Give back box shipping

 We are having a hopefully temporary issue with give back box shipping. So if you were planning to ship anything with them please hold on to it until you get the all clear. If you shipped anything in about the last month please send me an email. In fact, if you have shipped anything with them and did not receive a confirmation email from me that it was received let me know.

Still Raining, Back to Work

Yes, it's still raining as I write this! Typical Texas, keeping us on our toes. All the quilts in this post arrived finished from Erin, who has sent in many quilts before. She rounds the corners of all her quilts and I love it, I don't know why I don't do that more.

I'm back to work this week after enjoying a very needed break. Our patient census is high so it looks like it will be a couple long weeks again.

What do you guys think of this unusual arrangement of plus blocks and 9 patches? I don't think I've ever seen it before. 

I love this scrappy string top. It reminds me of the tops I made from 1.5" strings years ago. There's so much joy and chaos in a scrappy quilt. Thanks to Erin for these beauties :)

With all this rain we should be drowning in cucumbers in a few weeks. We've been getting a handful of strawberries every day for a month or so. I hope those of you who garden are also enjoying the rewards!

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

May Showers

April showers bring May flowers, so they say. But it's May now and we're still having almost daily showers! I try not to complain because I know we'll probably have a dry summer soon enough, but boy does it get steamy when the sun comes out after a rain.

All the quilts in today's post are tops made by Priscilla and quilted by volunteer long-armer Wendy, thank you, ladies!

The top quilt with the value HSTs has quite a few blocks turned the "wrong" way. There's so many that it must be on purpose. It gives the quilt a little spice, but the overall pattern is still clearly visible. 

By contrast, this quilt with the flip corners seems so precise. I really like the mellow colors in all three of these. 

By the way, things worked out with getting CiL into a fourth hospital and I dropped off quilts this week! All of you give yourselves a pat on the back!

I also shipped two BIG boxes to Louise this week, so we can all look forward to more awesome quilts from her soon :)

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Still More Fun Than Housework

Happy Friday! Here are four more quilts assembled and quilted by Cynthia from our past year's block drives. Cynthia did such a good job on these while also getting her own quilting charity, Compassion Quilts, off the ground!

Cynthia talks about 3 of these in this post and the fourth one at the bottom of this post. She talks about how she chose to sort and arrange the blocks and there are also more pictures. 

This next one is my personal favorite of this set because of the more saturated colors and the pops of green. 

Cynthia's Compassion Quilts charity is currently making patriotic churn dash quilts from the March block drive. Her next block drive will begin in June. 

As for CiL, I'm working with folks at a new hospital to see about expanding our charity over there. That would make 4 hospitals in the East Texas area!

I had to get a close up of the pretty batiks in this last quilt. So lovely! Thank you quilters for all your support!

 Linking to Finished or Not Friday

Quilting IS More Fun Than Housework

Cynthia is a busy lady! I addition to her own compassion quilts she found time again this year to assemble and long arm some block drive quilts for CiL. 

First up, three Scrap Bin Geese quilts from last year's Sept/Oct drive.  You can see more photos of these on Cynthia's blog and read about how she put them together here. I'm a sucker for simple modern quilting, so I love these straight lines. 

Cynthia experimented with several different layouts for the blocks. Which do you like best, straight lines, pin wheels, or stair steps? 

I found this block because it was a block drive my do. Good Stitches circle did. You can see the quilt we made at the bottom of this post.  It was also partially inspired by this quilt block I asked the circle to make back in 2013.

There are another three or so quilts left to be made from these geese blocks, so I look forward to seeing how those come together!

Closing with a little bit of street art from Melbourne that I haven't posted yet. 

Linking to Finished or Not Friday

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