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!

Wrapping Smiles

Today's finishes are three little quilts for Wrap-A-Smile, which provides quilts to children undergoing Rotary-sponsored surgery. 

The first is made in a very conventional way. I used a pattern called Five Yards, which calls for (oddly enough) one yard each of five fabrics.There are two blocks that alternate and a border that I didn't add to keep the size small. I chose three transportation-themed fabrics, a solid-reading orange and a mottled yellow-green.

I put most of the leftover yardage on the back in nice, straight horizontal strips. Really. Those strips are straight! The fabrics are very cute, and the second strip down is the Vehicles for Sale section of a newspaper, so that's what I named the quilt. The quilting is simple wavy lines in bright orange thread, and orange binding finishes it up.

School Days is made with a panel plus 10 nine patches set on point. The panel features schools, a library, school buses, playgrounds and lots of kids, all surrounded by bright crayons. I had a close match to the green of the panel to set the nine patches.

For the back, I used this big piece of amphibian fabric. Frogs, turtles, salamanders, plus the bugs they eat and the word "Green." Very fun! I did simple stipple quilting on this one, and used the same orange binding as Vehicles for Sale.

Chirp, Flutter, Bloom is the final quilt, and it is made with a cheerful panel plus lotto blocks made by Sunshine Online Guild members. The panel is the center of the quilt, and is printed to look a bit like individual blocks. I added an assortment of pink, green, yellow and aqua blocks plus some striped sashing. The colors are brighter than the photos show.

The backing is this fun flamingo fabric in the same colors, and a minty green binding also has bits of pink and blue in it. Another fast stipple quilted it up and makes it cuddly. 

So there you go, three different quilts using three different piecing strategies. I enjoyed going from the symmetry of regular blocks in Vehicles for Sale to the scrappy chaos of Chirp, Flutter, Bloom with Schools Days being a little of both! I hope they each make a child smile.

Gracious Geisha

It's another gorgeous day on the Erie Canal! I love how flat calm the water is in the mornings before the breeze picks up. I have another little finish to share with you.

Gracious Geisha might look a bit familiar. I used the same panel in a larger quilt earlier this year. My preference is to only buy one of any given panel, since there are so many available. So many panels! So little time! But occasionally I find them two-fer-one on eBay at killer prices. So. Here she is again.

This time I combined her with two lotto blocks from Sunshine Guild members, and one of my own orphan blocks. This is a small, wheelchair sized quilt, about 36"x48". You can tell it's lightweight by my jauntily deployed pinkies. Yes, that's me in the photo, and Sean climbed off the boat with camera in hand.

I chose this lotto block because the purple lilacs matched the purple wisteria.

And this one has a combination of colors that felt quite Asian to me. You can see the simple big stipple quilting in purple thread, and the purple and red striped binding.

This one is my orphan block, made of pre-cut hexagons. Sewing these together requires Y-seams, not my favorite, so they'd been marinating in my stash for over four years. That's a bicycle handlebar shadow on the right. This one is my photo, can't blame that on Sean. Just keeping it real, y'all. If you're here for my photography skills, then perhaps you need to go outside and clear your head.

The back is a mish mash of Asian-inspired scraps pieced together. It felt like time to use these up and get them out of my stash. Sometimes those ziplock bags of random fabric take up more mental space than they are worth.

Gracious Geisha will be sent to Doris, my friend from the Sunshine Online Quilt Guild. Her local group, Joyful Stitchers, makes and donates wheelchair quilts to nearby nursing homes. I really love making these smaller pieces, and while most of my quilts are kid friendly, it's nice to also skew a few toward more adult interests.

Finding a local senior living center or nursing care facility is tricky for me. Just showing up somewhere with 2-3 quilts doesn't seem like the right thing to do. Which residents would get them? Having enough for everyone is good manners! So I'm grateful to have found Doris and her group, and add to their local efforts in Alabama. I had thought I might donate this quilt to a place mentioned by another blogger. Several of us asked in the comments for more information about the nursing care center needing the quilts, but the blogger never followed up. That made me a bit irritated! But rather than rant about that, this is a great time to say how grateful I am to the folks who DO follow through.

One of the reasons I continue to give to my favorite quilt charities is the positive feedback I get. At the very least, they all let me know when the quilts arrive. I'm not doing it for the thanks, but it's really nice to hear that the darned things at least made it to their destination! But most also send a sweet card or email with kind words. Joyful Stitchers, Covered in Love, Wrap A Smile, Quilts Beyond Borders, Little Lambs, Victoria's Quilts, Happy Chemo, Mercyful Quilts, Jack's Basket, A Doll Like Me: each one of these has been great about acknowledging my donations.



And speaking of Joyful Stitchers, Doris sent me this photo of one of my quilts being used on their bulletin board. Remember the one I made with train panels? Here it is, folded so just the trains are showing and being used to promote their sewing group. All Aboard! I'm just tickled pink!

Care and feeding of volunteers doesn't really take much, yet makes a huge difference. Many thanks to those who do it right!

Aqua scraps etc.

It's time to share our Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks over on SoScrappy. April's color is aqua, and I stitched up five different blocks. The big one, 16" square, is Scrap Crystals, above. I almost gave up on making this block after last month's green version turned out pretty uninspiring. But when I figured out that the coordinating color with aqua was going to be pink, I knew I'd like this one better and I do!

These are my 8.5" rail blocks. The skinny strips are the two colors adjacent to the RSC color. For aqua, those two are true blue and true green.

I've been making 6.5" nine patches for a while as leader/enders, but decided this month to officially add them to my RSC blocks. My scrap boxes were getting pretty empty except for 2" strips, so I decided to add 6.5" 16 patches to the list, too. 

After cutting all the other blocks, all that's left over are teensy pieces, which I use to make crumb blocks. These are 8.5" and kind of addicting to make. So much so that when I ran out of aqua, I started making white/cream/tan/light neutral blocks. It's a sickness, I tell you!

And as if that wasn't enough scrappy fun, I decided to try my hand at a scrappy Trip Around the World, using 2.5" strips. This top is only 36"x48" and I haven't decided if I'll stop here and add borders, or keep making TATW blocks and add on.

This little top uses lotto blocks from the Sunshine Online Guild, plus a bright happy panel in the center. I'll probably quilt this one up next week and ship it off to Quilts Beyond Borders.

And finally, here's Angel in her life vest. DH has been working under the helm to fix some of the problems that last week's lightning strike caused, and that's where we store the life vests for all the mammals. The kitty one was on top of the pile so I made sure it still fits our brave crew member. The huge bang of thunder that made me jump and shriek last week hardly fazed her! She looks really annoyed in this photo, but that's because she hates the camera flash and refuses to look at the camera anymore. She actually tolerates the vest pretty well. Her stylish green nails are special plastic caps that keep her from clawing my new Ikea chair. 

Busy behind the scenes

It's been a very busy few months for me. I needed to travel to California several times for family medical issues, so I'm really behind on my blogging. But there's good news. First and most importantly, my relative is doing so much better. Hooray! 

Secondly, I've actually been able to get to quite a bit of quilting in the times between trips. In fact, I've finished several quilts. How did that happen? In this post I reveal my sneaky techniques for fast finishes.

UFOs for Donating

Nothing speeds a quilt finish along like having 90% of the flimsy already finished and sitting in the closet. These first two quilts have been at that almost done stage for months. 

This one is Wonky Diamonds, made with alternating multicolor novelties and neutral strings. I pieced them on paper foundations, just to see if I liked that technique. Turns out, I don't. So I stopped with just these few blocks and bordered them up with a fun yellow zebra print given to me by a guild friend. 

The back used up the rest of the zebras and this zippy apple and pear fabric. This is a donation to Wrap A Smile, so it's only about 40"x50". Using my go-to stipple, I can quilt that size piece in about 2 hours. Binding by machine takes 45 minutes or so.

Lurid Cats were one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks last year. I stitched two cats per month, and ended up with two 9 block tops. Simple black sashing was all these crazy cats needed to shine.

The backing is from my seemingly endless supply of soft yellow plaid, a gift from Sean's aunt. Sean chose the red binding. I often ask him for color advice when I'm stumped. 

For the quilting on this one, I did a "hook/swirl" motif using rainbow variegated thread. This design is fast becoming a favorite with its combination of curves and points.

And here's a gratituous boaty glamour shot. Just because.

I don't think I've ever shared them before, but these kimono blocks were well aged in the orphan block stash. I made them from Asian-inspired fabrics, sewing great guns until I had an even dozen. And then I ran out of steam. They were a bit fiddly and the thought of making a dozen more just wasn't appealing.

So I combined them with a nicely designed geisha panel and added some coin-style columns to get a pleasing quilt width. The backing is bright white with tiny purple flowers. More hook/swirl in pale lavender thread. Don't you just love it when you can use pretty threads?

I'm not certain where this one will end up. Lavender Geisha is too busy sipping her tea to whisper in my ear about where she wants to go. Perhaps she'll go to Happy Chemo, a Hands2Help charity. We'll see.

UFOs for Gifting

These two quilts were made for my "nieces," who are the daughters of one of my oldest and dearest friends. Both young ladies are finishing up college degrees this spring, one receiving her Bachelors and the other a Masters.

The quilt on the right, for J, has been a work in progress for several years. The circles were one of my first forays into improv piecing. I purchased math and science themed fabrics from a lady on eBay who makes men's ties, so the scraps were all oddly shaped triangles.

After fermenting in my stash for a looooong time, I pieced the circles into a gray linen/cotton blend. Burgundy and cream striped sashing and nine patch cornerstones hold the circles together. I quilted free form offset circles in the patchwork, and simple stippling in the background.

The backing fabric is a nice big chunk of this cream with apples. J is getting her Masters in education, so this quilt is Apples for the Math Teacher!

J's sister L received a bright, happy quilt made from the free pattern called Noteworthy Labyrinth on Moda Bakeshop. I finished the flimsy back in June of 2018. With so much movement and color in the top, I kept the quilting super simple. A big stipple using rainbow variegated thread was quick and easy. Or maybe it was hook/swirl? Now I've forgotten, and I somehow managed to give L's Labyrinth away without taking any finished photos, alas.

Small and scrappy

Tiny quilts for tiny babies sure do work up fast, don't they? This quilt is a baby gift for friends who are expecting in late April. Their nursery colors are grey and white, with touches of light green. I knew I wanted to do something with my grey string scraps, and found this free pattern called Birds, Bees and Butterfly Strands.

The piecing was very fast, and the 40" square quilt came together quickly. I used this modern Blueberry Park grey fabric as the back and binding. It was a gift from Rose and I'm happy to find the perfect use for it.

Butterfly Strands is quilted in floppy feathers in pale green thread for soft, snuggly texture. 

Just the Flimsies, Ma'am

You know what makes a quilt finish up really, really, REALLY fast? Not quilting it! These next two pieces, which are both unquilted tops, are some of my Hands2Help Charity Challenge finishes. This one features little panels that look like old fashioned flower seed packets. The panels were given to me by Kathleen, one of my online guild friends. A little bordering of the panels, a few hour glass blocks, a bit of checkerboarding, and Dreaming of Spring was finished.

Sweet and Sour is made with some of my stash of fun fruit fabric with citrus-y green and orange accents. I modified a free pattern called Framed Rectangles so the blocks would be 10"x14". Both flimsies will be donated to Victoria's Quilts, which asks for 50"x70" quilt tops only. This size block makes for an easy 5x5 layout and allows the large scale fruit designs to really take center stage!

Lotto Blocks and Panels

Finally, these last two little quilts were so fun and fast to make. Apologies for strange shadows in the photos! Figuring out where to take pictures so that the sun and wind direction are kinda sorta correct has been a real challenge lately.

I sewed a grand total of about 12 seams in this quilt. The tropical birds in the lower left corner are a panel about 24"x36". The six blocks were all made by members of the Sunshine Online quilt guild, as part of their monthly block lotto. I've won the lotto three times now, so I have a nice mix of blocks to choose from.

This sweet little applique butterfly is my favorite!

All I had to do was choose some blocks that played nicely with the panel, and pick a sashing color and coordinating backing. A little stippling, a little binding, and boom! Lotto Birds is ready for Wrap A Smile.

I had so much fun, I couldn't stop at just one. Check out this darling kitty panel! Happy cats in turquoise, yellow, hot pink, black and grey. 

Plunging into the lotto block stack, I pulled out eight fun squares to surround the cats. Turquoise sashing and hot pink binding added some extra zing. Lotto Cats made me smile every time I worked on it.

For the back, I used this nautical fabric with all kinds of different sail and power boats. There's even submarines with little yellow propellers. So. Stinking. Cute. Our resident boat cat, Angel, confirms that the shippy fabric works just fine with the felines on the front.

Whew! Did you make it all the way to the end of this looooooong post? Do you have a favorite of this bunch? Leave me a comment and let me know and thanks for sticking with me while I finally got all these quilts documented.