Monday's child

Monday's child is fair of face... 

Hm, maybe "happy" more than "fair." How about this face from the back?

That might be a face that only an orthodontist could love. At least it's fair to say that Monday's child will have a happy quilt, though:

Tuesday's child is full of grace... 

She's posing on the back of her pink and aqua quilt!

Wednesday's child is full of...whoa!

She'll be riding this cute horse made by Carol:

And whoa! Is this the other end of that horse, or just an abstract design?

Thursday's child has far to go...

It's a good thing she'll have all these vehicles!

A few boats couldn't hurt, either, IMHO.

Friday's child is loving and giving... 

How could she not be, with this block surrounded by love, and filled with her favorite things?

Also? Sleepy giraffe!

Saturday's child works for her living... 

Maybe she works on a farm.

Maybe she wrangles horses with Wednesday's child.

Maybe she wrangles kittens instead. What a great job that would be!

And a child that's born on the Sabbath day, is fair and wise and good and gay.

That kind of sounds like Superman to me!

I hope you've enjoyed this poetic presentation of seven little quilts. They are mostly made from lotto blocks that were sewn by members of the Sunshine Online Guild or donated to me. Do you recognize any of your blocks? 

Each finishes at 42"x42" and will be donated to Little Lambs as part of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge. Do you have a favorite?

And because I document all the backs of my pieces, here they are:

Monday's back

Tuesday's back

Wednesday's back

Thursday's back

Friday's back

Saturday's back

Sunday's back

Have a great week!

Quilts of Compassion

I finally shipped out the last of my Hands2Help Comfort Quilts for this year. The charity event ended back in June but I know the groups that receive the quilts can always use them. So I don't worry too much about when I get my donations shipped out. Hey, it's still 2020, right? (As if any of us could ever forget that it is 2020.)

This scrappy tumbler quilt has been given to Quilts of Compassion, who provide help to those who are recovering from disasters. I won a tumbler template in a blog giveaway last year, and have been using it to trim random scraps. I then sorted them into dark, light and medium values and stitched them into columns. The resulting top was pretty blah, so I framed it with two white and one skinny red border. That felt more fresh and clean.

You can see the mishmash variety of fabrics I used in this closeup. Everything but the kitchen sink! I quilted it in simple wavy lines running through each row.

The backing was pieced together with chunks of fabric that were given to me by my friend Steph. The red is the same as the skinny inner border, and I used that for the binding, too. I think that helped make the whole thing more cohesive. 

The colors of the backing are more true in this photo. I love all the sweet hearts in these fabrics. Thanks, Steph!

 

These two previously-blogged toddler quilts were sent to Quilts of Compassion in the same box. I'll definitely be donating to them again; their mission really speaks to me.

We are currently cruising New England and have made it as far northeast in Maine as we can get the big boat. This photo is from Plymouth, Massachusetts where we had several spectacular sunsets. This one took my breath away! 

Hands 2 Help 2020 link up

This is the final week for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge, where we link up our finishes that will be donated to the H2H charities. I fell behind a bit on my goals this year, but did manage to finish a few by the deadline.

One of the charities chosen this year is the Little Lambs Foundation, which provides comfort kits to children in the foster care system, hospitals, or emergency shelters. I really like this group, and want to support their important work. I know that they often need receiving blankets for newborns, so I stitched up six.

My friend Stephanie gave me a big batch of really nice quality flannels and minky, and I used it all up in these. In the top photo, you can see that there were two "Tree of Life" flannel panels. I added flannel sides to bring them to about 40" square, and backed them with regular quilting cotton. I think this combo of flannel on one side and smooth on the other makes for a really great weight for a receiving blanket. I do a very small amount of quilting, mostly hidden along lines in the printed designs, to keep the layers from shifting in the wash.

The pastel piece on the far right is made of the minky. The pieces were smallish, so I trimmed them up as big as possible and made this simple patchwork. The backing is a cute railroad print of regular cotton. Minky is sooooo soft and cuddly, and sooooooo big a pain in the butt to work with. It's best if you can use a single, unpieced chunk as a backing. Otherwise the little fur bits get everywhere. 

These next three are all made with panels I had in my stash, and backed with Stephanie's flannels. 

The little owls are super cute, especially the upside down one! There's one in every family, isn't there? I'm happy they will find a home here in the US since some of my international charities prefer we not use owl motifs. 

The ABC animals panel is the most classically "baby" themed, but I have to say: that is one GIANT frog.

The final panel is another "Tree of Life." Or maybe "9 Partridges in a Pear Tree." It has kind of a folk-art vibe. 

This quilt, which I wrote about previously, is also for H2H, and will be donated to Quilts of Compassion. I also have three or four more pieces in progress and I'll tell you about them when they are done. Even though H2H has a deadline each year in June, I know that all these fine groups have an ongoing need for quilty comfort and comforting quilts. So anything in the pipeline will still find a way to go to work.

Many, many thanks to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for putting together this fun and useful challenge each year!

Hands2Help and quilting along

Hello, quilty friends! I have a couple more finishes to share with you today. 

Moroccan Ornaments was made using the Quick Curve Mini ruler and a pretty charm pack. The metallic-accented fabrics feature flowers, gingko leaves, and butterflies. The charm pack made only 7 blocks, but they are fairly big at 14"x17". Offsetting the columns gave a bit of symmetry with the odd number of blocks, and a border of shiny gold brought the whole piece up to a smallish lap size.

I quilted it using a big hook and swirl motif. The backing is most of the last of this green Laura Ashley print that looks nice with a pale green Fairy Frost binding. Moroccan Ornaments will be donated to Happy Chemo as part of the Hands2Help charity challenge.

The next two quilts are quite small, only about 36" square. They are destined for Jack's Basket, which celebrates families with new Down Syndrome babies. This panel says "The day you were born, the world became a brighter place," which I think sums up the JB mission very well!

 

The Laurel Burch panel features cheerful pets and a big smiling sun face. It needed about 12" more in width, so I added some other Laurel Burch rainbow cat fabric, and a column of bright scrappiness left over from another piece.

The backing is this turquoise plaid. A quick, soft stipple of quilting and a reddish orange binding finish this piece up in a way that works for any happy baby!

The second baby quilt is my first ever tumbler project. I won a 5" tumbler template and a charm pack from Selina Quilts last year. It was fast and fun to trim the charms to the trapezoid shape and stitch them together, and the resulting patchwork is just a teensy bit fancier than simple squares.

In a bit of serendipity, this fabric featuring coffee cups was sitting out on my cutting table and I realized the colors matched the charms perfectly. It makes a fun border, doesn't it?

When I remembered I had the utensils to match the cups, of course that had to become the backing. The lime green polka dot makes a fine inner border and binding. Just darn tootin' cute, if I may say so myself! I'll definitely be making more tumbler quilts and have already started cutting scrappy ones for the next go-round.

Are you quilting along with Sandra and making her Beothuk Star pattern? It's fun and free, and not too late to join in. Five interlocking stars make a dynamic design, pretty neat! This week we are cutting our fabrics. My piece will revolve around the bright butterflies. They will be the center star and the yellow will be the background. 

But what is this? Looks like another fabric pull. My nephew and his lovely wife are expecting their first baby this fall, so of course I must make a quilt for the wee one. Beothuk Star finishes at 42" square, perfect baby size, so I figured I could just as easily make two quilts as one. The Mom-to-be loves teal and asked for gray as the neutral, so I pulled some fun aqua for the outer stars and the darker teal batik will be the bold center star. The gray Essex linen will be the background.

In other exciting news, our boat was hit by lightning while we sat at anchor Friday evening. My husband wrote up a blog post about the experience, including some video footage of the strike. Long story short, it went BOOM!!! but the damage was pretty minor. No fabric or sewing machines were harmed and the boat is operating at about 90% right now. In fact, as I type this we are underway between Fort Pierce, FL and somewhere in Georgia on a calm, lovely ocean. All is well!