Hands2Help Finishes

I'm packing up my finishes for Hands2Help this week.

This scrappy quilt is going to Emily at Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo. I hope the bright colors give someone cheer who is going through a difficult time. 

These four baby quilts are going to Little Lambs Foundation for children going into foster care. It is so fun to sew with bright colors and novelty fabrics and panels, and I hope these quilts are snuggled and loved by their recipients.

I put simple handwritten labels on all the quilts.

After calculating the cost for postage, I decided these other 13 quilts I have finished up during this time of home quarantine will be donated locally. My guild has an active comfort quilt program, and when we reconvene, I'm sure they will find good homes.

Scrappy Hexagons

I have been intrigued by hexagon quilts, both large and small, for awhile.  Since half hexagons can be sewed in rows with no y-seams, I decided to try that with some scraps. I pulled some assorted blue scraps and started with 4.5" strips. Then I used my 60 degree ruler to cut half-hexagons. Little pieces from the ends of my strips were perfect for the partial hexagons at the row ends. Really, the only tricky part is taking care to keep all the pieces in the proper order.

 

Freehand quilting with a swirl and curvy echo.

Finished size 50" x 56", this quilt will be donated.

Next I pulled out some pink scraps and made a baby sized hexagon quilt.

Quilted with a heart and loop meander.

Finished size 37" x 40". This will be donated to Little Lambs,

one of this year's Hands 2 Help recipients.

Since our state is beginning to open up, I finished up my Stay Safe at Home flimsy. It is just the right size for a tall wall space in my home. I made my first house block when we picked our kids up from college on March 14. I made one house each day, sometimes from a fabric that reflected my day, sometimes from a fabric tossed on my cutting table. I found making a daily house rather therapeutic, so I am going to keep making them for Stay Home Quilt #2. The two tree blocks finished out this week.

Quilt size: 21" x 50"

Linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday!

National Park Fan

I have always loved our National Parks. Every summer we took our children to at least one, and often we would combine several National Parks in our plans. I grew up in the Northwest, and enjoyed spending time in the mountains and the outdoors. When I saw the National Park fabric line by Riley Blake I couldn't resist. I bought panels of Mt. Rainier, Zion and Smoky Mountains last year, but I had no particular plan. (I purchased the panels here but they are available many places.) However, my plan is falling into place.

I put Mt Rainier panels on the back of the two memory shirt quilts for my nephews. They live in the Northwest and see Mt Rainier daily if the weather cooperates. My dad also enjoyed time on Mt. Rainier and seeing the mountain out on a beautiful day.

I finished the quilting and binding on both of the shirt memory quilts. One is quilted with a square spiral, the other with organic lines and loops. Hopefully the USPS will take care and get them to their destination soon!

Next on my National Park quilt list was to combine some of the wonky trees I started last year with one of the panels. The Great Smoky Mountains seemed the appropriate choice. Amy Smart has a great tutorial on trees for her Patchwork Forest quilt. I had to add a few strips to make things come out even, but it was fun to use lots of browns, greens and yellows from my stash.

 I quilted with a single loop, while adding some wishbone quilting to the trees. This quilt will probably be donated, because of course I don't really need another quilt in my house.

While the large panels are great, I recently learned that a panel with 60 small National Park images is available. I was excited when it arrived in the mail this week,  looking at all the images and remembering trips past. I am pondering ideas in which I cut up the rectangles and add pieced blocks. Stay tuned!

Linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday where there are many fun finishes!

An Old Finish

I have always admired wool applique, but have not done much myself. In 2017 or so I purchased a kit on sale from a LQS. It was by Hat Creek Quilts, one of their Pantry Club series. I started one of the squares, took it with me when I traveled, left it by the sofa, stitched a bit but finally put it away where it became hidden deep in my sewing room. I found other wool applique designs I liked more, but vowed not to start a new wool project before I finished this kit. I pulled it out again a few weeks ago to asses my status. One block was finished, the second was half done. Just a few nights by the TV finished the second block. The kit was designed for four applique blocks, but if I did just two it would fit perfectly on a small table in my living room. And if I did just two, it would be that much closer to DONE. The included border and sashing fabrics were not to my taste, so I pulled from my stash to make it just the right size. I did simple quilting with my walking foot and finished the binding this week.

I am pleased with how it turned out, and my daughter even mentioned that it looked much better than she expected! I love having an honest critic. I will use the remaining wool with some new wool I purchased in December to make a whimsical house design I found in a new book.

I also finished up my version of Bonnie Hunter's Unity Quilt Along. I knew I wanted to make my version smaller than hers, and when I saw the clue for this week, I decided I was ready to call it done. I completed the first two steps just as she designed, but I modified the rounds for weeks 3, 4 and 5. With the solid blue border, my version measures 68" x 77". I used a single fabric for the background, but lots of fun scraps everywhere else. Lots of leftover golds and yellows will make my scrappy binding.

Linking up with Oh Scrap at Quilting is more Fun Than Housework where there is always lots of inspiration!

Shirts and Memories

This week I started creating memory quilts and pillows from my father's shirts. He passed away in April of 2018, and it took awhile before cutting up his shirts invoked good memories rather than sad ones. I have two nephews who live near my father's home and grew up very close to him. I am making throw size quilts (these tops are 50" x 58") for each of these young men. I included fabric and patches from my dad's cub scout and boy scout shirts from the 1940's.

These 18" throw pillows are for my brothers, my step-mother and one for me. I mixed an matched squares and rectangles in the pillow tops, including at least one piece of each shirt in each pillow. I used large pieces of the shirt backs for the backs of the pillows.

After I get the quilts finished, I will make some special labels for both the quilts and the pillows.

This week I finished quilting and binding this sailboat quilt which uses a fun border fabric. This will be donated.

I also quilted and bound my RWB Elvira quilt. I did an edge-to-edge square spiral design. This will go to the state QOV coordinator whenever it is safe to make presentations again.

Linking to Sarah for a Whoop Whoop Finish! Lots of wonderful inspiration there!

Orange, Orange Everywhere

Spring 2019 I made this triangle quilt using the Chopsticks pattern by Jaybird Quilts. My daughter requested this pattern for her dorm room in a "bright color." I decided oranges and pinks fit the bill. I used different gray prints for the middle of the orange triangles, and a common light grey fabric (Connecting Threads light silver chambray) for the narrow borders around the orange triangles. This is the second time I made this pattern and I love it. However, there are a pile of half triangles left over after the edges are trimmed. I hate to toss big pieces of fabric, but they are an awkward shape to use, so I put them into a box ...

Fast forward to February and I still had a box of orange and pink scraps. The color for February at Angela's Rainbow Scrap challenge was orange. I had decided to try making some Checker Blocks using Elven Garden Quilts tutorial. I dug into my box of scraps and quickly made seven orange blocks. The angle cut end pieces for the Chopsticks quilt worked well for the half square triangles in this quilt. However, I wanted the quilt to be rainbow, so I put the breaks on making orange blocks and made some other colors to balance out the orange. I decided to finish the quilt top right away rather than wait for each color to be announced on RSC.

Last week I finished up the quilting and binding on this donation quilt. I quilted it with some wonky ribbon candy and lines.

Meanwhile, I still had a box of orange and pink triangle cut-offs from the original quilt. When sorting through projects in my sewing room as the stay-at-home recommendations rolled in, I decided to make some random blocks and empty the box once and for all. This scrappy orange quilt was the final result and will be a happy quilt to donate. I quilted it with big swirls in hot pink thread.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict!

Another Week in My Scrap Pile

Although I really miss seeing people, like many other quilters I know I am making lots of progress on projects old and new.

All the great quilts from the Elvira Quarantine Quilt Along inspired me to use some patriotic batik fabrics for a QOV. To get the size I wanted, I modified the throw quilt layout slightly with 3 pieced blocks and one setting rectangle in each row.  I didn't have quite enough batik samples, but the blue and red tone-on-tone fabrics blend well. It was a fast finish which is next in line in my quilting queue.

An older guild member asked me to help her with quilting some comfort quilts, so I quilted her four 4-patch and furrow tops. I dropped them off at her front porch (while maintaining social distance, of course) and she can now work on the bindings. She lives alone and said she is going a little bonkers, so she appreciated receiving a project to complete. She made two of the tops from kits provided by our guild, then made two more from her stash. It's fun to see the same pattern in different color-ways.

I've joined Bonnie Hunter's Unity Quilt Along and still have row #3 to complete. There are lots of little star parts cut and sitting next to my sewing machine. This might end up as a Quilt of Valor, but I'll see how it goes. I'm digging through my blue, red and gold scrap bags to find lots of treasures for this project.

The quilting and binding are complete at last for this graduation gift quilt. I will be sending this to a college graduate in our extended family who will not have commencement ceremonies this spring. I finished the top in January, using the "Tangerine Dreams" pattern from Cynthia Brunz Desings. I enjoyed picking out bright colors for the top.

The graduate is hoping to work in the music industry, so I found this perfect fabric for the backing. My daughter, home and attending virtual college, voted for the lime green binding.

I quilted it with an allover double paisley design, with elongated spirals in the border.

Linking up with Angela at Scrap Happy Saturday. I didn't work specifically with blue this week, but I certainly included lots of blue in my scrappy projects!