Hands2Help2020 Parade

The Hands2Help2020 challenge comes to a close the week of May 31st. I felt a final parade of the 4 baby quilts that I donated to the Little Lambs Foundation was in need. Although I have posted about each quilt before, here I include the 4 all together.

The Hands2Help challenge is hosted by Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict. The challenge started in 2011 but I just first read about it last year. I really enjoyed making a quilt for Jack's Basket last year so this year I decided I could do more than one. I planned on making 2 baby quilts for the Little Lambs Foundation. 

While doing a sew-along for improv piecing, 2 of the practice pieces turned into the 2 additional baby quilts for a total of 4!

First up is In The Neighborhood. 

This baby quilt was built around the cute Bear fabric. 

You can read more about it here.

It finished size is 31" x 36"

Next is the first practice piece made into a baby quilt. 

It is called Stacks of Blocks after the improv stacks technique. You can read more about this quilt here.  

This baby quilt finished at 28" x 37".

The 3rd baby quilt I made was another practice piece for the improv sew-along. 

It is called Small Wonders and the improv technique is called insert. You can read more about it here.

This one finished at 40" x 40"

And the last of the baby quilts for the Little Lambs Foundation is Kimba. 

This quilt was built around the cute baby lion print. Not made in traditional baby colors, but I am pleased with it and hope some child in need will be too!

You can read more about it here. 

Its finished size is approx. 36" x46".

They were all packed and sent in the mail to Little Lambs Foundation.

Thanks to Sarah for all her work in putting together this great opportunity to give to those in need! 

Hand2Help2020 is a wrap!

Linking to the Linky Party for 2020 Hands2Help Challenge. 

Manifest and more text and picture blocks

Today I would like to present Manifest!

In the beginning of April, my youngest daughter ask me if I could 'try to make a cute minimal wall hanging? Pleeaaaasssseeee?' She wants it for over her bed as 'a piece of you with me in San Antonio.' 

(She will be moving there this summer to finish her studies) 

She sent these as examples.

The bottom one is a mural done by an artist friend.

I thought that it would give me a good opportunity to use some of my natural dyed fabrics that I hand dyed last summer. So after pulling them out and searching for more inspiration, I came up with a plan. 

I used 5 of my hand dyed fabrics and some Kona cottons. The yellow in the sun was dyed with turmeric, the orange/red is dyed with madder root, the orange/brown is madder root with soda ash, the yellowish brown is avocado with iron and the gray is dyed with black beans. The blue Kona is Prussian, the gray is med gray and the borders are white. The piecing was a little tricky but I did it without much waste! The inverted V could be interpreted as a mountain or as shelter. 

The backing is a lovely yellow/orange from the Sunny Splash Collection my Lecien. The machine quilting is all straight stitched 1/2" apart except the gray which is 1/4". The finished size is 36" x 44".

I love this wallhanging (I love when I step out of my comfort zone and try/learn new challenges) 

and most importantly, so does my daughter! 

Thanks to my hubby for being the quilt holder!

I also worked on 2 more of my Quiet Play Pattern Club 2019 blocks...one text and one picture! Last post I asked for recommendations as to which color I should do the next text block in. Light pink was chosen so here it is! The word cut with the rainbow scissors picture block.  

Here are all the text blocks together so far!

Only one more to go! Which color next? Light blue or light purple? 

Make is dark purple

Here are most of the picture blocks.

I made one more that I used a light blue background because I used white for the cloud. I will either remake that block with a white background or chose a different block. Many bonus blocks were included in the pattern club.

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Brag About Your Beauty, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, and My Quilt Infatuation and UFO Busting 

What have you been working on?

What else I've been working on

May brought a new color for the Rainbow Scrap challenge and it is dark green!

I pulled out my green scrap and sorted through the darker green pieces. 

I made my grid on graph paper for this months block column of blocks.

5 months and 5 columns of colors!

I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at So Scrappy. 

I also worked on another of my Quiet Play Pattern Club blocks from last year. 

Another word block:

Here are all the word blocks before I added this one.

I welcome any suggestions on the next color to use: light blue, light pink...?

The Big Reveal

Several people have commented about the peek at my quilt in my last post and were looking forward to the reveal. Well, here it is!

The pattern is called Braque after the cubist artist George Braque. I have named it Orphism which is an offshoot of the Cubism Art movement.  This art movement focused more on abstraction and bright colors. The bright yellow pops of colors make this a bright and happy quilt!

The back was pieced with pieces from my stash and 

the binding is Kona charcoal.

It was machine pieced in sections to get the random effect of the mostly HSTs.

I machine quilted it in straight, vertical lines about 1/2" apart. 

It was a bright sunny day to do the photo shoot!

I think this is my new favorite quilt!

The quilt finishes at 60" x 75"

I also finished the binding on the last of 4 charity quilts for Hands2Help2020 challenge. 

I'm named it Kimba for the lion featured in the fabric. I built the quilt around the cute lion and coordinating light green fabrics I purchased. The remaining fabrics (rusty oranges and white) were from my stash. It is an unusual color for a baby quilt but I really love how it turned out. 

The pattern included 2 basic blocks: a friendship star and a whirligig. 

It was machine pieced and quilted. I chose to stitch in the ditch around the friendship star and stitched a star pattern in the whirligig. I kept the quilting simple to allow for it to be soft and fluffy. 

The back was pieced with the scraps from the lion and green fabrics and a piece from my stash. The binding was a gold from my stash. 

It finishes at 36.5" x  46.5"

Labeled and ready to be sent off! 

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Brag About Your Beauty, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, and My Quilt Infatuation and UFO Busting

Almost done!

This week I worked on the final donation quilt for Hands2Help2020. Last night I ran out of steam after making the binding. 

I sewed the binding on this morning and now it needs to be hand stitched.

When this is done, 4 charity quilts will be ready to be mailed out! 

Thanks Sarah for this great opportunity to serve.

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Brag about Your Beauties, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun.  

I am currently about 1/3 of the way done with the hand stitching on this quilt.

I have also kept busy with more mask making. This batch puts me over 75. 

Stay healthy and stay safe everyone!

A mini, some more masks, and a delivery

This week I made another batch of masks for some friends! I am happy to help those that don't sew and need a mask (not that I really enjoy making them, to be perfectly honest, but I'm doing my part to help family, friends, neighbors, and a local nursing home.) 

Friday was a good mail day as my fabric delivery came! In my last post I mentioned that I was running out of some basic supplies but I was able to order the fabric I needed online since nothing is open locally.  I want to give a shout out to The Fabric Shack! They are working through all the craziness to continue filling orders. They are also waiving shipping charges in the U.S. for now. This is a mother (owner) and daughter team right now and they are doing their best to get fabric out to those in need! It might take a little longer than usual to get your order but it wasn't too long!

I really want to support them so I put in another, bigger order. I will also keep them in mind when I need to order again! If you have any fabric needs, I encourage you to check out The Fabric Shack!

Last Monday, Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict mentioned how she missed sewing with her friends. Her idea was to have a "virtual" sewing meet-up next Monday (tomorrow) with minis that were made since last Monday as a memento of our 2020 Coronavirus Quarantine! I really like this idea as I really wanted to make a quarantine quilt to document this unique time in history!

 A mini is just perfect!

I decided to make my mini with the #Sew Together At Home. That gave me the idea to make a house block with a spool as the 'door' and I drew up a little pattern. Scrounging through my stash, I found the cloud fabric for the background of my house (sky), the red hearts for the 'thread', some red for the banners on the top and bottom. The words are raw edged appliquéd in Kona black. I straight lined machine quilted the sky 1/4" apart, meander in the banners and big stitch hand quilted the house. 

details

This mini is 10" x 12"

(Even though I used the words 'sew' together because this is a sewing meet-up, I could have easily used the word 'so' together because we are 'so together' with our families in this Stay At Home time! I'm sure most of us are not used to being 'so together'.

😩

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 

This week my youngest daughter ask me if I could make an artsy wallhanging quilt for her to hang above her bed. She likes a minimalist, modern style. So I looked through some images I saved and....here is a peek. 

This is the 1st quilt that I'm using my natural dyed fabrics from my adventures last summer. You can read about it here. 

 Hope you are getting some quality time in the sewing room! Stay safe and remember we are sew together! 

April's Rainbow Scrap challenge block

For April's Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Angela chose light blue! I finally got around to completing my block using scraps from my overflowing blue scrap bin! It is always so hard to take a picture of just one months column block. Each column is only 4 1/2" wide unfinished. 

Here are 4 months together!

I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at So Scrappy. 

I have seen quite a few house blocks going together during this Shelter At Home order. I have also been thinking about doing an I Spy quilt now that I have a grandson. With the suggestion from Allison at Cluck, Cluck Sew, I decided to make an I Spy quilt with houses. I didn't use her free house pattern because I wanted to use smaller squares of novelty fabrics. I drew up a pattern for a house and started cutting 4 1/2" squares from my scraps and stash. I have well over 100 squares cut but I'm not sure how many will be used. 

Here is a sneak peek!

I also joined the Elvira Quarantine Quilt Along that was hosted by Gundrun Erla of GE Quilt Designs. 

Here is what is on my design wall currently. 

I have quite a few projects going (which I usually don't do) but I am finding that I have run out of certain basics and I'm waiting for 1) my online order to deliver 2) local quilt shop and fabric stores to reopen. 

I have exhausted my limited supply of elastic making masks, my supply of fusible interfacing making a t-shirt quilt (which I can't find anywhere!), Kona cotton fabric in white and spa blue. 

I love using my stash but some basics are always in need!