April Lattice Blocks

  Rory has been ever so helpful getting April's Covered in Love blocks laid out on the design wall.  It looks like we will get 2 "regular" arrangement tops out of these plus a third out of the scraps, orphans, and odd-shaped blocks.

Also pictured, my new (to me) free motion machine!! A gift from a local quilter friend.  Formal introduction post coming soon, once I give her a name :)

Of course, you know me, the scraps are the best part! Granted these are other people's scraps, but just as good as home grown.  Currently I have them in a zigzag configuration but there are so many options!

I am in the process of assembling the first top (below) while playing with the design of the other two.

Last week I announced May's block drive design several people have already sent in blocks!  If you want to sew along and support Covered in Love check out the block drive for more information :)

Linking to Oh Scrap! and Design Wall Monday.

Man's Best Friend {Susan's Quilt}

This week I have another fun quilt for Covered in Love that was donated by a generous blog reader.  Susan (no blog) from Utah sent in this dog quilt top along with a generous amount of left over fabric!  I just had to quilt and bind to get it ready for donation.  This was one of 18 (yes, 18!) quilts I took to the hospital on Tuesday. For details on the drop off day and a sweet "thank you" from a family member read the post here.

This quilt is too cute! Susan fussy cut dogs from a panel and appliqued them onto patches alternating with four-patches of novelty dog-themed fabrics.

Dog bowls, paw prints, and text fabric, oh my!  Susan sent plenty of fabric for me to make a backing and binding from.

I gave the quilt just a simple stipple quilting.  I hope that this quilt will land with just the right family, some true dog lovers. 

If you would like to help out with Covered in Love we do of course accept finished quilts and tops (see the main page for details). If you're looking for a more low-key way to participate check out our monthly block drive!  You can send in as many or as few blocks as you like. Leave a comment or email me at merlin775 at gmail for the address to send to.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

A Big Delivery for Covered in Love

Today was an exciting day! I delivered 18 new quilts to the hospital and had lunch with the chaplains to catch up. The quilty donations from Hands 2 Help for Covered in Love have started to really roll in. Thanks to Anita, Bernie, and Beryl for their quilts!  Also huge thanks to Becky who also found me through Hands to Help.  Realizing that she lived relatively close, rather then pay shipping she drove to meet me part way and deliver nine beautiful quilts!

Becky's H2H quilts for Covered in Love

With the H2H quilts added to our usual block drive quilts and donation odd and ends the Cat-Free Quilt-Staging-Area was soon overflowing. Time for a hospital delivery!  Usually I bring quilts along with me on days I work, so when I drop them off with the chaplains we are all "on duty" and being pulled in many directions at once. It was nice to come in on a day off and actually sit down to talk.

"...the quilt is very beautiful [...] Angels were in her room 

and they caressed the quilt with compassion and love.  

The Spirit of God and his Holy Angels were in her room 

as the waves of love encompassed my mother like ocean waves.  

As she took her last breath there was beauty and peace 

and at the speed of sound Mama was wrapped up in the 

arms of Jesus as he welcomed her home.

PS- Tell the quilters to keep up the good work."

They got to hear more details about who you all are and how the quilts come together and I got to hear some recent stories from their deliveries.  I got a photocopy of a sweet letter from a grateful daughter which I shared in part above.

Today's delivery brought us up to 84 quilts for grieving families.  Thank you to each and every person who has contributed.  Your kindness has ripples you'd never expect. The Chaplains who deliver the quilts, the security guards who occasionally let me in to get a quilt for a family after hours, nurses caring for dying patients, and the local mail clerks have heard our stories and been amazed by your generosity.

A Different Kind of Scraps...

 When cleaning the sewing room sometimes you find things you'd forgotten all about. Or is that just me?  I stumbled across my stash of UFOs and abandoned projects and discovered it was a lot bigger than I remembered! Oh bother.

I quickly put together this top from a dozen abandoned blocks and some donated fabric.  I think the red brings together all the different florals. Hope so anyway.

Next I pulled out these two large Swoon blocks a blog reader sent me and started rifling through my orphan blocks for others that might play well with them.  This orphan quilt is still in the design stages ;) Happy weekend!

Linking to Oh Scrap! and Design Wall Monday.

Eye Spy a Quilt

The first finish from the March block drive for Covered in Love is in and it rocks! I asked for blocks featuring novelty prints that would make adults smile and you guys delivered in spades.

This first quilt measures 50"x70" and got a simple all-over stipple from me.  It features 140 individual "eye-spy" patches made by 20 quilters.

Here are close ups of some of my favorite patches. First off, treasure secretary Alexander Hamilton! I am obsessed with the musical Hamilton so I got a big kick out of this.

Here we have a road runner, a scotty dog, an artichoke, and bicycle, along with some bonus small kitchen appliances in the background fabric.

Thank you to all the volunteers who contributed to this quilt.  It will be gifted through Covered in Love to a family who has lost someone dear to them and I'm certain it will bring smiles and comfort in a dark time.

There will be a second quilt still to come from these blocks, but in the meanwhile the May block drive has been posted!  If you would like to support Covered in Love please check out the block drive by clicking below.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilt Finish it Friday.

May Covered in Love Block Drive

Another month, another block for Covered in Love!  For anyone new around here, every month I host a block drive to benefit my pet charity, Covered in Love, which gives quilts to the families of patients who pass away in the hospital.  Anyone can participate in the block drives and make as many or as few blocks as you like.

This month we're making a very simple twist on a traditional nine patch block in a muted pastel color scheme.  Please consult the color palette guide below when selecting your fabrics.  If in doubt, go with more muted, pastel colors (really, that teal block in the upper right of mine is borderline too bright.  Saturated is ok, but it shouldn't be bright.)

sky blue, sea blue, true grey, buttercup yellow, light ash grey, off white

For each block you'll need (6) 2.5"x4.5" pieces and (3) 4.5"x8.5" pieces.  Hopefully you'll be able to cut mostly from scraps and not have to get into yardage.

Arrange as above into a tall nine patch and sew together in columns, rows, or blocks. Any which way you like to put them together is fine.

(Edited to Add: View finished quilts here)

Press, and that's it!  Easy does it.  Block should finish at 12.5" sq unfinished.  You can see some of our past block drive finishes here.  Thank you to the dedicated volunteers who continue to send in blocks every month, you guys are rock stars.  If YOU would like to help out with Covered in Love, I'd love that!  Leave a comment (make sure I can see your email address) or email me for the address to send donations.

Odds and Ends and a Cat

I've been working on getting some odds and ends wrapped up this week.  First up on the design wall is a new baby quilt for my cousin. She is having a baby girl an doing the room in a coral/navy/teal nautical theme. I am so excited! Expect to see lots of baby sewing going on in the months to come.  Of course I am in love with all things ocean so I was able to dive into my scraps for all the bits for this little quilt.

Speaking of baby sewing. This was another test block for my do. Good Stitches bee that I sewed into a baby quilt size. My month is coming around in June so I'm thinking about what to ask for.  I need to find something pretty simple since I asked for paper pieced blocks last time around.  Speaking of those paper pieced blocks...

Judy at Quilt Paradigm volunteered to do some quilting for Covered in Love and she's agreed to finish the Forest QAL top for me. I'm so psyched!  Judy became permanently one of my favorite people on the planet back in 2014 when she sent me a box of her scraps to play with.  She does incredibly gorgeous quilting on her domestic machine and she already completed the two tops I sent her.  These two tops were made by another volunteer, Jo from North Carolina.  Please go check out Judy's blog and look at the amazing job she did on our tops

Judy's picture of her A-mazing quilting, click to go to her post

Speaking of CiL, as some of you know we were selected to be one of the recipients of Hands2Help quilts this year and the first one just arrived from Cynthia!  It's a gorgeous, saturated, bright quilt. I especially love the backing she used with gold metallic fabric.  After I attached the label Rory completed the final cuddly-ness inspection. (Don't worry, the quilt got a wash after this!)

Speaking of Rory, she's been ever so helpful lately.  I know ever quilter has had this happen to them: people find out that you can sew and they assume  that means you can sew anything.  Because upholstery and garment making are totally the same as quilting, right?

So.  My dad has been trying for months to get me to re-do these cushion covers he found to make them fit the seats for his airplane (he's a private pilot.) Two seater plane means four cushions (butt and back for 2 chairs.)  I protested and insisted that I wasn't remotely skilled enough but in the end he wore me down.

So that's what the hole in my desk is for! To think, I've been putting my machine in it this whole time.

The original cushions had piping which he agreed to toss out.  So after some experimentation and some cursing 2 oversized seat cushions became correctly sized and 1 bench-seat back cushion became 2.

The divot in the front is for the gear stick and fortunately was not part of what I had to modify

It's not a quilty finish, but I'm proud none the less!  And that is finally the end of my rambling, winding weekend sewing.

Linking to Oh Scrap! and Design Wall Monday.