Three Years Later {Tall 9 Block Drive Wrap Up}

Happy Friday, Quilters, and Happy New Year! At long, long last the Sept 2021 Fall Tall Nines block drive has wrapped up. Only 3.3 years after it launched. This was a HUGE block drive and these blocks have been my nemesis. Every time I thought they were all quilted up I would find more.

These first two quilts were made from donated blocks by Cynthia with Many Hands Many Hearts. She chose a nice fall-ish panto with leaves and pumpkins for the first one.

This second one, also quilted by Cynthia, has straight lines. I am always a fan of geometric quilting. 

These last three tops were all made by Donna and quilted by Sundance. 

I've enjoyed working with Sundance Quilting this past year to help finish CiL quilts and I do recommend them if y'all are looking for an affordable commercial longarmer. They've been wonderful to work with.

This drive produced almost 50 quilts, which is CiL's largest drive ever by a large margin. 

Obviously it's wonderful to be so supported and be able to bless so many grieving families with quilts, but it did make me quite overwhelmed with the task of getting them all assembled and quilted. 

Many thanks to the dozen or so folks who helped to get these done over the past three years. They're beautiful quilts and if I were going to choose a block drive to go over the top there couldn't have been a better one. 

The new block drive for Jan-March 2025 has just started, you can find the link at the very bottom of this page, if you want to join in!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this block drive, nearly 100 of you! I can't wait to see what we make in 2025.

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

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Yet More Tall 9s

Happy Friday, quilters! There are seven more Tall 9s quilts in this post, all quilted by Linda, from the Sept 2021 block drive. 

We are getting close to the end of the quilts from this drive. I believe with this post we're are 41 finished so far. 

This drive has been my kryptonite over the past three years. Every time I think I've gotten all the blocks and tops sent off to quilters and done I find more! I found three more tops just last month.

But, now I think, as best I can tell, when these last three come back from the quilter I'll be able to make the final post on this drive.

I'm not really complaining! What a crazy blessing it is for CiL to have grown to the point that we can make nearly fifty quilts from a single drive! So many quilters from all over the world have joined in supporting grieving families; I could never have predicted this when I started back in 2015.

(Oh my, I just realized that next year will be our ten year anniversary!)

Enormous thanks to all the quilters who sent in blocks for this drive, and to our dedicated long-arm quilters to have helped me dig out from under them all.

Linda assembled and quilted these quilts from donated blocks. She chose some fun Fall-ish pantos for the quilting. There was also some very nice yardage donated, which I used for backings that you can see on some of these.

The Tall 9s block is one of my favorites because it's so simple, but it can look completely different depending on how it's set. Plus, it's great for showing off novelty fabrics.

Awesome binding on this one, below, with feather panto.

And a spicy backing!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this drive! Fingers crossed the next time I post about this one will be the wrap up post.

Fudge back up to his old tricks.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1400 so far! The July-Sept block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Quilting Friends

Fellow Texans Nancy K. and Jenn occasionally team up to help CiL finish block drive quilts. Nancy put together these stars from the 2021 "Oh My Stars" drive and Jenn did the quilting on her long arm. I really like the layout Nancy chose. 

If you look closely you can see that the quilting panto has stars and swirls in it.

Nancy also put together these Tall 9 blocks and Jenn quilted it with an organic curvy panto.  Perfect colors for this time of year. With recent drop offs we are rapidly approaching 1500 quilts donated in the East Texas area thanks you all of you!

Happy Fall from my doofy little orange man and me!

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Wishing for Fall

Wishing for Fall and admiring these fall-colored quilts! There were a couple of mornings this past week when I went out the door for work that it actually felt cool.

These tops were made by Gail and kitted up with complimentary backings and bindings to make them quick to finish. These are from the Tall 9s block drive.

Linda took it from there and did a lovely job with coordinating FMQ patterns on her long arm.

Gail actually lives very near me, and she's contributed finished tops to MANY of CiL's drives. She has meticulous piecing and great color combos.

Things are proceeding apace here. I recently delivered quilt restocks to several of our hospitals.

Just today I got 5 complete quilts in the mail and got them labeled.

Thank you so for your continued support! 

Isn't this sunflower FMQ with the backing just perfect?

On the home front, the kitties are restless. I'm trying once again to put Sundae on a diet. I noticed she's gotten too chubby to clean her bottom and I've had to break out the wet wipes a few times. The indignity!

She's 14lb and Fudge is about 8lb. The last time I tried to restrict their food, within a week she gained half a pound and he lost half a pound. 

I needed a way for him to always have access to food while limiting hers, so I finally bit the bullet and got a SureFeed SurePet bowl. It recognizes Fudge's collar and opens only for him.

They both share access to a bowl of wet food where I dole out measured amounts, but Fudge always has his dry food of he gets hungry. Sundae's doing pretty well so far, but she's definitely given that locked bowl a thorough investigation.

I'll be weighing her weekly to see if we're making any progress, wish us luck!

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Assorted Block Drive Quilts

Happy Friday quilters! This weekend I have quilts from Linda to show you. Linda has been such a busy worker bee for the past couple years helping to finish CiL quilts.

This geese quilt was Linda's contribution to the Sept/Oct 2022 drive, she made this one entirely herself. I really like this quilting design with the loops. 

This quilt is from the 2021 red, white, and blue stars drive. I recognize a lot of Mina's fabrics in there. 

Linda assembled and quilted the blocks. I know that quite a few of you helped Cynthia with her red white and blue churn dash drive. She's going to make that a yearly thing, so I hope it helps to scratch that patriotic quilting itch.

Next, 3 fall colored quilted from the 2021 Tall Nines block drive. There have been so many of these and I still love them!

Counting this post there are 29 done so far and posted on the blog. Six are done and not photographed yet. Two are out with a volunteer quilter. And 7 are still in block form. That's adds up to 44 quilts from this one drive once they're all done.

The Fall Tall 9s block drive was CiL's most popular block drive ever, by far!

I'm sure the runner up is one of the string drives, but I don't know which. 

I love the variety of patterns and color palettes these fall quilts have, the benefit of having so many different quilters participate! Hopefully soon I can have another block drive, but in the meanwhile watch Cynthia's blog, as the next block drive for Compassion Quilts should launch this weekend. 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday