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!

Decades in the making

 

Today's group of finishes features some wildly different orphan projects donated to Covered in Love. It is so much fun for me to be able to pick and choose colors and styles from the big boxes of pieces and parts that Kat sends!

These beautiful little houses in Caribbean colors came to me as a small top. All the houses, pinwheel palm trees and piano key strips were sewn together side by side, and each pretty piece was sort of lost in the shuffle. It was also too small for a Covered in Love quilt. So I deconstructed it, added borders around each house and golden mustard sashing to let each one shine.

You can see some of the batik bordering fabric here. It was included with the top and features sewing-related words and images. In the mustard outer sashing, I quilted various motifs like stars, leaves and butterflies.

Along the bottom I quilted in some words of comfort, including peace, love, family and home. I got the idea from Sandra of mmmQuilts, who often includes special quilted messages. My handwriting (Jukiwriting??) isn't the best, but I hope the sentiment carries the day.

The back is pieced of big chunks of tie-dye style fabrics in similar tropical colors. A solid purple binding frames and completes the quilt.

Today's second quilt is made from classic orphan blocks. Many are left over from Covered in Love's annual red, white and blue star block drives. A few are lotto blocks made by members of my online guild, Sunshine. A number of the fabrics look like they date from 20-30 years ago, giving the the overall look a nice depth of color and scale.

This block is my favorite. It looks so different on point than square. I used a donated, very high quality mottled navy blue fabric for the skinny sashing and setting triangles. That fabric had a copyright year of 2000 in the selvages. The quilting is hook swirls using a variegated gray thread.

The back is a big swath of r/w/b stripe that was another amazing eBay find. To avoid matching all those skinny stripes, I pieced it with a chunk of red leaf batik.

Finally, here's the real golden oldie of the group! The beautiful center section of stars was donated by Priscilla as a smallish square top. Included was a note that said she made it in 1982 using a pattern from Quiltmaker magazine. Wow! That's almost 40 years ago! It was in perfect shape and meticulously pieced.

I needed to make the quilt a little bit bigger so I started hunting around for something appropriate to add to the top and bottom. The 1982 fabrics are from a distinctly different fabric era and it was quite a challenge to find something that would "go." I finally found this group of donated blocks and I'm pretty certain they were also made by Priscilla. It is so interesting to me to see a shift in fabric design style somewhere after 1990.

I decided to do fairly dense dot-to-dot quilting to honor this venerable piece. Going around and around each "wheel" shape without breaking thread kept me focused!

There were a few pieces of the original 1982 scraps included in the bag, and I was able to use the navy floral as side borders on the front and an accent on the back. I thought this "primitive" style farm animal fabric had the right vibe for the back, too. 

This was a super fun piece to work on. I'm happy to report that it washed up beautifully, too. Older fabrics can have a musty, dusty smell and feel a little stiff. But the finished quilt is soft, cuddly and sweet-smelling! Were you quilting back in 1982? Do these fabrics look familiar to you? Do they make you nostalgic? Or are you glad to have that era behind you and would rather dive into some bright batiks?

Green and Purple Orphan Blocks

Hello, hello! How's that for an eye-catching sunset? It's actually from months ago, when we were in Massachusetts, and now we're back in MA after cruising Maine for two months. So I'm a bit behind posting finishes and it is time to catch up. 

This purple and green quilt was made completely from orphan blocks donated to Covered in Love. I grouped them by design, color and/or size and sashed between the rows with a nice leafy green.

I did a bit of dot-to-dot quilting to bring out the character of each block. 

This simple two color star ended up being my favorite because of how the quilting looked. I'm finding that when I'm feeling a little "meh" about a piece, taking the time to do special quilting really helps. It forces me to take a step back and really SEE the individual blocks and appreciate the many hands and hearts that go into the mission of Covered in Love.

These wonky hexie log cabins are so fun!

The back is this pretty purple and olive green batik donated by Jan. I pieced several lengths together using the same solid green as the binding. This is an easy way to not have to match patterns and helps tie the binding into the design.

I'll end with a quick "glamour shot" with the water in the background. It never gets old! However, the relentless wind does get a bit tiring in terms of trying to get flat quilt photos. I gave up this week and finally took a bunch of indoor shots that you'll see in the next few posts. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Bold Elvira

 

Way back in March, designer Gudrun Erla sponsored a quilt along with her pattern "Elvira." She offered the pattern for free for a few weeks to help lift spirits in the early part of the Covid lockdowns. Several members of my online quilt guild, Sunshine, joined in. I pieced my own Elvira in just a few days, and finished it last month.

Someone donated this bold, bright fat quarter bundle to Covered in Love, and it was perfect for Elvira. I know Gail donated the extra yardage of poppies, but I'm not sure if the entire bundle came from her. The large rectangular blocks really highlight those big poppies, especially. Between the top and the pieced backing, I used up pretty much every scrap. Don't you love the black and white animal motif? Such an unusual and effective foil to the reds, greens and oranges.

I used a red thread to quilt a simple stipple meander over the entire quilt except in this one solid black block. There I did a floral motif that mimicked the poppies, just for a little added interest.

It's not often that I learn anything about the recipients of my charity quilts. But Kat helped deliver this one herself to a mother whose daughter is really struggling with COVID. My heart goes out to this family and I hope the quilt offers some comfort.

On the few occasions where I do have some information about recipients, I try to share that here on the blog (while protecting their privacy, of course.) I love when other quilt bloggers do this, too, so we can all feel a piece of the satisfaction that comes from seeing our work in action. Usually we get to revel in seeing a new baby napping on a happy quilt, or a favorite nephew delighting in a graduation gift. Rarely, a charity quilt's forever home is revealed. Especially now, we sometimes sew in isolation. It's so good to be reminded of the connections that thread across time and space, with friends and family and strangers, too.

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!

Four for Covered in Love

Happy Boxing Day, quilty friends! We're having gorgeous weather along the Florida panhandle. That has allowed me to finally, FINALLY take some photos to share with you. I've had a stack of finished quilts waiting for their glamour shots before I could mail them off to Kat for Covered in Love.

This first one is made entirely of other people's orphan blocks. The colors in the scraps are really bright and saturated! Like wiggly kindergartners, they needed just a little bit of help to calm down and play nicely together, so I sashed them with a tonal brick red and gray cornerstones. I also trimmed them all to a consistent size so they could be sewn in this even grid. The overall effect is interesting and cheerful without being chaotic, I think. 

Kat sent me quite a bit of donated fabric in larger chunks, great for piecing into backings. I used all the jungle animals here, plus a few extra orphan blocks. The binding was premade by a CiL contributor, too, a nice time saver for me.

This next one came to me as finished flying geese, already sewn together into loooooooooooooooong strips. Included was a note from Gail H. who had sent it to Kat: "These pieces were given to me by LaVonne Bevens in 2000. Someone had given them to her, she said." So those geese flew from "someone" to LaVonne to Gail to Kat to me. I'm at least the fifth quilter to handle them, so it was definitely time to let these geese fly home! The note also included some photos of possible layout ideas, and this one struck my fancy. The mustard yellow fabric was also a donation. I quilted wishbones all along that yellow, using yellow thread, so it's completely invisible. Good thing I find wishbones to be rather pleasant and meditative because I doubt anyone else will even notice them.

The backing is pieced from fat quarters that were part of the same fabric line as the mustard. They are reproduction prints with Americana motifs, and super nice quality cotton. This quilt is so soft!

This one is my favorite of the bunch. Look at that sweet birdie panel! SO cute! Kat sent this to me, and I'm not sure if it was donated to her or from her personal stash (edited to add: Kat says it was donated.) I know the jelly roll strips that I used to make the 16 patches and binding were her own fabric. They were lying next to the panel in my studio and I had one of those "Aha!" moments. They look made for each other, don't they?

I love the modern, stylized design of these birds and the pretty autumn colors. The deep, rich, chocolate brown borders were also part of the Americana fabric line donation. Aaaaaaand now I want some dark chocolate.

The backing is pieced from a combination of my own yardage and donated pieces. The birdhouses at the top are a chunk I've had for ages that never went with any of my other fabrics, but it works thematically and chromatically here. Every fabric has a destiny!

This quilt was made using the free pattern called "Preppy" by A Bright Corner.

All the darker pieces of the argyle came from a donated fat quarter bundle, and I added the black polka dot sashing and cream background. I've loved argyle since I was in high school, so it was really fun to stitch up! I think my Mom will approve of this one, too. I wish I had taken more close up photos of the fabrics; they have really pretty metallic accents. Maybe Kat will do that when the quilt arrives in Texas.

The back is a big chunk of a funky donated mod olive green print, with the leftover squares from the argyles. I left this photo uncropped so we can all enjoy the shadow of my hand on the camera. Apparently I hold my fingers out JUST SO to take pictures, because every single one of these photos have that same shadow!

Three quilts got boxed up today (how appropriate!) and are winging their way to Kat. I would have sent more, but to paraphrase Donald Rumsfield, you to go the post office with the boxes you have. And there are more quilts that finally were photographed today that are ready to feature in my Giving Orphans a Home series, so stay tuned!