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!

Disappearing Four Patch

I didn't take many photos of this piece, so this post will be short and sweet. Using Hawaiian shirt style fabrics, I made this lap-sized disappearing four patch for a friend. She recently moved into her own apartment after many years of living with family, and I thought that was worth celebrating with a quilt.

The back is white minky, which is soooo warm, soft and cuddly. Perfect for cold nights in the snowy area where she lives. The quilting shows up nicely on minky, too. I did a hook and swirl motif, one of my favorites. Quite relaxing to get in the zone of moving my hands...swirl, swirl, hook! Swirl, swirl, hook!

I mailed this gift off in late January, and I'm happy to report that my friend loves it. Her beautiful kitty seems pleased with it, too! How's that for a glamour shot?

Red Crosses

When I first started piecing this quilt, I didn't have a plan beyond wanting to try the pattern. It was in an older issue of a magazine and I cut it out and tucked it away in my files. A few months ago, I found the pattern again. The large squares were supposed to be single pieces of fabric, cut 8.5" on a side. 

I've been making crumb blocks in that size for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the last two years, and thought it would be fun to use some of those blocks for the squares. I had a ton of blue blocks, and a recent purchase of red fabric was sitting on my cutting mat. Red, white and blue always look jaunty, so I pieced it up.

In the pattern drawing, the squares take center stage, but as I stitched those red pieces in, the cross shapes are what really stood out. The quilt became Red Crosses, and whispered to me that it wanted to comfort one of my friends who is a nurse. While I've known T for many years, we aren't super close, so I kept thinking, "It's kinda weird to give a quilt to someone you haven't seen in so many years. And R/W/B is kinda rah-rah patriotic, right?" But the quilt whispered, "I think you should send me to T."

T is part of our group of motorcycle friends who live in California, and they keep in touch via Facebook. I'm not on FB, so Sean fills me in when there's news in the group. As Covid cases get worse and worse in the West, he's been telling me about how T is so tired and stressed and overworked and frustrated. She lives up in the mountains where it snows and is getting cold and dark. It sounds like 2020 is grinding away at her! The quilt stopped whispering and said out loud, "Hello? When are you going to send me there to do my work of keeping her warm and comforted?" 

So last week, I did. I shipped out Red Crosses, wondering if T would think it was really strange to get a quilt out of the blue. What if it clashes with her home? But I shouldn't have worried, because quilts just know where they are needed. T says she loves her quilt and it made her teary. And that's the very best thing for a quilter to hear!

Linking up with the Hands2Help "Hometown Heroes" challenge. 

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!

Bahama Dreaming

AKA: Yes, The Water Really Is That Color. This quilt was a long time in the making, but found its forever home quickly.

Back in late 2017, Liz of Savor Every Stitch introduced her pattern called Haphazard. Made entirely of half square triangles, the design is generated by computer code on her website.  Each iteration of the code, and therefore the resulting layout, is unique. I loved this nerdy, techy idea and filed it away in my quilty bucket list. 

Several month later, we were cruising the Bahamas. As usual, we marveled at the variety of brilliant blue waters around us. I thought, "I wonder if I can capture this in a quilt?" Even now, I have to look at my photos to convince myself that those colors really DO exist in nature!

After pulling fabrics that reflected the gorgeous water around us, I remembered Haphazard, and I ran the program until this layout called my name. The top pieced up quickly and easily and I even had some fun "ship in a bottle" fabric for the backing. Top and back sat quietly folded together for a long time.

If you've ever seen any of Liz's quilts, you know she is an expert free motion quilter. I knew that to truly honor her pattern I would need to step up my FMQ game. So the quilt sat for many, many months as a flimsy, until I felt ready to tackle the extensive quilting.

When I heard recently that my dear friend Bear was gravely ill, I knew it was time to pour heart, soul, and embroidery foot into this piece. I started with the cream background areas, adding dense fillers in many designs. Bear is an amazingly multi-talented person. So as I stitched, I concentrated on all the curly, swirly, swoopy, doopy wonderful ways that he is.

Wishbone pathways dance their way across the quilt.

Swirls fill this dance hall square.

And swirl chains in move through this odd shape.

Water meandering and curve echoes kiss at one point.

Pebbles, flowers, paisleys, squiggles...I threw in everything I had. I wanted abundance and exuberance, joy and music in this quilting!

And when the dense background was finished, I pulled out all my blue, green, gray and turquoise threads and started on the beautiful blue water triangles. But this time, I wanted simpler, more open lines. Dot to dot triangles. Big, smooth feathers.

These are the blue healing waters, and I want them to to flow unimpeded, bringing hopes of peace and strength to Bear's life. 

In the smallest triangle, very close to the center, I quilted a bas relief heart by surrounding it with dense matchstick stitching. Because love persists even when we are far apart. I can't be physically with Bear right now, but he has this token of my support and care.

Sean and I wrapped the quilt around ourselves to give it one final infusion of love, then mailed it to California. It has been keeping Bear warm for several weeks now and I know he feels the love inside it! XOXO

June is for finishes

Hello, hello! I'm back in the blogging saddle and ready to share what I've been working on lately. Seems like I got into a mode where I've been batching things together. I sewed up a ton of blocks, then a bunch of tops, then a passel of backings, and a melange of binding strips. I quilted all the pieces one after the other and stacked them up. And this week I am finally, FINALLY! binding them.

At each stage, there was always an excuse to not take photos. "Eh, a pile of blocks isn't very interesting." "This flimsy is so wrinkled, I'll have to wait until we have enough power to run the iron before I take a pic." "Five backings pieced, three to go! Woo hoo, I'm on a roll! No time to stop now!" Or I took the photos, but they were so bad that there was no motivation to write a post featuring dark, blurry pics. It's been a wet, windy spring which makes taking photos outside a festival of quilts blowing around annoyingly. Overcast days mean the inside of the boat has been dark. Yada yada yada.

But as you can see from the top photo, we are in the calm, beautiful waters of the Erie Canal and I'm ready to share!



Today's finish is this lap quilt for a special young man. He is the older brother of my goddaughter, and you've never met a sweeter, smarter or more handsome guy. He's taking the exams to become a Professional Engineer and this quilt will be a gift to celebrate that major accomplishment.



The entire family loves to camp, and the quilt is made from really fun camping themed fabrics. I supplemented the camping fabrics with outdoorsy ones like denim, burlap, and plaid. Well, not REAL denim and burlap chunks, but quilting cottons that look just like them. The basic stitching is tons of light/dark HSTs and the setting is called Depression Blocks. I have no idea where the name came from, because I was quite jolly while making them.



This fabric with s'mores and blue enamel coffee pots is so fun! And yes, those are chicken feet in the red triangle. It was the right shade of red and I hope it brings a chuckle when it is discovered.



I quilted a couple of different motifs: a four-lobed shape in the small dark diamonds, wishbones in the dark larger diamonds, and stippling in all the light areas. All that fancy quilting almost invisible in the busy fabrics, though, so an overall design would have be fine.



The binding is a navy blue with gold stars. It goes nicely with some sprinkled starlight triangles. Seeing the beauty of the night sky is a huge part of the appeal of camping! Unlike the "climbing out of the freezing cold tent at 3am to go pee" part.



The back used up some coordinating fabrics that were either too fun to chop up, or had too much mixed light/dark values to work in the HSTs.



The text along the line of trailers says, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" So that what I named the quilt. Are We There Yet will be winging its way to California soon.

Quilt in the Wild bonus photo! You may remember the baby quilt called Butterfly Strands I made for friends. They sent me this sweet photo of their beautiful baby girl on the quilt, and it's just the best thing ever. I just love seeing quilts in use, don't you?

I have more finishes to share next week, so I'll see you again soon!

The Blue and the Gray

I have a finish to share today. This lap quilt is a gift for my Dad. I asked him what his favorite colors are, and he said blue and gray. We then talked about his love of history and his knowledge of the Civil War. 

I kept thinking about Ulysses S. Grant as I was stitching the blue and gray fabrics. Did he nap? Surely he must have, and possibly under a quilt in his favorite colors? Naming this one Ulysses' Nap Blankie seemed just a tad undignified, so I settled on General Grant Takes A Nap instead. 

The pattern is called "Buttercream Twist," and is available for free here. All the small accent squares are a fun fabric with math and chemistry scribbles on it. The contrast was great on the scrappy blue fabrics, but a few of the grays were more subtle. I couldn't resist using this neat world map fabric with silver metallic accents, though.

My favorite block is this one with the dragonflies and other insects on it. The quilting is simple wavy lines that alternate direction in each block. Lots of texture without too many hours under the needle.

I had a couple of extra blocks, so I put the ones with the least amount of contrast on the back with a chunk of fabric that has bamboo leaves on it. The quilt ended up about 50"x70" which is a good size for a quick snooze. I'm happy to say that Dad really likes it, and I think Ulysses might have, too.

Caged Samurai

I'm a bit behind in posting some of my final finishes for 2018. We're currently traveling away from the boat, helping again with family medical issues and fitting in a few visits with friends here and there. Today I have a little free time to blog and show you Caged Samurai, a finish from late November/early December.

This UFO was pieced over the course of many months. The central panel is an odd, almost tattoo-like graphic fabric. It was part of some big batch of scraps that I bought on eBay several years ago. The warrior wields a sword and strikes a fierce pose! I immediately knew I wanted to set him behind thin strips, as if being seen through vertical bars. The purple bars and frame were stitched on, and then he sat for a long time. What do you do with this kind of piece? It certainly wasn't meant to be a charity quilt for a toddler!

At some other point, I was playing with some Asian-inspired fabric scraps and used Anita Grossman Solomon's technique to make square-in-a-squares. The little squares piled up, then ended up in a baggie in a drawer. Then some other scraps got stitched together into long columns of coins, and ended up in a different baggie.

One day, all those parts told me they would probably work together, with a little help. I added the panels of fabric on the left and right of Mr. Samurai to improve the proportions and stitched on the Anita squares. That seemed a bit dark, so I added a frame and border of bright white to contain the coin strips. Getting closer to just right!

He then waited quietly on a hanger as a UFO for quite a while. One day last month, he told me to use a purple binding as a final frame, and I knew Caged Samurai was ready to be quilted. After a bit of stitch in the ditch to stabilize and define the different areas, I enjoyed playing with several different motifs.

In the coins, I quilted easy wishbones. In the squares, I did a simple dot-to-dot design in the outer triangles, and a curvy orange peel inside the squares. I was inspired by Vicki's use of the latter motif, and used her technique of chanting "fat skinny fat skinny" to keep track of which way to curve next!

The side panels are too busy to see any quilting, so I cheated with stippling using dark purple thread. I think. I couldn't see a dang thing as I stitched, so I might have drawn the Mona Lisa in there for all I know.



Inside the "cage," I used this serpentine design just to add texture without obscuring the face. The bronze colored thread looks just right in here among all the metallic gold accents.



In the white column next to the Anita squares, I mimicked the shape with more dot-to-dot stitching. It's a little wonky, but I'm OK with that.



The outer borders required just a little marking. The motif is sinusoidal waves filled with serpentine echoing, which takes longer to type than it does to stitch!



I marked the curves lightly to make sure that they ended the way I wanted in the corners.



The transition around the corner from the thin side borders to the wider top and bottom borders took a little head scratching, but I'm happy with how it turned out. White thread on white fabric, plus a trip through the washer and dryer to crinkle up, hides a multitude of "creative" stitches.



The backing is this gray quasi-Asian newspaper fabric, plus chunks of other Asian inspired fabrics. I call it "quasi" because there seems to be nothing readable among all those characters. I have an app on my phone that can look at images and pick out words and numbers in any language, but it found nothing but a few numbers in this. So it seems to be just scribbles, which I suppose is better than rude words. The big advantage of this backing is it hides EVERYTHING. Highly recommended for trying new quilting motifs!

Many of these metallic fabrics were quite stiff, and I worried that the quilt would be uncomfortable. But it washed beautifully and became wonderfully drapey. In spite of his fierce appearance, Caged Samurai is quite a softy.

A few days after I finished the quilt, I learned that a friend was really struggling to recover from a car accident. Charles is a quirky, irreverent, funny guy and I knew immediately that Caged Samurai had found his forever home. I am happy to report that Charles loves this piece and tells me that not only has he always adored homemade quilts, but purple is his favorite color! I hope it brings him comfort and healing.

Linking up with Tish's UFO Busting party.