Spring Sunshine on a Cold Day

It's cold here! I know it isn't as cold as it is some places, but for Texas it's been steadily cold and wet and I've had about enough.  Time for some sweet spring colors with quilts 19-22 of last year's Spring Pinwheel drive. 

These tops were made by Gail and sent in as kits with their backing and bindings. I love the backing fabrics she finds! 

Aren't those old fashioned labels on the backing too cute? 

I quilted these with a cozy stipple and they went up to the hospital with the last batch which put us past 750 total quilts.

I have just a few more of these to finish, 3 I think, and then this block drive will be all wrapped up!

The blocks that have come in for the string drive so far and looking really good! I'm glad so many of you have tried the tutorial and haven't found it too difficult. Sundae has been sleeping on top of the block pile like the Princess and the Pea. 

Thank you for your positive comments on my last post.  I've had a few days in a row off this week which was a welcome break.  

 Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on 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

Scrappy Scrappy

Happy Scrappy Weekend, quilters! These 3 quilt tops were sent in by Erin and quilted by me this week.

They are all ready to be taken up to the hospital with the next delivery for Covered in Love, which will be a big one!

apologies for the incredibly blurry photo!

Erin has sent in some beautiful tops to CiL before and I especially love her scrappy ones. 

Covid is still raging here and our chaplains are providing quilts to as many of the families as we can.  Infection precautions and the sheer number of deaths unfortunately makes it difficult. 

In my nursing career, I can say without a doubt that Covid nursing is the hardest thing I have ever done.   My previous nursing experience was largely with cardiac patients; if they were going to destabilize and become dangerously ill it often happened very quickly, within minutes to hours.  With the Covid patients we can often, with great accuracy, predict which ones are going to end up intubated in the ICU and dying days before it happens.  We watch them get inexorably worse, requiring more and more oxygen, kidneys failing slowly, day by day despite all interventions, until inevitably off they go. With other diseases when you see a patient declining you can usually stop it, but not with this.  

I'm used to patients declining and dying; but after a long disease course not after a brief respiratory illness.  Please continue to wear you masks, avoid indoor spaces with crowds, and get vaccinated as soon as you can.  This is a terrible disease that kills many and causes lifelong organ damage to many more who will continue to die in the coming years.  

Handsome Fudge says, "Wear your @!#$ mask!"

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on 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

Fiddlesticks & Sunflowers Preview

Linda has been a busy bee last year! For the last few drives she finished and sent in completed quilts that I wanted to show you.  This first one is her version of the Fiddlesticks drive, completed with microstippling. 

I find this kind of quilting so impressive! I know I could never have the patience, but I love the texture it produces. 

 

I really love the backing fabric she found to use with for the quilt as well. I haven't started working on the Fiddlesticks block drive quilts yet, still getting the red, white, and blue ones done. But based on this I'm really looking forward to getting them done!

Next, this is Linda's Sunflower quilt. I have started to gradually assemble these blocks into tops since it looks like there will only be about 4 or 5, so I can complete them quickly. 

Nov/Dec is always the smallest block drive due to all the other things people have going on at that time of the year, so I often choose a block that I (selfishly) really like, but I know will probably be less popular for whatever reason.

I know this block had little fiddly pieces and the slants that made it more difficult than usually, but it does look wonderful once it's together!  

Help! I'm being smothered by their affection.  

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on 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

Opening 2021 with Quilts

Here we are in 2021 at last.  My neighbors brought in the year with a huge amount of artillery! (The kitties were not impressed.) It remains to be seen if this year will be much better than last, but we can hope!

At the very least we can start the year off with some beautiful quilts. This batik tumbler was sent in by Jan O. and quilted by Meloney with loops.

This fantastic top was sent in by Kelly C. and also quilted by Meloney.  It's far to big to hold for a picture of the entire thing!  Kudos to Beryl who recognized that the pattern is Bonnie Hunter's 2019 mystery quilt "Frolic".

It has a mix of batik, print, and even cross-weave fabrics that blend together perfectly.  I've been preparing a delivery to the hospital so these will be going up there soon!

Wishing you warmth and safety.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Jan/Feb drive is going on 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

Jan/Feb String Drive

Hello quilters, welcome to the first Covered in Love Block Drive of 2021 and year 6 of sewing string blocks! For anyone who may be new, basically CiL is a charity that makes quilts for patients dying in the hospital. I run a block drive every two months where anyone can participate and make as many or as few blocks as you wish. Scroll to the bottom of the post for more details if you'd like to participate!

 

 

For this year's string drive we are using a tutorial I wrote a long time ago for my do. Good Stitches circle.  The tutorial leads you through how to foundation piece onto batting instead of fabric (which batting to choose, etc). 

 

We'll just make one change from the tutorial: color. The quilt my group was making at that time was for a child so we used bright colors.  You may use whatever colors you like but do keep to the scheme to making each block mostly one color with a stripe or two of contrast. If you don't have a lot of strings you can interpret "one color" a little broadly and make blocks of cool colors, warm colors, pastel florals, etc.  As long as they read clearly as one tone with a splash of another.

Access the tutorial here!

I realize that these blocks will be thicker and bulkier to mail, but they won't be any heavier so I think the postage might break even. Remember CiL can reimburse you for mailing expenses if they are a hardship, just save your receipt and email me. If you don't have any batting scraps of the right type (remember you can join together smaller pieces with a zigzag stitch) I'd recommend asking around to your fellow quilters locally! Or I have seen crib sizes of Warm and Natural for about $10.

If you have questions about the block of the drive please don't hesitate to email me.  The drive runs January thru February, so blocks should be in the mail by the end of Feb.  Email CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com if you need the address to mail blocks. 

Quilts and 2020 Retrospective

Happy New Year!  We're plugging right along with block drive finishes. These six Spring Pinwheel quilts bring us to 18 from the March/April block drive.

All six of these were assembled and quilted by me with my trademark easy stipple.

I have to give huge props to Gail, Nicki, and Holly who sent in prepped bindings which really helped mew with finishing these quilts.

I love these little Boston Terrier faces!

I really liked this particular backing fabric.

There are still about 7 more of these pinwheel quilts to come.  I love how happy the colors are , definitely one of my favorite blocks we've done in a while!

 On new years it's appropriate to take a moment to look back.  My best estimate (given that the last few block drives haven't been sewn up yet) is that we will produce around 90 quilts from the block drives during 2020.

 Added to that of course were other donated tops, and finished quilts outside of the drives. Louise finished off 25 orphan quilts herself.  162 quilts were delivered to the hospital and we surpassed 700 quilts donated!  150 quilters participated in CiL during 2020, 46 of them for the first time.

Any way you count it, 2020 was a big year for Covered in Love and I'm looking forward to next year!

Apparently Jack and the cats were having a wild party last night while I was asleep.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Nov/Dec drive is going on 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

Merry Christmas, Have Some Quilts!

Merry Christmas quilters! This is my faaaaavorite holdiday; I love the whole Christmas season.  I am now working on a Covid unit and volunteered to work the holiday so my family celebrated on Wednesday.

These first two quilts were assembled and quilted by Linda D. from blocks sent in by Mina during the July/August block drive.

There's another star quilt that Mina sent in in this post, so that's a total of three from her for the summer stars drive! 

As many of you know, these patriotic star quilts are some of the most popular ones that Covered in Love makes. There are many veterans and their families in the hospital and quilts like these mean a great deal to them.

These next two were assembled and quilted by Linda as well, from assorted block drive blocks.

I grouped this batch together as "modern" stars and I LOVE how Linda arranged them.

If you see your blocks in any of these quilts please jump in the comments and claim them!

Finally, this quilt was just returned to me by Louise.  Jacomina donated these churndash blocks as a UFO and Louise completed them into a quilt.

I hope you all enjoy your holiday and stay safe and well.  As the number of Covid cases increase the hospital converted my old unit into a isolation unit so I decided to go back to work with my friends.  It's very different than normal nursing.  I did get my vaccination last week, hooray!

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Nov/Dec drive is going on 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