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

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

More Stars and Stripes

Another week, another finish post! I'm sorry I missed posting last week. I made a quick trip to San Francisco to visit a friend. I've always wanted to go to that city and had a great time! 

This week I have more red, white, and blue quilts to show. These first 4 were assembled and quilted by Pam M from block from the July 2021 block drive. I hope some of you can find your blocks in these photos. I took close ups of some of the coolest ones.

San Francisco was awesome and I'm looking forward to going back again soon. We walked a lot to visit different areas of the city and my legs and feet got so sore!

In the Castro I found a cool shop that had a section of quilting fabrics, housewares, souvenirs, toys, and in the back was a hardware store! Of course I got a couple cuts of fabric, I can't resist. 

We also walked through Golden Gate Park one day. Well I say "walked through", we covered less than a quarter of it, maybe a fifth. It's so huge! Coming from such a rural area it's cool and overwhelming to be in a city that has so many options for activity and entertainment.

On Sunday we went to an open studio event in an old military industrial area and visited lots of different kinds of artists. Really cool stuff, it reminded me of studio tours and gallery walks in Santa Fe. 

We drove down to Santa Cruz one day on the Pacific Coast Highway and visited some beaches, saw some sea lions, stopped at some coffee shops.  We packed a lot into a 3 day trip.

Last up is a group quilt made by Gail, Linda, Jeanie and Mary. I really like how the second to last border is white with just occasional strips of squares.

View of San Fran at night.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1000 so far! The September/October block drive is live now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. (The Nov/Dec drive will be up fairly soon, keep an eye out. But until then you can always contribute to the Sept/Oct one.)

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday 

More from Cynthia

This week we are featuring more lovely quilts by Cynthia of Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework. First up is this scrappy piece of her own design. She has donated all of these to comfort families through Covered in Love.

These churn dashes in a rainbow of colors are so fun!

She also donated these happy, spinning pinwheels. The blocks, set on point, alternate with a pretty floral that extends into the border to make the pinwheels float. Classic!

In addition to putting together her own blocks, Cynthia also helps us by laying out and finishing blocks from our bimonthly block drives. These next four pieces are from the last red, white and blue star block drive. 

The first two she set with sashing. She carefully chose stars with darker backgrounds to contrast against the light sashing in this one. 

And for the red sashing piece, she selected stars with white backgrounds. Very clever and effective!

In this close up you can see the very fun star motif quilting, too. Cynthia blogged about these two sashed quilts here if you'd like to see more photos, including the backings.

In this next quilt, Cynthia was able to use an odd number of blocks by staggering the columns. The flag fabric at the ends of every other column was donated to Covered in Love. In her post about the offset blocks, she said, "I really liked how staggering the blocks made all those stars look like they were floating." I love this idea!

And finally, she designed this neat medallion quilt. Writing about going through the box of blocks and fabric that Kat sent her here, Cynthia said, "Two things I noticed in my supplies was that there were a lot of friendship star blocks with white backgrounds.  There was also a piece of a great flag fabric.  I instantly had an idea and I just had to decide what stars I would use for the center.  I spied these red stars someone made, and I instantly started sewing." Do you find it interesting to read about other quilter's design process and how they get inspired? If so, you should definitely check out her blog.

Many thanks to Cynthia for all her lovely donations!

 

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 1000 so far! The September/October block drive is live 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 

July/August Covered in Love Block Drive

It's year six of the annual "Oh My Stars!" block drive.  I thought about alternative ideas and blocks but you know, if it ain't broke don't fix it! These quilts are beloved by our families and you all love making the blocks.

You can find the detailed instructions for the block drive in this post.

For the July/August drive we are back to sending blocks to the usual address (in Texas, no Kansas.) Email CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com if you need the address. If you're new to Covered in Love block drives, welcome!  These are very informal, anyone can participate and make as many or as few blocks as they like.  Just try to get your blocks in the mail by the end of August, and they will be made into quilts of comfort for mourning families.