Hands2Help 2020

Once again this year I'm participating in Hands2Help with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. This year I'm sending one quilt to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo and three to Little Lambs Foundation for Kids. 

Have Faith is going to Quilty Hugs. This quilt's story is here. 

Purple Chunky Churn Dash is going to Little Lambs. This quilt uses materials given to me by Wanda of Exuberant Color for use in donation quilts. 

Little Pink Cats is also going to Little Lambs; story in yesterday's post, scroll down. 

And Coral Flying Geese is going to Little Lambs as well. Here's this quilt's story. 

Thanks, Sarah, for all your hard work organizing and hosting Hands2Help 2020!

 

A Small UFO Finish

Okay, so who has tops waiting for batting or backing? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This little quilt's top hung in the closet for awhile, waiting for batting cut-offs of the right size to Frankenbatt* together. Some other recent finishes yielded more batting cut-offs, and finally I had the size needed for this UFO.

At 37" by 41" it's perfect for a baby quilt, and the sweet cat print is just too cute.

Everything's from stash. I know the cat print is relatively recent, one of my LQS's fat quarter sale finds from within the past couple years. The stripe goes back to one of my earliest trips to Paducah in the late 90's.

This little quilt is destined for Little Lambs Foundation for Kids as part of Hands2Help 2020. I've sent them children's quilts before, and this year they also want baby quilts. I'm including it in my Rocking Chair Quilts, see tab above. After a tumble through the washer and dryer, it'll be on its way.

Although I'm sorry for the circumstances of any child under the care of an agency such as Little Lambs, I hope this little quilt brings a bit of comfort for someone.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

*For those who are curious, I used iron-on batting tape to butt the edges of the batting pieces together, then stitched over the join with a serpentine zigzag. No ridge, no slippage, you can't feel the joining seams from the outside of the quilt, and it won't come apart within the quilt with repeated laundering.

UFO Progress: Basket Weave

One of the items on my Goals list for May is to revisit UFOs and see what I can move forward. I have a small UFO finish, which I'll post about on Friday.

I also pulled this project to work on. It's bee blocks, made for me by the Sew Bee Its the last time it was my turn to hand out. I don't even remember when that was. The blocks are made of strips, and when assembled they'll create a basket weave pattern. Apparently I got into strips even before my current obsession.

I gave each member the constant fabrics, olive and newsprint for the outside edges and Kaffe Fassett's Baba Ganouch print in the center. I asked them to add strips using the colors in the Kaffe print to drive the palette. These girls are really good at pulling colors that create a cohesive palette when I give them an inspiration print. They stretch the boundaries and the result is much more interesting than what I would have pulled myself, but since the colors all derive from the inspiration print, they all work together.

I knew I was short a couple of blocks. I miscalculated; I got 22 blocks back from the other 11 girls in the bee, and I made six but I should have made 8, so I was 2 short of the 30 needed.  

Two more blocks made, now I have enough for the center. The blocks finish at 9", using strips cut 1-1/2" wide.  

The next step will be laying them out on my design wall with the stripes alternating vertical and horizontal to create the basket weave effect, which you can see above in the instruction page I handed out with the kits. 

Link Up: Quilt Fabrication

Beach Baby

We've been going to the same stretch of beach on the Gulf coast since 1983. At first we rented a beach house, but when its new owner made it his private home, we had to find somewhere else to stay, so we went to the condo complex next door. We've been going there once or twice a year since '04. Valerie and Lawrence are the managers, and I tell you, the condo owners don't know how good they have it with Valerie and Lawrence in charge. While it's an older complex, it's always immaculate; Lawrence has very high standards. Together Valerie and Lawrence have handled everything, including multiple hurricanes. They couldn't be nicer people. Valerie is the sweetest, friendliest, most genuine person you'd ever want to meet.

We were booked to spend last week there, but of course due to the pandemic we had to cancel. When DH called to cancel, he and Valerie chatted for awhile, and she told him that they'd recently become grandparents. Well, every new grandma needs a baby quilt for when the new grandbaby comes to visit, right? Of course! So I had the pleasure of making one.

DH didn't get the details, so I don't know if the baby's a boy or a girl. No problem, I found soft beachy colors in my stash that work for either. So this is Valerie's grandma quilt, named Beach Baby.

 

Timeless colors, classic chevron pattern, modern spiral quilting.

Baby and parents don't actually live near the beach right now, but I'm sure they'll get there often. I hope this little quilt gets snuggled with baby, dragged through the sand, thrown down on the patio floor, draped over a porch rail for shade, and otherwise well used for years to come.

It's on it's way and should arrive today, May 22. I tossed my card with my blog's name into the package, so maybe Valerie will visit. If so, congratulations, Valerie, on your new grandbaby, and I hope the family gets to come see you often. We hope to get back to our beloved beach sometime later this year.



Link Ups:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Alycia Quilts
Wendy's Quilts and More
TGIFF

More Strips

No, not the bright strippy spiral, which is still on my design wall and is slowly being sewn into rows. When I cut all those strips, I cut all the colors of the rainbow.

Since I ended up using all the warm colors for the bright strippy spiral, I was left with a lot of yellow-green, green, blue-green, and blue strips, mostly brights but some lighter prints too. They kept calling me. I think it's the lure of the unknown, the fact that there isn't a pattern and no way to visualize what they'll become without jumping in and playing with them.

I actually had fewer of the cool colors, so this time I decided to make a baby quilt in the stacked columns style. I sewed pairs of strips together and cut them to 6-1/2" lengths, then randomly joined them together into long columns.

Since the bright strippy spiral is still occupying the design wall, I had to lay these out on my cutting table, but it worked well enough. Mostly I didn't want the same print next to itself or forming a horizontal line across.

I see in the photo something I need to fix, where the two middle columns have dark strips across from each other.

The strips were all from stash. I found something in my stash for the sashing, too, a whitish Grunge with green in it. Perfect! although it doesn't photograph well; can you see the splotches of green in it?

This is going together quickly.  Sashing strips attached to columns:

It will get top and bottom borders the same width as the sashing strips. Then I have the perfect green flannel for the backing. This quilt will eventually go to Operation Shower.

Meanwhile it's been fun to see it come together from just a bunch of strips without a plan. I've found that whenever I use analogous color palettes, even without a plan, the quilt usually turns out looking pretty good.


Link up: Quilt Fabrication

What I've Been Working On

No, not the bright strippy spiral.

More masks.

My SIL is very talented and artistic in many ways, but she doesn't sew. Her county opened up last week and mine opens up today, but both require everyone age two and up to wear a mask. She has a lot of grandchildren, eight of whom need masks. Her husband's job requires him to go into hospitals, and he needs more masks, too. (He's the one I made this mask for).

She bought fabrics and attempted to make masks for her family. No go. She called me in distress and asked if I could help - of course I could! She brought her fabrics over and stayed for lunch and conversation. It was so good to just visit!

So over the course of three days I made 33 more masks. Most are kid size and a few are adult size. She wanted me to use her cute fabrics - superhero and shark themed -  for masks for my grandson also. I made this batch for my son and grandson, and all the ones in the photo above for SIL and her family.

I didn't have any elastic so I used tee shirt strips. We were out of twist ties for the nose wire, so DH went to the hardware store and found soft wire in the garden center that worked really well.

It's really soft and flexible and it has a thick rubbery coating. After cutting 4" pieces we stretched the coating so the ends of the wire were deep inside the ends of the rubber and wouldn't scratch anyone. I replaced the twist tie wire in my own mask with this and it works really well, flexible enough to shape over my nose easily and soft enough to be comfortable. And it kept my glasses from fogging up because of the snug fit.

Before I got into sweatshop mode making masks, I was working on the beach baby quilt for new grandma Valerie. I was so into it that I forgot to take photos. I'll have finish photos of Valerie's quilt on Friday, but here's a sneak peek.

Link ups:
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Love Laugh Quilt

Flying Geese Baby Quilt Finished

After the issue with quilting through the backing was fixed, this little quilt didn't take long to finish and bind.

The quilting is a simple meander to keep it soft. The backing is soft and cozy purple flannel.

Originally I had planned to give this quilt to Operation Shower, but when I was reading through the charities for Hands 2 Help I saw that Little Lambs is seeking baby quilts this year. I have another kid quilt that I was planning to send to Little Lambs, so I will send this one there too.

To the no-reply commenter who requested size or pattern info: Each flying geese unit finishes 3" by 6".  Two units together make a 6" finished square. To make four flying geese at a time, the geese fabric is cut 7-1/4" square and the sky fabric, cut 4 pieces 3-7/8" square and marked on the diagonal on the back. I'm sure you can find a tutorial. The finished quilt is 36" by 42".


Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Alycia Quilts