Finishing touches featuring Priscilla and Stephanie

Hello, friends! Louise here to share some lovely quilts that were donated as nearly finished tops and only required a little bit of extra sewing on my part. First up is this gorgeous sampler made by Stephanie.

The top was languishing in her UFO pile. So many fun blocks, several new to me! Check out this trapunto butterfly with metallic gold blanket stitching. You can see the pretty, shimmery pale blue background she used, too. I think it is Fairy Frost?

I love the colors in this quilt, and was thrilled to find this backing fabric donated by Christine. Doesn't it match perfectly? Christine sent it in with another project I'm still working on, and there was plenty of extra. Quilters are so generous!

Priscilla donated this bright log cabin block center made with dot-themed batiks. It was a little too small and needed a few borders to bring it up to size.

Several months after I received the center, Chris' polka dot squares showed up. I added the first border, but it was still not large enough. I set it aside, waiting for just the right fabric for another border. Imagine my delight when a bunch of presewn strips of the matching dotted batiks showed up over a year later! Good things come to those who wait.

Priscilla also stitched up these Easy Breezy blocks, a Bonnie Hunter leader/ender project. After I sewed them into a top, I decided they didn't need any borders. Thanks to the depth of Priscilla's fabric stash, the richness of the colors makes this piece shine in just this simple layout.

This quilt needed just a little more effort, but what a pleasure to work with Priscilla's friendship star blocks. They are made with partial seams to let the square centers float. I thought the bold floral for the borders was a nice counterpoint. 

Finally, this quilt started life as a pile of big, donated, precut triangles in two fabric patterns and solid orange. A little head-scratching and a handful of seams later, this giant exploding star was born. Gotta love a big block, it goes together fast!

I quilted it with casual Baptist fans using orange thread. It's bright and happy, for sure! Many thanks to everyone who has donated tops, blocks, projects and fabrics to Covered in Love.

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Beautiful blocks

It's time for another display of the lovely blocks you have donated to Covered in Love! Louise here, and I'm so happy to share the beauty that shows up in my mailbox. Let's start with this collection in cool purples, greens and blues.

Aren't these pinwheel rail fence blocks neat? I like to imagine someone made a whole quilt with these blocks, a big swirl of purple and twinkling yellow covering their bed. Of course a wise quilter will make a few extra blocks, just in case. Her careful planning is my raw material!

Next is this explosion of autumnal goodness. Such a great variety of block designs, all playing so nicely together because of the similar colors. When Kat receives your block donations, she sets many of them aside in a box for me. She also generously adds donated yardage for borders and sashing. When the box is full, she mails it off to me. The last box was over 50 pounds!

Opening those boxes is like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one! A LOT of squealing is involved as I sort the blocks into friendly piles. I have storage bins labeled with the common color themes: Autumnal, Brights, Purple and Green, Red/White/Blue, and Pastels.

Pastels are the biggest challenge for me, as they are rarely my first choices when buying fabrics, but I absolutely love how this quilt turned out. Thank you for sending in so many soft, pretty orphan blocks to prod me out of my comfort zone.

This sweet basket block is one of my favorites. It has buttons and lace! I wonder how many the quilter made? They must have been challenging to piece! I used blue painters tape to cover the lace during quilting so it wouldn't get tangled in my needle. 

Today's final quilt features a gorgeous paper pieced center, surrounded by Priscilla's hard working churn dash blocks. (Actually, I think those blocks are called something else. Anybody know the correct name?) I'm always grateful to received groups of "sibling" blocks like these because they allow me to create frames and borders. Look at how perfectly the block colors match the center!

The center scene features still life items perched on shelves, including a ship in a bottle! There are so many seams required, and the pieces are so small, that the whole panel is super thick and a bit of a workout to quilt.

After I finished, I was ready to have a glass of wine to celebrate! Thank you to everyone who has sent in blocks. I couldn't make these finished quilts, ready to to comfort families, without each individual donation. One by one, your blocks grow into fascinating, inspiring collections.

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

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.