriotic quilt.   Red white and blue quilts are consistently some of our most popular. 

Outside of quilting, I've gotten into the hobby of pottery painting. I painted this octo-mug a few weeks ago and was so pleased with how it came out!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Meeting Friends

Happy Friday Quilters! Recently I was fortunate enough to meet one of CiL's quilters in real life! Linda has been quilting for CiL since 2020 and has quilted over 150 quilts for us on her longarm. 

The two quilts in this post are some of her own that she has donated. It was wonderful after years of emails and boxes going back and forth to actually meet. We browsed a quilt shop and had lunch after she was kind enough to pick me up from the airport. 

It's always a treat whenever I get to meet volunteers in person!

The babies went to the vet recently for a check up. They are almost 7 so I figured it was a good idea. Sundae's thyroid is fine, she's just fat. We're continuing to work on it. (I do have 2 carriers, but they prefer to be together.)

 Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Love from Oregon

Hello everyone, I'm sorry for being MIA for a month. No good excuse, but I did have several trips in close succession. My family takes an annual trip to the beach, which I always look forward to. I always wear a sun shirt and trunks and I'm diligent with the sunscreen, so I managed to get away with only a sunburn on the backs of my hands.

All of these quilts were sent to us by Lynn in Oregon who had ended up with the leftover stock from several charity quilt drives. We are happy to make sure they go to good use in the spirit they were donated!

With the delivery of these to the hospital Covered in Love reached 1730 quilts donated. I never could have imagined when I started this that we would one day be approaching 2000 quilts.

The latest block drive blocks are coming in we've had several wonderful new volunteers join to help assemble and quilt blocks, which is really a relief and a huge help.

Hopefully I'll be back to posting regularly for a while!

 Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

More Hugs from Lori

Happy Friday, Quilters! This week's post is a round up of the last of the quilts that Lori sent in to us, starting with this flannel rail fence.

Things continue fairly well here. I took 30+ quilts up to the hospitals last week. 

My parents' garden is going wild and I've been experimenting with "sun drying" tomatoes in the oven. 

I got a new cat feeder for Sundae that meters out a precise amount of kibble 6 times a day. She has already learned the sound of it and is starting to predict the schedule. 

Hope you're staying cool and enjoying summer wherever you are!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Mina's Village

Happy Friday, quilters! Hope you're all well. This week I have several of Mina's signature village quilts to show. This first one she sent in already finished.

These next two were tops sent in by Mina and quilted by Sundance Quilting. I love them because they're bright with lots of little things to look at, and because it's a reminder of how much we all need our "village" to get through hard times.

Someone donated me this rainbow fabric that made the perfect backing for these cheery quilts. You zoom in on this one you might be able to see the panto of umbrellas and clouds.

My poor Sundae girl continues to struggle with her weight. She's like a furry watermelon. As they are coming up on 7 years old I really want to keep her in good health. Has anyone had any luck with a particular food for helping cats lose weight?

It's not fair that brother got a good metabolism and she has to count kibbles :(

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1600 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Priscilla and Sundance

I received a box this week with no name or note containing 7 tops with backing fabrics and batting. If you sent it please comment or email coveredinlovetx@gmail.com to let me know!

Happy Friday, Quilters! Hope you're all doing well. This week I have 4 quilts to show you with tops made by Priscilla and quilted by Sundance. 

Butterfly and flower panto on this cozy blue and yellow quilt. Sundance Quilting have been great to work with and I recommend them if you need affordable and fast long arming services. 

Priscilla always makes great scrappy quilts. I'll probably be making a delivery of quilts up to the hospital next week.

Lately it has seemed like we are swamped with a lot of sicker patients than usual. It makes for long days as well as being pretty disheartening for everyone involved.  CiL is a nice way to feel like I'm at least doing something to help these people when there's nothing medical I can do. 

Sorry for the over exposed photos. Once I got started taking photos and was all sweaty I just wanted to push through and get them done. 

At long last I have posted a new block drive, so be sure to check that out at the bottom of the post. These are larger blocks than usual but I think they'll be really fun quilts. I can't wait to start seeing some of the blocks you put together!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1700 so far! The Summer 2025 block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

  Linking to Finished or Not Friday

CiL Block Drive {Summer 2025}

It's time, finally, for another Covered in Love block drive! Historically these have run for 2-3 months, but since I can't seem to stick to a deadline I'm just going to say that this drive will run until at least the end of September, possibly longer.

We are going to be making larger blocks than usual this time around, based on this quilt that Lori sent in. I'm sure this block has a name, so if you are aware of it please comment. I'm calling it scrappy pinwheels.

The instructions to make the blocks are below. In case you have never participated in one of our block drives before, anyone can make blocks and you can make as few or as many as you like. Send an email to CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com to get the mailing address to send them in. I will mix them all together and our volunteers will help to make them into quilts that will be given to grieving families in the hospital. (If you would like to volunteer to help assemble blocks and/or quilt please reach out!)

For each scrappy pinwheel block you will need:

• 4.5" x 41" strip of a low volume fabric (white, off white, light tan, light gray)
• (2) 2.5" x 41" strips of colorful, highly saturated fabrics (please stay away from pinks/purples)
• 6" sq of a colorful, read-as-solid or solid fabric

Sew the strips together as shown, with the wider light strip on one side and both colors strips on the other side. I had long enough pieces of (3) fabrics to make just one 41" strip set with the same fabrics. Since this is meant to be a scrap buster feel free to use multiple fabrics within the same block. You can make multiple, shorter strip sets. You will just need a total of (about) 41 linear inches of strips per block.

Here's where it gets interesting. Fold the strip in half longways, right sides together, and sew the free side of the light strip to the free side of the 2.5" strips to make a long fabric tube.

Now begin to cut triangles from the strip tube. Align you ruler with the point at one side and the other side hitting at 6 3/8" on both sides of your ruler (red dots). 

After aligning your ruler you may want to put a strip of tape on your ruler marking the edge of the fabric strip to make future cuts quicker. 

Continue down the strip set, flipping your ruler back and forth, to cut triangles. You'll need (8) of these folded triangle blocks.

Each block will have just a few stitches at the tip that need to be picked out so you can unfold them. Then press your blocks and square them up to 6" sq. 

Arrange all your blocks as shown and sew together. As I said before, it's ok to have several fabrics within the same block to use up your scraps.

Your finished block should measure 17". Please sew a line of stay stitching around it to keep the bias edges from warping. Just increase your stitch length to 3 or 4 and sew about 1/8" from the edge all the way around.  I'm looking forward to seeing the blocks you make!