Gift for K

I made this quilt for my friend K. She had a stroke and needed brain surgery; that's pretty serious! We visited K and her husband T at their home in Florida after she was released from the hospital and were so pleased to see how well she was recovering.

She was still spending a lot of time resting in her big recliner, so I asked her if she'd like a lap quilt. She immediately replied, "Yes, please! In red, white and blue." Seems appropriate to share this quilt on Independence Day, even though I sent it off to her in early spring.

I pulled out some true blues in dark and light shades, added some slightly off whites and just a bit of red. As friends, K&T are like those few red blocks: they are rare and really stand out! We laugh and snort our way through each visit with them.

For the back, I used this big piece of red, white and blue sailboats that has been patiently waiting for just the right quilt. It wasn't quite big enough, so I fattened it up with some tonal red.

As you can see from her expression, K loves her quilt! I'm glad I could make her smile and keep her cozy. Keep healing, dear friend!

Gift for B&D

This quilt is a gift for my cousins in Oregon, who are grieving the loss of their son. My heart breaks for them and I wish I could be there to give them big hugs. A rectangular quilty hug will have to do for now.

The pattern is from Sarah's blog, Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I used blue, gray and cream scraps to keep it feeling masculine in honor of R. 

The setting triangles and most of the backing are lightweight denim/chambray.

My cousins kindly sent me a photo of the quilt in the room where R slept when he visited. I think that is so special and I hope it reminds them of the love that surrounds them from family and friends. 

Gift for S&D

This quilt was given as a gift to boating friends S and D. S was really thrilled with it, and posted it on her Facebook page. I'm not on FB, but Sean shared all the sweet comments from that post with me. 

Well, most of the comments were sweet. One person said, "Those aren't the colors I would have chosen" which I thought was quite snotty. I mean, really? S said that she loved it and someone disses the colors? That's so rude to S, and rude to me. And even if they chose different colors, I wouldn't make them a quilt anyway. So neener neener neener.

I really like this combination of black and white and brown and gray. It feels sophisticated and modern to me, as sophisticated as quilt with a tiny fox on it can be. I did different FMQ motifs in each section: wishbones, swirls, and stipples.

The back includes a big chunk of this odd map fabric featuring the East Siberian Sea and the Soviet Union. I told them not to use it for navigation when they take their boat out this season.

And here it is in their home in Maine. It looks great in this cozy under-the-eaves room!

Baby gifts

I gave two quilts recently as baby gifts. The penguin blocks were stitched by another blogger who gave them away as orphan blocks. I added the scrappy background, quilted it up, and sent it to the lovely young woman who manages some property for us.

I blogged about this several months ago when I finished it, and wanted to have a record of who I gave it to.

This beach-themed quilt was made from a panel that I cut up and put back together, adding a nice stripe for some extra width. 

It's a counting game: one sun, two sand castles, three fish. So bright and fun!

I gave this to my friends B and K, for their second baby, A. Their first child is a toddler now and I thought she would enjoy pointing out the numbers and colors to her baby brother.

And here's A, enjoying his new quilt. Isn't he a cutie? I just love getting photos of my quilts in action!

Mod hodge podge

This quilt was a bit of a failed experiment that turned out fine in the end. I had a rather random assortment of orphan blocks that each had at least a little bit of turquoise. The puzzle was how to deal with each of them being a different size. The largest is 12" finished and the smallest is 4" with some oddballs in between like 9 7/8". I decided that making each one the bottom left corner of a block with scrappy cream backgrounds could work, with the quilt getting lighter and more open toward the top.

I think the top half works pretty well because the differences between the blocks are large enough for your eye to see a gradation. At the bottom, though, 12" and 11.5" look pretty much identical! But those larger blocks do give weight to the bottom, allowing the small blocks to float above. So I'm calling it good enough to podium in the Orphan Block Olympics, if there were only four contestants.

The back also didn't quite live up to my vision. I like the column of extra blocks against the cream, but filling out the rest with turquoise scraps is...clunky. It's fine, it's the back, but...meh. I also put the Covered in Love label on smack in the middle of the cream section. Hello? Why? I don't remember!

I very much enjoyed working with all the cool blocks, however. Isn't this pickle dish block neat? And the crumb block is particularly complex and fun. I often wonder what project the blocks were originally part of and hope it turned out well! Meanwhile, I'm calling my results "mod" because of the negative space and "alternative gridwork." That's fancy talk for, "It didn't really line up the way I expected it to." But it's soft and snuggly and perhaps someone's favorite color and that's what counts.

Jacob from Dublin

As you probably know by now*, I help finish quilts for Kat's charity, Covered in Love. Sometimes instead of orphan blocks, she sends me donated fabric. About a year ago, she received a couple of charm packs of green, white and black fabrics with a St. Patrick's Day theme, and she passed them along to me.

*Spelling it out for new readers!

I immediately thought, "Irish fabric! How cute! I simply MUST make an Irish Chain quilt." So I started pairing dark and light squares together and stitching up half square triangles. In a pile next to my Juki, they served as leader/enders for months. I think I made over 100 HSTs before I realized that the Irish Chain pattern doesn't use any triangles. 

At all. Not one, much less one hundred sewn over weeks and weeks.

Here's a nice green Irish Chain from Scrapish.com. Yup. All squares. Uh-oh.

Clearly I had a different pattern in my brain. I could visualize it clearly, but had no idea what it was called. And do you know how hard it is to find a quilt pattern by just searching on "half square triangles, might be kinda Irish-feeling"?

Then one night I dreamed I drank beer with a guy from Dublin named Jacob, and when I woke up realized that the name of the pattern was Jacob's Ladder.

Whew! Glad I didn't make all those triangles for nothing. After strip piecing the required four patches, I was able to bring my mental image of this quilt to life. I'm so grateful to dream Jacob!

This quilt was fun to finally finish, and I hummed "An Irish Blessing" as I quilted it. It's now on its way to Kat for Covered in Love. Have you ever had to search for a pattern without knowing the name? Or have a quilt epiphany in a dream?

Finishing touches

Hello, friends! Welcome back to my quilt odyssey. We've been chugging slowly north, moving away from the hurricane zone and toward pleasant summer weather. And I've been putting together quilts for Covered in Love, using donated orphan blocks and fabric.

Today I'm sharing five quilts that all came to me as large-ish groups of blocks, making for quick assembly and easy finishes. First up is this piece with a Christmas flair. The 25 blocks in the shape of gift boxes all have holiday themes like reindeer, wreaths and ornaments. They were donated by Christine. So cute! But not quite enough for an entire quilt. 

The colors are the standard red, green and gold, with quite a bit of black mixed in. I noticed the same colors in a bag of strip blocks donated by Priscilla. I think they make a vibrant border, and the black binding helped tie it all together.

On the back, I used a big chunk of this "cheater" fabric, printed to look like antique applique blocks. It even looks like the madder reds have "bled" a bit of dye, but nope. That's printed right on the fabric. The last of Priscilla's blocks stretched the backing just enough, and this quilt was in the bag. Or the box, since that's how I ship quilts to Kat.

The next quilt was even easier to put together, since there were plenty of blocks for the entire piece. I don't even think there was one left over! I'm not sure who made these fun 16 patches, but I love the mix of bright colors against black.

And such a great variety of fabrics, too! There must be over a dozen different black background designs. It inspired me to pull out similar pieces from my stash, and use them to create the backing and binding.

They look a bit of a jumble in this view, but in person it has a kind of I-spy feeling. I hope it starts some interesting conversations and offers snuggly comfort to a family.

And moving from black to brown, this quilt came to me as a small flimsy, not just individual blocks. All I had to do was add a few borders to bring it up to size. The darker brown inner border and binding are made from donated fabric. Kat receives not only orphan blocks, but yardage, precuts and premade binding, too.

I love the mix of fabrics in this! Very rich and interesting. It looks like it might be a disappearing nine patch pattern.

For the outer border, I used this caramel map fabric that's been marinating in my stash for a while. You can see the loopy quilting that I started with. I usually quilt the borders first and then work my way to the center. That's backwards from what is often recommended, but it works for me because it keeps the edges from flapping loose and getting caught under the needle. The loopy motif gave me fits on this, so I switched to a plain old stipple once I got out of the outer border. No one will ever notice!

For the back, I pieced together some fun horses in browns, browns, and more browns. This fabric was made into curtains, probably for a child's room, and I bought it on eBay. Yards and yards for just pennies. Score!

The fourth quilt is another one made from two different sets of blocks. The central section is 12 blocks that I think are called Crown of Thorns. Set together, they make some interesting secondary patterns. Do you see 12 blocks, or 6?

Here's the 13th block on the back to help you see the underlying design. Hard to see on the front, isn't it?

And here's a closeup of some of the fun fabrics Priscilla used to make these blocks. I chose a deep red for the border to help accentuate the red HSTs.

The back is a nice panel that features wildlife scenes and picks up that same deep red from the front. I think it adds a masculine touch to the whole piece.

And finally, here is a photo from Kat's blog of an all-cream quilt made by Meg and finished by me. I couldn't take even one decent picture myself, so pop over to this post on KatAndCat quilts for a better look. I added the outer border, thin gold flange and matching binding, plus some fancy-schmancy quilting. 

Which quilt do you like best? Is it the pattern or the colors that catch your eye? Let me know in the comments!