Giving Love Quilt or #7, is complete!

This is the 3rd Giving Love Quilt I've made, you can read about why I made another here.  It's for my cousins' daughter, Ellen.

I love the sunlight streaming through the quilt back.  Below is a close-up of the Dragonfly panto that is my current favorite.

May your bobbins always be full,

What time is it?

It's binding time!  These six quilts need binding!  Two are queen-size and the others are lap quilts.  I better get busy because my LAQ has six more; three will be ready at the end of June and three will be ready at the end of July.  

This pandemic has really kept me busy making quilts.  I'd rather be creating than binding, but, "Oh, Well"!

 

May your bobbins always be full,

Giving Love Quilt Top, or a #7 Please

Recently I did a quilt giveaway for 4 of my cousins.  I have many cousins, about 50, but these 4 are special.  I sent an email showing the 8 quilts I was willing to part with and asked them to choose 1 or two.  Ginny chose 1, Chris chose 2, Karen picked 3, and I didn't hear from Ellen.  The quilts were mailed off; then weeks later I got an email from Ellen, she'd picked a quilt and didn't hit send on her mail.  There was only one quilt left and I asked if she'd accept it instead of her 1st choice. 
She was happy to have it in her home.  But, I decided to make her another quilt, like the one she wanted.  

The quilt she wanted was one of the Giving Love Quilts I made as a sampler to show my guild.  This layout requires 13 12.5" blocks.  I already had 11 blocks on hand; so I made 2 more and assembled this quilt top for Ellen.

 

May your bobbins always be full,

Two Brake Light Quilts complete

My friends and current "Quilt Models", Lori and Charlie, met me in the parking lot at the clubhouse to help get photos of these two quilts.  You can read about the process of making these two quilts here.  

When I got home I remembered that I hadn't taken any cell phone photos, so I had to get creative.

I used some hangers with clips and hung both quilts from the gutter in front of the garage.

I used a long arm quilter that usually does custom quilting for me.  I left all the decisions up to her and I'm happy with the results.  My only displeasure is that when she mailed these two quilts back to me, she addressed the package incorrectly.  My street number was wrong, and my street name was misspelled.  I'm going to think long and hard before using her services again.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Biggest HST I ever made!

At our FB Room meeting last month, the Temecula Valley Modern Quilt Guild president issued a challenge.  Easy peasy, make something using charm squares.  I'm always up for a challenge, so I looked at some of the charm square tutorials on the web.  I settled on The Brake Lights tutorial by Moda Fabrics.

I had a bunch of charm packs that I'd picked up at a couple of Quiltcons, freebies from the vendors.  Each pack had 5 to 10 squares.  I picked Caribbean Blue for the foreground fabric and Winsor Blue fr the background.  After I read the instructions, I decided, NO Way!  I came up with Plan B, and made the above 60" square from the charms, cut in half, and foreground 4/5" rectangles.

I then made a matching-sized background square.  Laid them out, right-sides together, drew the diagonal line, and stitched 1/4' from both sides of the line, cut on the line, and pressed.  That's how I made these huge HSTs.

But I wasn't finished.  I cut another 60" length of Windsor Blue, cut it in half, along the fold, and stitched the new addition to the top of each section.  I now have two Brake Light Quilt Tops.  I sent them off to my friend Georganna for quilting.  When complete, they will go to my favorite twins!

May your bobbins always be full,

Geese at Sunrise ~ 2, Precut Challenge

This is the layout I chose for the leftover HSTs from the Geese at Sunrise Quilt Top.  I initially thought I'd make pinwheels from the 16 giant HSTs; nope I didn't like that layout.  So I fooled around with the layout for a couple of days, sort of tweaking the design as I walked by the dining room table.  This quilt top measures 45" square.

My "normal" LAQ now has 3 of my quilts to work on, so I'm going to contact someone else about quilting these two.

May your bobbins always be full,

Geese at Sunrise, Precut Challenge

I'm still challenging myself to use precuts from my stash.  The focus this month is Jelly Rolls. I have at least 5 more jelly rolls in my stash, so I'll be busy for a while!  The jelly roll I used for this project is called Sunrise Colorstory by Kona Cotton.  The blue fabric is from stash. This measures 45" x 57". 

I have enough of these giant HSTs leftover to make a small baby quilt; I'm leaning toward pinwheels but that's a decision for tomorrow. 

May your bobbins always be full,

A quilt for Kassia

I have binding to put on 4 quilts, but I've decided to ignore those and start a new project.  My grandson has four half-siblings and only one of those is a girl.  My daughter asked me to make Cassia a quilt of her own because every time she visits my daughter she wraps herself in one of the quilts I've gifted Sharon.  The fabrics I've chosen are charm squares from these collections:

 Gridwork by Christa Watson

 By Hand by Amy Friend

 Front Porch by Cherry Gundry

I thought they all worked very well together.

May your bobbins always be full,

Giving Love Sampler Quilts

Ta Da!  These are the two Giving Love Sampler Quilts I made to show my guild.  You can read about the project here.  I hope they like my idea if they don't, I still have two new quilts to give away.

May your bobbins always be full,

Giving Love Quilt Tops

I decided to come up with another layout for my quilt's charity quilts.  This version is super easy, you need 13 12.5" blocks and 12 12.5" HSTs.  The blocks I used were from the guilds BOM program.  Every month we have a different block and ask members to make one and donate it to our Charity Quilt Challenge.  Every month I make 4, 2 to donate and 2 to keep for my own use.  I really like how these turned out.  If you want to make your own Giving Love Quilt, you can find the tutorial here.

If you're curious, below is the previous version of the TVMQG Charity Quilts.  It uses 12 BOM blocks and 2.5" strips and 1.75 yards of fabric.  This tutorial can be found here.

May your bobbins always be full,

HST Flying Geese are the October BOM

I cheated!  I wanted to make these far in advance because I have a 3 week trip coming up and I hate to miss a deadline.  (Even if the deadline is self-imposed!)  

TVMQG member Madeline is presenting this block at our meeting this week and it's due in October.  Since I wrote the blog post about the tutorial, I had the inside scoop and was able to make these ahead.  I made four, but they're all alike so I only photographed two of them.  The tutorial can be found here.

May your bobbins always be full,

Doll Quilt Tops

One of my favorite people, Cousin B, is legally blind.  She has very limited vision, so she can't drive or sew.  She works as a nanny for a couple that she met in culinary school before her sight worsened.  B asked me to make two doll quilts for the two little girls she takes care of.  They're having a baby brother or sister in December and B wants to give them a quilt for their dolls.

For the first quilt top, I used leftover HSTs from the last Autumn Leaf quilt I made 3 years ago.  You can see a lot of the same fabrics in the original quilt.

I don't know about you, but I find this chain-piecing method an easy way to assemble a quilt top.

For the 2nd quilt top, I decided to use some of the leftover 3.5-inch scraps from the same Autumn Leaf quilt.  I played around with the squares for a couple of days, see below, before deciding that I needed to do more with them.  I snowballed opposite corners on each square and put them together for the completed top.  Much better.  It was far too windy for an outdoor photo, so the front door works well.

I have to take a break from sewing, I'm leaving for Iceland next week, so I need to pack and get things organized.  These two doll quilts will be sandwiched and quilted upon my return.

May your bobbins always be full,

Patchwork Heart Quilt with HSTs

The LAQ, Janiel Miller, had three quilts back to me eons ago; my extra duties involved in being a caregiver make it difficult to just devote a chuck of time to creativity.  No complaint, just the facts.  I have decided to really try to get the binding on all three, before 2015 rolls around.

I'm really in love with this quilt, I spent some time "auditioning" fabric for the binding and settled on this warm gray diagonal strip from the Little Red Riding Hood line by Tasha Noel.  There are both warm and cool grays in the patchwork, and I thought this was a good choice.

Name of quilt:  Patchwork Heart Quilt with HSTs
Start date:  September 28, 2014
Finish date:  December 28,2014
Measurements:  48" x 48"

May your bobbins always be full,

Patchwork Heart Quilt

 

When I purchased a FQ bundle of 1930's fabric, it just sat there, and sat there on the shelf .  I usually keep my quilts pretty modern and I wasn't inspired to use them.  After I finished the Patchwork Heart Memory Quilt for a little girl, I thought I'd make another using these FQs.  I'm really happy with the results.

I used a navy gingham check from the Dear Jane line by Brenda Papadakis.  I think it really adds to this quilt.

Name of quilt:  Patchwork Heart Quilt
Start date:  September 5, 2014
Finish date:  December 29,2014
Measurements:  48" x 48"

May your bobbins always be full,