Small progress in the sewing room

I'm still here in case anyone was wondering! 

Since the end of May, my life has significantly changed and although my time in my sewing room is limited, I have been blessed with having my grandson (and his mom and dad) living with us. 

Adjustments and routines are starting to get more established. 

That's a good thing!

His swing was hung up this weekend in our neighbor's tree right next to our house. His smile says it all!

(we don't have a large tree so our neighbor gave us permission) 

Filling some BIG shoes!

Walking along a local park's lakefront.

I DO have a few quilting things to show you. 

The blocks for the Covered in Love charity were announced in the beginning of July. As usual, these blocks are red, white and blue stars! Any kind that you want in a 12 1/2" unfinished size. 

Here are mine for this year!

 Below is the graph paper design process I used based on a 9-patch.

These blocks were made from my scraps. 

July also brought a new color for the RSC and that color was dark blues. 

Here is my dark blue column

and all the columns together!

So far we have had 2 greens, 3 blues, a pink and orange. What will be next?

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday over at So Scrappy. 

A couple of other projects that I have been working on are the t-shirt quilt for a special graduate. I had a bit of trouble getting more interfacing to stabilize the shirts but now they are all cut and puzzled together. 

I added a 2" gray border and it is ready to be sandwiched and quilted!

I mentioned working on Elvira (quilt pattern by GE quilt designs) back in April. 

It is almost done! I found enough time to sandwich and quilt it. I also got the binding sewn on and now I'm hand stitching it down. Hopefully, this will be a finish sometime this week!

My 'I Spy' quilt is also waiting to be sandwiched. And the Morewood Mystery Quilt has started! Learn more at Meadow Mist Designs. Are you joining? I am! It was so much fun last year!

A little bit of sewing

It has been a while since I have had time to post or even sew. Our daughter, son-in-law and grandson have moved from Texas and are living with us while our SIL goes back to school. It has been in the planning stage for more than a year. Needless to say, Covid-19 complicated the move. They will basically have the second floor; 3 bedrooms, bathroom and a small family room. 

This is just before the move from TX

To make it feel a bit more like 'their space', we removed most of our things... cleaning out, getting rid of some, storing others. 

The house is still in a bit of a unpacking stage (their pod came on Thursday) but things are going well overall. It has been fun to have our grandson here where we can see him everyday and really get to know him and watch him grow! ❤️

In the midst of everything, I did get some sewing done! 

Since it is June and the monthly color is pink, I made time for the RSC block. 

All the colors together!

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

I also did a bit more sewing on the I Spy quilt I am making. Hopefully, I will have more to show in the near future!

I received some exciting mail this week from Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. She sent this lovely pack of fat quarters and Thank You note. Sarah not only hosts and organizes Hands2Help every year but she finds sponsors to help say thanks!  Sarah is pretty amazing! Creating quilts for those in need has been the draw for me to participate and give back these last 2 years. This touch of thoughtfulness is an added bonus! 

Looking forward to Hands2Help 2021!

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!