Many Mendotas

Today I have a big batch of small finishes to share. My online quilt guild, Sunshine, stitched up tons of simple blocks over the last year or so. Finishing at 10"x10", the block is an offset bordered square with a 5" center.

The blocks were sewn into tops at a retreat in Mendota, MN back in June. Since I sadly couldn't attend the retreat, I put together my own blocks at home, and also committed to quilting and binding five of the retreat tops.



Each of these quilts will be donated to one of Sunshine's two sponsored charities: Wrap A Smile and Quilts Beyond Borders.



The "Mendota" block is so simple and versatile that I am still cutting pieces to make more! It's a great way to use novelty fabrics, either as the framed center or as the surrounding borders.



These little quilts, either 40" x 50" or 40" x 60", piece and quilt up really quickly. The 40" dimension makes it easy to use width of fabric chunks for the backings. I try to always document the backings, because sometimes that is all that shows in photos we receive from the charities. It's always a thrill for someone in Sunshine to spot a quilt they made, wrapped around a tiny child!

This blue/green one and the black/white/gray one above were made completely by me.

I love this camping fabric! See the woodpecker on the picnic table?

This backing features bugs on teal and silver metallic stars on blue.

This one and the ones that follow below were made at the Mendota retreat and sent to me to finish. I love all the bright birds and butterflies! I quilted this one in casual back-and-forth squiggles in each block.

The backing was also provided to me, and features abstract pink cat heads and blue/pink zigzags.

Happy amphibians! I guess the birds in the next block can't see that there's a froggy snack just above them.

It was dark and gloomy the day I finished this one. But the fabrics are mostly happy sea critters. I like the clean blue and white color scheme.

So I added my own jaunty nautical backing on it after quilting in a soft, loose stipple. The binding is tiny red, white and blue anchors. 

 

Penguins count as sea critters, right? 

It passed inspection by Angel, who says both fish and penguins are delicious.

This one is a bit more random, and it was fun to peer at other people's fabrics as I quilted it up. The backing features more of the pink cat heads plus a pretty blue and pink floral. Alas, that photo didn't turn out at all. I've been really struggling with getting pictures lately.

 

This is the only photo that is even a little scenic, if you consider a glimpse of the Illinois River past our dinghy scenic. 

Here's a more comprehensive shot of the cute Mendota retreat quilt. Even though it is red and green, it isn't Christmas-y at all. Lots of really fun novelties peeking out: jelly beans and soccer balls, farms and foxes.

I put a big chunk of yellow plaid on the back to play down the red/green, and found a cute stripe in red/blue/green/yellow for the binding. The little fairies on red were a gift from Rose of Something Rose Made fame. The quilting is alternating straight and curved lines done with the walking foot. Nice to do something other than stippling every once in a while!

This final quilt was also made at the retreat, but features elephant blocks in myriad colors. Aren't they cute? The dark blue plaid is a flannel, so this one is super soft.

I backed them with seagulls and lighthouses. Perhaps the elephants were on a seaside holiday? I can't remember, but the elephants will never forget.

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

Other people's scrappy blocks

Once again I've been busy sewing and not so busy blogging, and it's time to play catch up! Today I want to share with you two quilts that were made with blocks that other people made. My task was to put them together and finish the quilt.

Aren't these colors pretty? Melinda stitched up the scrappy string blocks from her stash. She has some gorgeous fabrics!

Each block has the same white center strip. I set the blocks into diamond shapes.

The quilting is a simple petal shape in each diamond, using pale green thread, plus ditch stitching around the white sections.

These blocks were all donated to Covered in Love, and Kat sent them to me. She also gets donations of yardage. I thought this zigzag fabric looked good for the back.

The binding is a lime green with tiny white hearts from my own stash.

I also used that green to piece between the zigzag yardage. This allowed me to piece in the CiL label and more importantly, avoid matching all those tiny jaggedy lines!

This quilt was super fun to puzzle together. All the blocks are left over from CiL's annual red, white and blue star block donation drive.

This star is made of appliqued hearts. So pretty and clever!

Some of the blocks were odd sizes, so creative use of sashing, borders, and cornerstones was necessary.

This one reminds me of a buzz saw blade. I really like the bandana-esque fabric, too.

Kat included some larger chunks of red, white and blue that I pieced into the backing with the label. My goal is to use as many of the donated pieces as possible in Covered in Love quilts, with only the tiniest final scraps ending up in my own stash.

I put these three blocks on the back, along with a large chunk of donated yardage. If you zoom in, you can see faint blue and red stars and swirls printed on the white. This is actually the reverse side of the fabric. The front is printed in really pretty, sparkly metallic ink. However, the ink was quite rough feeling, and I decided that the smooth backside would feel better against the skin of the recipient. 

A thin red inner border, a scrappy squares outer border, and a scrappy dark blue binding complete the piece. Most of those fabrics were donated, too, with a few additions of my own.

I had so much fun putting together these quilts and the ones I wrote about last month! I told Kat she could send me her Covered in Love orphan blocks any time. She has since sent me more blocks, over 10 pounds' worth. We think there could be a dozen quilts lurking in there! More on those in another post.

Colorful collection

Happy Independence Day to my US readers, and happy belated Canada Day to our northerly neighbors! Here along the border in the Thousand Islands region, fireworks and festivities abound.

Today I have four finishes to share. My UFO pile is slowly getting smaller and I'm hoping to be able to see the surface of the guest bed sometime soon. 

These three little quilts are all destined for Quilts Beyond Borders (QBB). They are made with a simple block that the Sunshine Online Quilt Guild calls the Mendota.

My yellow and orange Mendota...

Every two or three years, this group of quilters from all over the US holds a retreat in a different city. A year before the retreat, the organizers pick an easy block for members to make in advance. The goal is to make as many quilt tops from the blocks as possible during the retreat. Tops are then distributed around the country to members, who baste, quilt and bind them. The quilts are then donated to Sunshine's two official charities: QBB and Wrap-a-Smile.

...with cats and fairies on the back

This year's retreat was held in Mendota Heights, MN, and I was really hoping I could attend. We knew we'd be traveling the Great Loop route this summer and would end up near Minnesota at some point. Alas, it will probably be August or September by the time we get there, and the retreat was in mid June. 

Greens, yellows and reds...

...with apples and bluebirds on the back

I had a stack of 100 Mendota blocks ready to go, so I pieced five tops up at home during the retreat weekend. Other "at home retreaters" and I shared our progress with the "at retreat retreaters" via social media. A good time was had by all, although the "at retreaters" had lots of extra fun: ice cream, candy- and quilt-shop visits, BBQ, and face to face getting to know each other!

Pinks and purples and rainbows...

...with jungle animals and an odd brown/purple/turquoise striped floral that I never thought would find its forever home!

I have two more Mendota tops from my own blocks ready to be quilted, and committed to finishing five more from tops made at the retreat. The gals in Mendota Heights stitched up over 140 tops. Amazing!

This quilt is made from orphan "T" blocks that were sent to me by Kat of Covered in Love. They were made by a woman who did a beautiful job with the piecing. I'm sorry I didn't take any photos of the backs of these blocks with their perfectly pressed, uniform seam allowances. And I just loved peering at all her scraps! She used hundreds of different fabrics and only one overlapped with something in my stash. I have already shipped this quilt back to Kat, so I can't double check the block maker's name, but I wrote it on the label on the back of the quilt. Update: Kat left a comment below reminding me that the blocks came from Priscilla.

I finished stitching the blocks into a simple square top with no sashing, and put several extra "T's" on the back. I used a dark purple binding and big stipple quilting to hold it all together. These pretty blocks are no longer orphans, and are ready to comfort a grieving family.

One final note: We spent a few days anchored in the harbor of Clayton, NY. During this boaty photo shoot, two little girls were taking sailing lessons. You can see their tiny sailboat just above the railing in this photo. It was really nice to hear their sweet, happy voices while I was taking the photos.