Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I finished the second Wheelchair Quilt in time to hand it in at the meeting on Saturday. Now I am done with wheelchair quilts for this drive.
I have some 9 inch squares and am thinking of making some kits with the leftovers as I don’t need them hanging around. We’ll see.
I powered through the chunking of the Sidewalk #6: Green and was able to finish. I wanted to get one of the Wheelchair quilts up on the wall, so I needed to finish the Sidewalk quilt.
I really need to make the Half 16 Patches more colorful. The alternating white squares in the blocks means the quilt is primarily white which maybe isn’t so great for a donation quilt. I thought about using a color for the 8.5 and 4.5 inch squares, but am pretty sure I don’t have enough of any one color and am not sure scrappy would work with this design. I’ll have to think about it some more.
The back took longer than I expected as I used a lot of smaller pieces. Still, it uses up a lot of greens that I probably won’t use. Also, I get to add to my ‘Fabric Used” spreadsheet and up the number of donation quilts the guild gives away.
BAM is collecting wheelchair quilts for the veteran’s hospital in Palo Alto. We had planned a sew Day, but our Sew Day had to be cancelled, so I made one top at Super Sew Day and am working on another one.
We are all working to the same pattern from Sunshine Linus.
Both quilts use some Moda fabrics I won as part of the UFO challenge. As per the pattern, I cut the fabric up into 9.5 inch squares and sewed them together.
I had enough squares for at least one other, which I am working on now.
I didn’t include a back for the first one, but will sew a back for the second one. I have to sew this together first.
Someone else will quilt it. I didn’t cut off the corners as I thought the longarming would be easier if that step was done after quilting.
I have been collecting various blocks using 2.5 inch squares for forthcoming donation quilts. I finally had enough of the green half 16 patch blocks to make another Sidewalk quilt.
I started putting the blocks together in chunks on my small design wall, but couldn’t look at the whole thing until Cool Four Patch Fun was off the large design wall. I did a fair job spreading dark and light greens across the quilt. I don’t think this will take me very long to put together. I might have it done for the next meeting.
There is a lot of white in this quilt design. I think I need to try one where the large center blocks are a different color. White isn’t great for a donation quilt and I am sure I can find enough of whatever color to make a good looking quilt.
I finished Ends n.25 a few weeks ago. I just handed it in and made time to post about it.
The background doesn’t provide the required contrast to make the oranges and yellows stand out. They don’t, however, blend together either.
This is a great example of what is fun about making donation quilts. I can play around with fabric combinations that I wouldn’t otherwise consider for my own work. I guess making backing is a little of the same.
The back, like the back for Ends n.24, uses some old solids that have been around since the dark ages.
Almost as soon as I finished Ends n.24, I started Ends n.25 using the same background fabric. I got the background fabric for free somewhere and never used it, so here we are.
You can see that there is a shortage on the bottom right so I’ll have to add something in there.
I am still working through the edges of the back of Orange You Glad, which make up the color in this quilt. I have a few other red and orange edges that I added in, some still hanging around from the back of the Lobster table runner.
I am close to having enough of the green blocks to make another Sidewalk quilt. I am still collecting grey, black and red 16 patch blocks for a QST quilt.
I have slowed down on making the white strip blocks, but will get back to it.
I finished Ends n.24 pretty quickly, but have just had a chance to post about it now.
The edges I used are on the older side, including Orange You Glad, and were waiting for a new home and/or a new life.
The fabrics for the back were even older. I used some solids from a bin of solids. Some of them I think I used in Mary Mashuta’s Pushed Neutrals class about a million years ago.
I have been trying to fit the making of another donation top into my flurry of sewing. I feel like I have been doing so much. I have to acknowledge that some of the problem is design wall space. I finally started a top after taking the Warm Four Patch Fun off the design wall.
Welcome Ends n.24. Can you believe I have made 23.5 of these quilts? Yes, I have made that many over 9 years. It is kind of astounding, but also makes perfect sense. I keep producing quilts and Colleen sends the edges back. Thus I have the edges of bunches of quilts and if I don’t do something with them, they would just pile up.
The two tops that I worked on at Sew Day with Sue and Lee Ann are completed tops.
After I did some Pre-Sew Day work, we were able to put together a total of two quilt tops in addition to the larger top that the rest of the group put together. I am much better at working on my own. I was pleased that Sue and Lee Ann joined me without me having to say anything.
Lee Ann was kind enough to take the blocks for this one home and put the quilt together.
The blocks I made also became a quilt top very quickly, thanks to Lee Ann. The blocks are 8 inches by 8 inches, so the quilt ended up being about 40 in. x 40 inches, which is about the size I like to hand in.
Lee Ann has kindly agreed to quilt them.
I finished the Pacifica Quilter’s Club Lucky Blocks last week. It took me longer than I thought, but I am pleased to be contributing to another good cause.
I made a few blocks for Peggy and the Community Quilts team, but decided I need to focus on the blocks I am collecting for various donation tops that I plan to make here at home.
I worked on continuing to collect black and red donation blocks to make another Quarter Square donation top for the guild donation project similar to QST 16 Patch #4 Blue. I need more black and red squares, which means more scrap processing. I may do that at Sew Day on Saturday.
I have more green squares after a couple of sessions of scrap processing. I want to make another Sidewalk quilt, but I don’t have enough of the half blocks to make a green one yet. I only need about 9 more green half blocks to be able to make that Sidewalk quilt. Perhaps my Sew Day scrap processing session will get me the greens I need.
It doesn’t always happen, but I surpassed my goal of 30 donation blocks this month.
I have more ends/edges I can use to make another Ends quilt to hand in at Sew Day. We’ll see.
The Pacifica Quilter’s Club also has a donation block program called “Lucky blocks”. I missed the first round, but picked up the instructions at the last meeting. I have slowly been starting these blocks and over the weekend made some good progress.
I have to trim all the HSTs, so the work takes longer PLUS I am working on about 12 projects at a time.
I accidentally cut 4 blocks. Either I didn’t read the instructions carefully or I skipped reading them. I made a bunch of HSTs and there were enough for 4 blocks. I’ll sew them together in time for the April meeting. If I can’t make it, I’ll drop them off with the coordinator.
I was able to use some 5″ squares I had cut from scraps for this project, which made me very happy. That scrap processing effort isn’t wasted!