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

Mod Mosaic Block Drive Finish

 

Happy Friday, Quilters! It's the first block drive finish since we started back up. These three quilts are from the Mod Mosaic block drive we did in Jan-March this year. 

I sent all the blocks we got in to Linda and she assembled and quilted them. I actually love how these came out. They look better in person than they do in the photos. 

There were enough blocks to make three quilts. They are just over 60" square with the borders added. 

See if anyone can spot how we laid them out. I'll give you a little hint that original blocks were 12x15" and each top contains 16 of them.

These have already gone up to the hospital to be distributed. With three hospitals regularly passing out CiL quilts now they pretty much use them as fast as I can bring them up. 

This was meant to be a smaller blocks drive since I was just jumping back in after hiatus and didn't want to be immediately overwhelmed. If you donated see if you can spot your block. I think we only had a couple left over. 

Thank to everyone who helped, especially Linda for finishing these! 

This picture is from a few weeks ago when a bird got stuck on my screened in porch and the cats were fascinated. We had a repeat incident one morning this week when certain kitties who shall remain nameless brought a bird (stunned, but very much alive) in through the cat flap... That was an exciting way to wake up.  The mostly unharmed bird was eventually returned to the outside where he belongs. 

 Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1500 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

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

Scrap Bin Geese Wrap Up!

At long last we have the wrap up of the Sept/Oct 2022 block drive with Scrap Bin Geese blocks! This was the last block drive before we went on our hiatus. CiL's wonderful volunteer quilters have been working very hard to get us caught up.  Linda assembled and quilted the first quilt, photographed on the swing.

Pam did the assembly and quilting on this quilt. There were 6 quilts from this drive in total and you can see the others here and here.  This was based on a quilt my do. Good Stitches circle did a long time ago which you can see here. It looks quite different because the Good Stitches quilts uses a solid white background.

Thanks to everyone who contributed and contributes to keep CiL running!

The latest development in cat-news is this suction cup birdfeeder I got for the kitchen window. I'm not sure if it's more entertainment or frustration for the kitties.

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

 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

String Block Drive Wrap Up

The last (I think) of the 2022 String Block quilts are all done! Dee, a wonderful longarm quilter I met locally, took the last 7 tops off my hands to quilt.

Dee is excited to practice with her longarm and I am thrilled to have her help! She ended up using this nice wavy design on a lot of the quilts. 

Always fun eye-spy on these quilts. I found an octopus and a fox right next to each other. 

Our little corner of Texas was square in the path of the eclipse this week and got a full 4 minutes of totality.  Both hospitals had little events and I saw lots of pictures online of nurses and patients watching.

I did NOT work this past week and got some much-needed chores done.  My parents and I watched the eclipse from the yard; it was a very surreal experience! There was concern that we would be clouded over, but it was perfect. 

It wasn't as dark as night during the totality, more like dusk, but it was enough to get confused frogs croaking and owls hooting. It also got noticeably cooler.

Covered in Love continues to grow and bless many grieving families at 4 East Texas Hospitals. We're up to over 1400 quilts distributed!

This turned out to be a huge block drive. You can see the state map and totals below.  78 quilters made 28 quilts! 

In addition to the blocks, generous fabric donations allowed me to make all the backings for these.

I have to admit, this bright one might be my favorite. 

Massive thank you to Dee for helping to finally finish off this drive, only 2 years after it started, and thanks to all 78 of you who contributed!

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

 

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday