What I've been up to as of 7/18/21

 It's been a while  - How are you?  I've been pretty busy with my Mom, but she's in Houston for two weeks.  The weather has been hot - 103 today. My poor plants are barely making it.  Here's a few things I've been able to manage:

Our St. Anne's Sewdality finally got to meet in person again a couple of weeks ago.  This is a church group that gets together once a month to make baby quilts for low income families in our parish. I had one to turn in plus 3 quilt tops for members to work on.  Here's mine - you've seen it before, but not finished:

  and the back:

Here's one of the 25 turned in - all from scraps!  We were quarantined but busy.

I finished and am quilting my panel challenge for our guild meeting next Tuesday.  This will be our first in person meeting since March of 2020.  We had zoom meetings, but it's just not the same.  I'll share a photo next time.

Hope you are all well and staying cool if you are in the contiguous US.  Wherever you are, I send Blessings and hugs,

Some of This, Some of That Week 36

Not much destashed because of travels and heat.  I only used 3 yards for background for those baskets, a backing for a baby quilt, and some yardage for another charity quilt for  YTD total of 74.82 yards de-stashed.  In the order I worked on them:

 This quilt is for Baby Stella who was born a couple of weeks ago to DGS Frank's Nina, Markann"s DIL. The top was made by my DIL, Deanna.  Frank sandwiched it and I quilted it - a group effort.

 Here's the back. I FMQ around the stars, used a walking foot for the straight lines and a curvy line in the border. I only had about 6 hours in which to do all this, plus referee two grandsons before we had to deliver it. Phew. I used flannel in the back.

And here's the one we were going to give Stella at the start of the week.  Frank picked out the fabric, colored the four blocks and arranged the 6 1/2" squares.  I suggested the two diagonal rows, but the rest was his layout.  He did good!  It is now a top and will go to St. Anne's members to finish. My part is done.

Another one for St. Anne and coming off the design wall as well as the one above:

This was a 1980's cloth book panel I found in the donations from Deanna's mom.  Since I don't have anyone to give a cloth book to (and it was easier to make a top) I put this together as another one for St. Anne's.  I plan to sandwich it myself and quilt it.  The blocks are too big to just tie in the corners. They are 11 1/2 " square.

And now on my design wall are the rows for a scrappy charity quilt, also for St. Anne's.  I had all these leftover 5" squares, some 6 1/2" squares and 2" strips, that I decided to use them up for another top.  I'm calling it a squarish I Spy.  Of course I still have some scraps left, but the pile does look smaller.

I"m happy to report the temps tonight came down. Yeah!  It was only 91 at 6:30 PM - not like yesterday when it was that temp at 9:30 PM.

I'm linking to Julie's FMQ Mavericks, Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? and Judy's Patchwork Times. Lot of fun projects there. Take a look.

Charity Breeds Contentment + a Giveaway

        Hi, there - I'm taking a break from the commissioned quilt to bring you a TGIFF post for this Friday.One of my favorite quilting endeavors is making charity quilts.  When I started quilting in 1986 I made myself some quilts and then some for family as most quilters do.  But once I had a twin bed in my guest room piled high with all the ones I hadn't gifted,  I knew I had to find another outlet. That turned out to be easy - the Guild I belong to has community service projects:  quilts for kids, pets, Veterans, girls in Foster care, happy bags for children with Cancer, preemie quilts - you name it!  Most of them are small and easy to put together quickly.  After making these quilts, I realized I found a huge sense of contentment in creating and giving away these tokens of caring.  Also, there are quite a few advantages for me, the quilter, in making them, too.
 For instance:

1. I test out new block patterns,
2.  practice machine quilting,
3.  diminish my stash,
4.  try new techniques,
5.  solidify friendships with fellow quilters as we meet to work on these quilts

to name just a few.  But the nicest feeling comes from seeing a quilt recipient's surprise and happiness recieving an unexpected token of solidarity. Below are my latest finishes (completed just before I started the quilt I'm working on).

This is a Veteran's Quilt - 36" by 45" made from 9 1/2" squares.  They are given to vets in our local Veteran's hospital for their bed or as lap quilts or when using a wheelchair.

Then there is this one for our local low income Mommy & Me clinic:

This is a self binding recieving blanket.  It took all of 10 minutes of sewing to make using two squares. You can see the tutorial by Jenny Doan here .  And as Jenny suggested, I used one of my machine's stitches to close the pocket left for turning.

Learning, crafting, sharing - that's what charity quilts are all about - and feeling good :).

Okay I'd like to invite you to share your finish on this TGIF Friday.  Below is the linky to let us view your eye candy.  I have 100 (3/4") hexagon paper pieces and a fat quarter as a thank you for someone who links up to my party.  You can try a new technique and maybe make your own charity quilt with them. Note: Link up those fabulous finishes below and don't forget to tour the other finishes and spread the comment love! Please include a link to my post so your visitors can come back here and see other fab finishes. Ends Saturday morning to give everyone a chance to link up. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for stopping by and thanks, too, to Laura and M-R for starting TGIFF  (Look over in the right hand sidebar).  Lastly, visit Quilts are For Giving and St Anne's Sewdality for charity quilt inspiration.  The possibilities are endless.

Stash Report 11/20/11

I bound two charity quilts, so there is 1/2 yard.  I then pulled from the stash to make a "We got you Covered" quilt - a new community service project our guild is taking on - lap quilts (36 by 42-44) for patients at our local Veteran's Hospital.  I used four 1/4 yd cut WOF, a 1/2 yard for border, less than an hour of putting it together and got the top shown.

I used Bonnie Hunter's  Streak of Sunshine method, but I used 8 1/2" squares and only the fabrics I mentioned above.  That used up another 1 1/2 yards. 

Then I pulled 4 yards for donations - mostly blues for 34-36" quilts for St.  Anne's.  And here are my numbers:


Used/Donated this week: 6.0 yards
Used/Donated Yr to date: 101.12yards
Added this wk: 0.0 yards
Total Yr to date Added: - 12 yards
-----------------------------------------
Total Yr to date Used: 89.12 yards

How are you doing on your destashing?  Go on over to my sidebar and click on Judy's Patchwork Times and see how others are doing. 

Design Wall Monday 11/7/11

Have two charity quilt tops on my design wall.  They are for St. Ann's which meets this coming thursday.  I make the tops and a couple of ladies at the meeting will sandwich and tie.  Then they'll pass it on to someone else to bind or give it back to me to do the binding.  For these two (which measure around 36-38 inches square), I'll be doing the binding as well as quilting the blue one. We delivered 19 quilts to a low income Mommy & Me clinic last month for new mothers and hope to have another dozen or so to give them in December.

Go to my left sidebar and click on Judy's Patchwork Times to see what others are doing.  And if you want to see some quilts from Houston - see the previous post.

Favorite Things Friday 9/9/11

It 's friday, again.  I went to our church's sewing group yesterday.  A favorite thing for me.  And there were 8 quilters/seamstresses present for our meeting.  They are so much fun.  We make quilts for our parishioners in need and for low income mothers in our community.  We're getting ready to make a delivery and here we are holding some that are ready to go.  I'm the one holding the blue one.

Go on over to my left sidebar and click on the favorite things friday button to see what Shay and others are reporting as a favorite this friday.

Soldier's Angel Block

Here's a block I'm donating to our guild's Soldier's Angels project. We're to make 12 1/2 " blocks and they will be made into quilts to send to soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq. We're doing red white and blue but with Americana touches.