Red White and Brrrrr

Blocks by Holly L assembled and quilted by Pam

Hey everyone, sorry I missed posting last week! I usually at least give you a cat picture if I can't get a post together but the whole day completely snuck past me.  As compensation here's another photo Sundae dressing up in my Christmas gifts.  

She's thrilled, really ;) Now back to your regularly scheduled quilt content.

These are the first quilts to be posted from this past summer's RWB patriotic stars drive. This one was pieced and assembled by Linda D., who does so much longarm quilting to benefit CiL.

This large top, being modeled by my mother, was made by Bonnie C and quilted by Wendy.  I said she looked like a quilt-ghost; she chose a quilt-crow (scarecrow).

I didn't take a picture of the red and white ticking on the backing, but it is absolutely perfect. 

These last two quilt were assembled and quilted by Linda D from blocks sent in by Mina. There is some lobster fabric in these blocks that is just too cute. 

Thank you to Mina, Linda, Pam, Bonnie, Wendy, Holly, and everyone else who supports Covered in Love! 

Another Christmas photo, one of my old quilts in its home.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far! The January/February drive is running 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

New Year New Quilts

 Hello and Happy New Year! The first thing that needs to go on this post is one last quilt from Louise. This one has components from Tracy L, among others.  It had a dye-bleed issue due to one of the backing fabrics, and due to space constraints on her boat we decided that I would tackle it here. Fortunately, with a 24h soak in Oxi and Dawn it came clean!

I'm so glad Louise made the past two posts and told us about her process for making her beautiful quilts from orphan scraps.  I always love what she does as much as you all do!

I recruited my mom to help take quilt pictures recently. Mina has sent in another of her friendly village quilts. 

Tina C. continues to benefit Covered in Love with her stash busting. She sent in this wintery sampler.

I had to get a close up of the quilting visible from the back.

She also sent in this lovely, simple saturated blue quilt. I wish I'd gotten a better close up of the fabrics.

Finally (for now) Linda S. sent in this beauty with detailed piecing and quilting.  I love the slightly random pieced border.

I had a great trip around Christmas and saw many friends and family that I haven't seen in a couple years. I hope that many of you were able to catch up with your families as well. I am soaking up my downtime at home now and catching up on chores that were pushed aside.  

Santa Fe Plaza lights

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far! The January/February drive is running 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

More of your orphan blocks and UFOs

 

Hello, again! Louise here with another batch of quilts made from the parts and pieces that YOU have sent in. Let's start with the one that was the closest to completion when it arrived. I think this style is called a "Baltimore Album." The central blocks and several borders were finished and I only needed to add the final 2 or 3 borders to bring it up to size. I'm pleased that I had fabric that coordinated really nicely with the greens and deep reds of the center. While these are classic Christmas colors, the design isn't overtly "holiday."  It's such a pretty, classic design and I think it turned out really nicely!

This next quilt is made from super scrappy nine patches and shooflies pieced by Priscilla. Her blocks are so precise that sewing them into groups of four is easy and relaxing! No trimming, no fudging, just smooth sailing.

Because the blocks contain pretty much every color available, I had fun experimenting with an unusual sashing in mint green dots. Suddenly all the mint green in the blocks pops out! The result is a bright, happy quilt. The binding is a purple floral that was premade and donated. When I noticed tiny mint flowers in the binding, I knew it was perfect for this quilt!

Quilt number three is a sampler style in light blue/green/peach/brown. Tina H. donated about a dozen finished blocks plus the extra scraps from her project. Using the scraps, I was able to sew up a few more blocks.

The nice thing about sampler quilts is that any block design will play nicely with the others! That gives me a lot of flexibility when using the scraps. However, I still only had 17 blocks. 

Because my studio is a bit messy, I have other projects piled up around me, and these sweet animal panels were casually hanging around nearby. Hey! Those animals match the block colors EXACTLY.  Boom! Three more blocks to make 20 for a nice 4x5 layout with thin sashing. Who donated the animals? Let us know in the comments!

And once my eyes started looking for blue and brown fabrics, this mallard duck design obviously had to become the backing. Almost looks like it was planned this way from the start, doesn't it?

Quilt number four was a slam dunk in terms of coordinating the fabrics, because 95% of it was donated together by Christine B. This is lovely, very high quality fabric with the most wonderful soft hand. The scraps from Christine were mostly precut triangles and 3.5" half square triangle blocks, with a few width of fabric skinny strips.

I put all those triangles next to my machine and kind of mindlessly stitched them together in between other projects. After a while a few of them said they wanted to be big stars. Some wanted to be smaller squares in squares. Between the two types of blocks and the remaining skinny strips, a modern column quilt was born!

For the backing, I used part of a HUGE Lone Star top that Kat was gifted from a thrift store. It's hard to make a flat top in this design, so I had to really cut it down to get a usable chunk. Even though the combination of navy, coral, orange and pink on the front is unusual, the Lone Star matches it really well! 

And finally, here is a quilt that was donated in a completely deconstructed state: as a jelly roll! Does that count as an orphan? Maybe not! It's nice to have a chance to create a quilt completely from scratch, especially when someone provides fabric as pretty as this. 

These modern hexagons are made from a "Botanicals" jelly roll donated by Christine B (I think). I added a gray border and binding to float the hexies, and quilted with a dot-to-dot lobed design. 

Backing is extra blocks plus a modern orange stripe that was also donated. In case you can't tell, I really love making these quilts from your donations. I love the challenge of puzzling together leftovers and scraps into a coherent whole. As each piece of the puzzle arrives, I get to admire different fabrics and new block designs, picturing in my mind who created it. It helps me feel more connected to both the greater quilting community, and the families that receive the quilts. 

Thank you again for the privilege of fostering your orphans and sending them along to their forever homes! Kat will return next week with more Covered in Love news.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far. The January/February drive is running now, check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

CiL Jan/Feb Block Drive

 Hi everyone, I'm sorry for the long delay getting the new block drive up.  I had an excellent trip leading up to Christmas and then straight back to work when I got home. I thought somewhere in there I would get the post up but obviously I needed to plan better!

Looking over our past string block drives I thought we could reprise this one from 2019. Same red cornerstones and same size again, it looked great last time. 

For anyone who might be new, Covered in Love uses these block drives to make quilts that are given the families losing a loved one in the hospital. Anyone can participate and make as many or as few blocks as you want. Just try to get your blocks in the mail by the end of February.  If you need the mailing address email CoveredinLoveTx@gmail.com

Presenting: Your Orphan Blocks

 

Hello! Louise here, to share with you a couple of quilts I finished using YOUR orphan blocks. See one of your blocks in this post? Let us know in the comments! This first quilt started with the two sections of log cabin blocks in the center column.

Both came to me already sewn together, but not large enough for an entire quilt.

I love the soft blues and pinks of this one! It lingered in my studio until I gathered enough friends in similar colors to fill out a top. I grouped similar size and style blocks into three columns.

Some of the individual blocks are quite simple, like this bordered square. And some are as elaborate as the small pieced hearts. So cute! A pale pink background and my interpretation of Baptist Fan quilting finished this quilt up.

The second quilt is also laid out in three columns, but with a couple of twists. As I was looking through my collection of orphan blocks in greens and maroons, I noticed quite a number of pairs of blocks. However, each pair was a very different size from the next pair. So I stacked them from largest to smallest and made two very similar columns.

I love these giant hexagons! They arrived on my doorstep as triangles that I sewed together into the six sided shape. Look closely and you'll see they are kind of mirror images of each other.

The two matching outer columns have a cream background, while the center column is a metallic gold. All the blocks in the center are "singles," with no matching blocks, so this was a good way to let them shine. A donated pre-sewn binding in scrappy maroons makes a super frame for this piece. It's great to get bindings all ready to go!

The third quilt is a giant heart, resting on its side in this photo. Kat graciously snapped all the pictures at her house after I shipped the quilts to her. Since taking photos is difficult for me, I really appreciate that. Thanks, Kat! In this style quilt, I take orphan blocks of lots of different sizes that share similar color saturation and hue. In this case, the blocks all contain bright colors with few neutrals or browns. 

I then piece them together without sashing into a continuous slab. The result is a bit of a wild ride, a riot of colors and shapes! It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I admit I love this modern look. I also enjoy the mathematical puzzle of fitting all the sizes and shapes together with no gaps. Partial seams can and do happen!

The background is a cool gray grunge, which heps to contain all that exuberance and forms the overall big heart shape. Made with heart by you and me, this quilt will surely cover a family with love!

I hope you enjoyed seeing these orphan quilts, and maybe got a peek of some of your own blocks. Many, many thanks to everyone who donates blocks, UFOs, yardage and scraps.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far! The November/December drive is running now, check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

Christmas Eve Quilts

Some spring-y quilts for the cold Christmas eve!  I'm making the rounds visiting family, Christmas is my favorite!

Only two quilts today, these were both quilted by Linda. I wanted to show some closeups of the quilting because it's brilliant.   This beautiful batik top came from Christine B, it's butterfly themed.  Look at the lower left corner where the sun is hitting to see the true colors of the border.

There was an additional outer border with large rainbow batik butterflies, but we decided since it made the quilt so large to save that and make a second quilt. So stay tuned for that!

Picture of the quilting from the back, so you can see it. I thought this motif was perfect!

This sampler quilt came from Marianne and Linda decided to do custom quilting on it with her computerized long arm. 

She did this by choosing complimentary designs for each area and programming them over each small section of the quilt.  Honestly it's stunning, totally a work of art.  

I really love this. Obviously some quilters can freehand beautiful designs, some of you may have been around long enough to remember when Judy used to do work on CiL quilts, and others use acrylic rulers. I admire those folks, but I can't do either of those things. I'm queen of the stipple.  

This is a kind of detailed quilting that I can relate to because it's more about math and scaling and computer programming than artistic ability.  It's still creative and requires skill and thought, but it feels approachable, like something I might be able to do one day.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far! The September/October drive is running 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