Sue's Spring Quilts

Happy Spring, happy Friday, quilters! Sue T. sent in these 5 finished quilts a while back and I finally had a nice overcast day to take pictures.

There's some great quilting on these. I love this little FMQ bee!

I thought the colors of all these quilts suit spring very nicely.  

Just this week I made a delivery of quilts to restock Chaplain Perry at our main hospital. He says thanks! 

This quilt has cute cat fabric and flower FMQ.

Even through there aren't any actual curves this pattern looks like it would be a booger to piece! It's beautiful in vintage-y fabrics.

Based on colors alone the last quilt is my favorite. I really like the saturated tones. 

Simple pattern, simple fabrics, simple quilting: perfection. 

Closing with a throwback photo and Mama and her numpkins from a few weeks ago. They turn 6w old this week!

 Don't forget Cynthia has a block driving going on right now to make hospital comfort quilts. If your fingers are getting itchy you can make some blocks for her.

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Quilting

Hello quilters and happy Friday! Happy Spring! My parents are tilling their garden and I've been weed-eating around my house and cutting down last year's lantana.

Linda recently sent back a batch of quilted Tall 9s quilts along with 2 of her own quilts. This batik with the HSTs and the cool square-swirl quilting is my favorite.

I thought the star FMQ on this modern stars quilt was really cool. 

I'm doing ok, not what I'd consider normal but better than I was doing earlier in the year.  I think the change in the weather helps. 

These first 3 quilts that Linda sent back are assembled from blocks that Cindy B. sent in (I'm at least 90% sure. Someone tell me if not.)

I especially like the jewel tones and this awesome cat fabric in this first quilt. And Linda knows that the quilting patterns with close straight lines are always my favorites. 

These next 2 quilts are very similar to each other. I think there are a few other people's blocks mixed in with Cindy's here. 

Nice to have some solid on the back where the quilting stands out. 

Our kittens are now 5 weeks old and will be ready to fly the nest soon. Several of them have adopters already who are counting down the days. 

This last quilt is made with blocks sent in by Ann G. from MN. I love the color combo, especially with the batik fabric! 

Sort of a retro modern FMQ pattern. Thanks Cindy, Linda, Ann, and all the rest of you who contributed to this drive! 

Don't forget Cynthia has a block driving going on right now to make hospital comfort quilts. If your fingers are getting itchy you can make some blocks for her.

Kitten love

 Just letting you know that I'm doing well. Looking forward to having next week off of work and at home. The kittens have reached maximum cuteness at 3 weeks old and I thought you would enjoy some pictures.

Down Time

Hello quilters :) I'm still kicking. I didn't realize another Friday had passed until a couple of you emailed to check on me.  I'm hoping to get back to regular updates soon; there was a confluence of running out of quilt photos, bad weather that kept me from taking more, and then a couple rough weeks at work.  

(I'm making this post from my phone, so I apologize for wonky formatting. Click on the pics to make them bigger).

This week I've been in Santa Fe visiting family and resting.  They tell me that this week spring weather has arrived, but it's still below freezing at night and snow drifts hang on in the shade. It's a nice contrast to Texas.

As some of you know, and others have guessed, the past 3 years have been difficult ones for me. I've had some very major stressors in my personal life for whatever reason it seems to have caught up to me moreso since Christmas.   

I still have blocks from the Tall 9s and tops from last year's string drive to complete, not to mention many tops you've graciously sent in. I want to keep the drives on hold until I'm at least somewhat caught up and feel like I have forward momentum again. Several wonderful supporters including Cynthia, Louise and Linda are helping, but if anyone else wants to help assemble and/or quilt send me an email. 

CiL has plenty of finished quilts at the moment, so I will be able to continue supplying the hospitals at our current rate for quite a while before that becomes a concern. 

In the meanwhile, I'd love it if you'd support Cynthia's charity, which is similar to ours. She is running block drives every 3 months and the most recent one just started. Click here to see what's up. I know better than anyone how encouraging it is to get blocks in your mailbox, as well as bonus donations like cash, backing fabric, and prepped bindings. You all have taken care of me for years and I'm excited for Cynthia to find out first hand just how wonderful the quilting community is.

As for me, I'm not doing great, but I'm ok. I'm taking care of myself and taking time to figure out what's next. I made a couple of personal quilts recently, which is something I hadn't done in ages. 

I wasn't a responsible adult and didn't get porch-cat (now called Squeaky) spayed in time, so we have kittens and they are a snuggly squishy delight. (She'll be spayed as soon as they're weaned). I'm having lots of flashbacks to when Fudge and Sundae were this size and I was bottle feeding around the clock.

Thank you for your support and concern. Things with CiL will be back on track soon enough, maybe changed slightly. In the meantime I'm incredibly proud of the community we've built which continues to send in finished quilts and support each other and me. 

Australia

I'm going to have to take more photos before I can make a quilt post, so you guys are getting pictures from my vacation to the Melbourne, Australia area instead! 

On my first full day in Melbourne I was up at 3:30 am with jetlag. I killed time until a nearby cafe opened at 6 and went for breakfast and coffee. Australia's coffee culture is influenced by Italy and everything I espresso-based, there is no concept of "drip" or "filter" coffee like we have in America. After some experimentation I found a Flat White to be my drink of choice, although still too small to be satisfying.

I went on a bus tour my first day to a wildlife refuge, some scenic overlooks, and finally to see the Phillip Island Penguin Parade. You should youtube the penguins, I don't have any photos because it was nighttime, but they were very cute. 

The second day in Melbourne was a little bit of a downtime day. I visited Victoria Market and took myself on a walking tour of street art around town. I had a great lunch and dinner in Chinatown and in the evening went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The next day was another bus tour to a National Park, the Grampians. This is Mackenzie Falls.

The next day I traveled about 1.5h out of the city by train to meet up with my friend in a little historic town. This is where the sitting around reading books and wandering the town square portion of my vacation began. We did take a day to tour the Great Ocean Road and Great Otway National Park. 

Even a tiny town with maybe 6 kids per grade in the school, there were no less than 4 beautiful old churches from the 1800s.

I was quite taken with the succulents growing everywhere. 

I also spent a day wandering the beach town of Torquay. I was a very damp and blustery day with wind blowing off the Antarctic. Beach combing and looking in rock pools is one of my favorite things to do. 

For the curious, I flew direct from DFW to Sydney which is a 17.5h flight, currently the 6th longest commercial flight in the world. Then there was a 1h hop from Sydney to Melbourne.  Because of time zone weirdness, on the way over I left DFW late on Sunday and arrived in Melbourne midday Tuesday. On the way back I left Australia at 6pm Friday and arrived in Dallas 4pm the same day...

The trip over was pretty rough, sitting in the middle seat in economy surrounded by crying babies and toddlers. On the way back I was blessed with not only an aisle seat but an empty seat beside me! I can only assume it was some kind of karmic pay back.

It was a great trip although the jet lag on the returning end kicked my butt until about Wednesday. I'll try to get photos taken by next week so we'll be back to your regularly scheduled quiltiness.

Longarmers to the rescue

Hello! This week I have a couple of tops completed by Covered in Love's devoted long-arm quilters. First this pretty, sweet top was sent in by Holly and quilted by Linda. There are lots of strawberries in the fabric and it makes me think of the strawberry shortcake dolls from years ago.

This quilt is a very generous size, so I was very grateful to be able to send it to a longarmer instead of wrestling with it on my machine.

Next is a top by Becky.  Some of you may remember that Becky drove to meet me and dropped of a whole bunch of tops kitted up with backing and bindings.

This large top was sent to Mel in south Texas. Meloney had a rough bout with Covid and I'm so glad she's back on her quilting feet. 

The wavy lines of quilting are perfect to complement the super geometric plus designs. Thanks ladies! 

Fudge has achieved maximum coziness.