Remembering Paula

Today I am participating in a blog hop to honor Paula Budinger, a beloved member of our online quilting community. Paula passed away in early February of this year and is sorely missed. Paula blogged at Paula B Quilts, where she shared her bright, happy quilts. She loved color and improv and antique quilts, and was never afraid to try new techniques and join quilting challenges. More importantly, she was sweet and supportive, always offering words of praise and kindness to fellow quilters.



To remember her "can do" spirit, I'd like to share with you my first ever Jelly Roll Race quilt. I made a small change from the standard Race technique, so this is also a tutorial about what I did. I started with this pretty red and white roll, called "So Ruby," by Riley Blake.



There was a nice mix of designs, ranging mostly red to mostly white, with just a few evenly mixed red/white patterns. However, I wanted just a little pop of something else, so I decided to swap out two of the strips for blue fabrics I had in my stash. I removed 2 of the less contrast-y jelly strips and put them into my scrap string bins.



To add a some whimsy, I chose a blue with tiny kitties on it, and another with a bazillion little mice. So cute! From the jelly roll, I pulled out three very white whites and three very red reds. With the two blues, I now had 8 strips.



I sewed these eight fabrics into two strip sets. Each set had four fabrics. One alternated white/red/blue/red and the other was white/blue/white/red. I wanted each strip set to have white at the top and red at the bottom.



Then I sliced the strip sets into 2.5" wide pieces. This yielded 16 rectangles from each strip set, for a total of 32 of these alternating blocks. Since the jelly roll started with 40 strips and I pulled out 8 at the beginning, I now had 32 of the original strips plus 32 of these smaller blocks.

Now I started the jelly roll race part of the program. But instead of just sewing all the long pieces together end to end, I inserted one of the shorter blocks in between each long one.



The key to this part was alternating the colors. So at the end of a long red strip, I sewed the white end of a smaller block. That would leave the red end available for the next seam.



Then I sewed a white long strip to that short red end. At the other end of the long white strip, I sewed the red end of  a shorter strip. I continued like that, alternating long uncut jelly roll strips with the shorter blocks, always sewing red to white or white to red.



And like all jelly roll races, I ended up with one, loooooong strip. I'm sure you know how it goes from there, but if you aren't familiar with how race quilts are put together, here is a nice tutorial.

As the top got closer and closer to being finished, I noticed that a lot of the whites ended up clumped together. Same with the reds. Hm, I didn't expect that. I'm not sure if that often happens with two color races, or if adding my little squares in between caused that. My quilt brain is usually pretty good with math, but right now I have Quarantine Brain. So, I decided to just embrace however it turned out.



And here is the finished quilt. It does indeed have a red side and a white side, but I like it! Kind of an unintended, surprise ombre effect.



The part that I saw in my head from the beginning turned out just right: the little groups of four squares look like they are truckin' across the quilt, and the blues pop nicely. Here they are in a whiter section.



And here they are in a redder section.



For the back, I used up the rest of the mice and kitties, plus a chunk of red, white and blue anchors. Because, you know, I live on a boat and my job is Boatswain. Anchors are my thing! More mice scamper around the binding and a big stipple keeps it soft and snuggly. 



I'll be donating this quilt to the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge by sending it to Quilts of Compassion. As a long time Red Cross volunteer working in disaster relief, their work calls me.



This memorial blog hop was put together by Janice of Color, Creating and Quilting, and Kate of Smiles From Kate. Thank you, ladies! Please visit the other "hoppers" below to see how they are honoring Paula's memory. And there are fabulous prizes! Every comment you leave on any of the blogs earns you a chance at these fun giveaways: (The deadline for winning prizes was May 15th, but feel free to visit these fine blogs if you are interested!)

Lorna, Sew Fresh Quilts, is giving away a $50 gift certificate for her pattern shop. Super fun animal designs!

Yvonne, Quilting Jetgirl, is offering 2 PDF patterns of choice. Bold and modern!

Bernie Needle and Foot, wants you to have a $25 certificate for her shop. So many pretty fabrics!

A lovely fat quarter bundle from Figo Fabrics could be yours!

A set of super cute quilty gift cards from Initial Thought by DMF  (Note cards set 1) will be given away!

A pattern of choice from Karen, Sugar Free Quilts, might end up in your studio. Some really fun ones there!

A $30 gift certificate is being offered by Doris, Cactus Queen Quilt Co. You'll love her pattern selection!

A PDF pattern of choice from Joanne, www.etsy.com/shop/CanuckQuilterDesigns. I love Joanne's patterns!

$25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop could buy some sweet loot!

In addition to these, I am also offering a prize to one of my readers. It is a jelly roll by Boundless Fabrics, their Ombre Sunset selection. These are beautiful solids ranging from dark purple to sunny yellow. All you have to do is leave a comment below. If you want, tell me if you've ever made a Jelly Roll Race! I will ship this prize internationally, because couldn't we all use a little happy mail right now? The deadline for my giveaway is midnight, March 15, 2020. (Please note this giveaway is now closed. The random number generator chose #28. Congratulation to winner JanineMarie!)

Here are all the folks remembering Paula. I hope you'll visit with them and join in the spirit of giving and learning that is the strength of our quilty community. It's what Paula would have done!

Wednesday, May 6 

Karen @ KaHolly

Kate @ Smiles From Kate

Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of my Quilting Life

Bernie @ Needle and Foot

Linda @ My Sew-Called Quilts

Cathy @ Crazy By Design

Magpie Sue @ From the Magpie’s Nest

Thursday, May 7

Kate @ Smiles From Kate

Diann @ Little Penguin Quilts

Rose @ Something Rose Made

Nann @ With Strings Attached

Mari @ The Academic Quilter

Louise @ My Quilt Odyssey (that's me!)

Susan @ Desert Sky Quilts

Friday, May 8

Janice @ Color, Creating and Quilting

Kate @ Smiles From Kate

Joy @ The Joyful Quilter

Susan @ Quilt Fabrication

Edi @ Edi’s Crafting Life

Carol @ Quilt Schmilt

Preeti @ Sew Preeti Quilts

Emily @ The Darling Dogwood

A very sad day

Our sweet little kitty, Angel, passed over the Rainbow Bridge yesterday. She was 19 years old and in failing health. My heart is bruised and broken and empty. Words are hard to find, so I'll just share some photos of her inspecting my quilts. 

Rest in peace, sweet girl. We love you.

Farewell to the islands

Greetings from Jacksonville, Florida! Last time I blogged, we were in the Bahamas, but things have changed. Like the rest of the world, cases of COVID-19 started to show up in the Bahamas, a country with limited medical resources. Their government put more and more restrictions in place to limit the spread, and it was time for us to return to the United States.

While we were very sad to leave, it was the right thing to do to cruise back to Florida. We are grateful for our health and that we can still access the resources we need to continue to live safely and comfortably on our boat. 

Meanwhile, like so many others, we are "sheltering in place" by spending the vast majority of our time on the boat, with only a few trips to grocery and hardware stores, a daily walk for exercise, and an occasional take out meal. We keep an appropriate social distance from the few other boaters we encounter. DH has been working on boat maintenance and repair, and I've been quilting.

The quilts in this post were all finished before we left the Bahamas a few weeks ago, as you can tell by the beautiful turquoise waters in the background. 

This quilt is the twin of one I finished in December, made from a giant batch of flying geese donated to Covered in Love. The other one had a yellow background, and this one is more mellow. 

I was able to use a bunch of miscellaneous navy blue fabrics for the binding and backing, plus the rest of the geese. The quilting is Unitarian fans.

This quilt came to me as a batch of blocks. They were also donated to Covered in Love, and each block was a rectangular four patch of one plaid fabric plus the solid spring green. There was enough extra green for me to add another column using my own plaid fabrics. (I just found out in the comments that these blocks were made by Quilt Diva Julie. Thanks, Julie!)

The back is also all plaid fabrics, using up some nice big chunks. That funky shadow in the photo is a string of patio lights. And the group of clips in the lower left corner are weighting the quilt down in the strong breeze! 

This next one is also made from Covered in Love blocks. These fun spinning stars/flowers are left over from a block drive last year. It was a simple task to add some sashing and cornerstones to get this bright and happy quilt finished.

The back uses a few remaining blocks and more of that plaid green. I tend to use fabrics in batches like this. Once I had the plaid pulled out and ironed for one quilt, I start looking at my UFOs to see if it works for another one. Why fold it up and put it away when I can just sew it? Do you do ever do that?

In this photo, you can see a little bit of the scrappy binding and stipple quilting. It also shows how I had to clip the quilts to part of the boat in the wind. It was relentless in the Bahamas! But that's a big part of why it is so lovely there. The trade winds keep the temperatures from getting too hot, and they blow all the bugs away, too.

Finally, this quilt was made from a mixed batch of orphan blocks donated to Covered in Love. This is one my favorites! I just love the combination of these citrus colors. The "pickle dish" corners are such fun blocks, too. Two were completed blocks and I had to puzzle the other two together myself. It was quite the challenge! I'm in awe that the donor made an entire quilt out of those tricky pickles!

The center medallion is four large log cabin blocks. (Just found out in the comments that they were made by Rebecca for her kids' Christmas quilts last year. Thanks, Rebecca!) Each of the surrounding smaller blocks is set vertically with three stripes of green that were also donated. I'm not sure what to call that. Is it sashing when used in that way? It gives the piece a more up-and-down feel, like the blocks are hanging on strings.

The back of this one is a real mishmash of more blocks and this large scale poppy print. Floppy feather quilting gives it a nice, comfy texture. You can see a fifth log cabin block here. Five is a hard number to work into a quilt, isn't it? That's often how very nice blocks end up on the back!

And as I promised in my last post, here's a quick lesson on how to tell how deep the water is in the Bahamas by color:

This water is about 15 feet deep. We can safely pass over this color in our boat, and it is a good depth for anchoring, too.

This water is between 3,000 and 4,000 feet deep. I love this dark, marine blue. It is crystal clear and looks infinite. Deep water is no problem for travel, but obviously our anchor won't reach the bottom here.

See that strip of very pale turquoise in near the island? That water is about 2 feet deep. Our boat has a draft of 6 feet, so that color is a no-go for us! This is a sand bar near the inlet to Staniel Cay. You can see the very deep water of Exuma Sound in the far distance and the comfortable depths close in. To travel between them, we needed to go around the bar way off to the right of this photo. 

We miss the islands very much, and we're sad that we never got to visit the friends we were going to meet there. Here's hoping that can happen next year. 

Mendotas in paradise

Hello, hello! I teased you with this photo last week, and today I'm going to tell you more about this little quilt.

My online guild, Sunshine, calls these offset square-in-a-square blocks "Mendotas," after the retreat location where we used them. Even though the retreat is over and we are now working on "Eugene" Oregon blocks, I had a lot of pieces already cut in Mendota sizes. 

I'm also choosing a theme each month, and February was "cats." So I decided to pull all the cat-themed Mendotas and see what I had. This sweet tuxedo kitty in a knit hat looks like our much-missed George. 

Most of the kitty fabrics I already had cut were pink/red, black and turquoise. So I added enough new blocks in those colors to get a fun mix. And since I finished the quilt in March, it even fit with the latest RSC shades, aqua/teal/turquoise!

Not every block has a cat in it, unless these little cars are all going to the vet. You can probably get a cat to the vet on a bicycle, too, but I wouldn't recommend it.

And it's a stretch to get cupcakes and mushrooms to fit with cats, but hey, some child will enjoy the fun fabrics, right? 

Uh-oh! Good thing these dogs aren't right next to the cats on the left. I quilted this in Unitarian Fans (a much more liberal version of Baptist Fans). You can see the roughly parallel curves on the doggie fabric. I forgot how fun that motif can be if you take a relaxed, unmarked approach.

The block in the lower right is my favorite: silly cats surrounded by sailboats. Sounds like Angel's life!

The backing is a pink with abstract cat heads, and the binding is a solid-reading hot pink. This quilt will be donated to Quilts Beyond Borders. We have very limited fresh water here, and the mail system is not reliable. So washing and shipping will wait until we get back to the US.

In other news, I had "one of those days" recently. First, I went to iron the binding for a Covered in Love quilt, and discovered that I somehow flipped one piece over. How could I have not noticed that?

So I took it back over to my Juki, where I had just finished several free-motion quilting sessions. I expected to have to reset the machine from FMQ (feed dogs down, stitch length zero, presser foot pressure low) back to regular stitching to fix the binding. Um, it's already in regular mode? That means I quilted an entire quilt with loops and swirls and la-de-das with the feed dogs chugging away underneath and the hopping foot under full pressure. But did I notice even a tiny difference? Nope. Either I'm losing my mind, or the Juki has just taken over without any input from me.

Then later when I went back to finish pressing the binding, I managed to set my iron down flat on the cutting mat. Oh, yuck! What a mess, and what a stink! Sean did a great job cleaning up the iron, but that's the second mat I've ruined this year. Fortunately, it's only one corner, so I flipped it over and that warped area is not in my cutting "sweet spot."

On a more positive note, did you see Joy's post on the Magic Square block? As soon as I finished reading it, I pulled out a well-aged batik layer cake and started cutting. The blocks are so quick and easy that I had the whole batch finished within a few hours!

Even trimming the blocks to their final size was fast. Don't you love a pretty pile of trimmings? The blocks are sitting in a project bag (recommended by Sarah, available on Amazon) and I'll be trying different layouts this week. This will be one of my quilts for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge.

I have more finishes to share with you soon, plus I'll show you how to tell the depth of the water here by color AND show pics of my quarantine haircut. Can you guess who wielded the scissors??

Gift Koi

Greetings from the Bahamas! We are currently floating gently at anchor near Staniel Cay. We are safe and well, and plan to stay here for a while. If you're interested in the details of why, feel free to read my husband's post on our travel blog. This little 4-ft. nurse shark came by to greet us the first day we were here.

Like a number of others in the quilt blogosphere, I've decided to have my writing remain focued on quilting, and leave the pandemic discussions for other forums. That being said, I'm always happy to hear about your thoughts and feelings in the comments, including your reactions to this strange new world we're living in.

Meanwhile, spending even more relaxed hours on the boat means even more sewing for me. I have a number of finishes to share with you over the next few posts. Let's start with this little quilt that I made as a gift for my Mom. 

Designed to just fit the back of her loveseat, it's a simple whole cloth quilt made from a large scale koi print. I love this fabric so much that I bought it in three colorways! The green one ended up on the back of a quilt for my brother and sister-in-law, and I still have a dark blue chunk.

I quilted the fish simply and the background heavily so the koi would pop a bit. In the brown areas I did a watery back and forth motif. In the black areas, I followed the subtle printed design, which was mindless and fun.

My Mom loves horses, so I used this fun Dan Morris print on the back. You can see the heavy quilting more easily over the golden tones. A flanged binding frames the piece and finishes it off.

Here it is in her lovely home. The colors work really well with her decor. The bronze metallic accents pick up the color of the velvet cushions of the chairs and are harmonious with her oriental rug. Most importantly, she is quite happy with it!

Gift Koi was finished before we left the US and I could still mail things out. Here's a sneak peak at one my finishes here in the Bahamas, with that gorgeous blue water in the background. More about this quilt, and more soothing turquoise water pics, soon!