Comfort quilts

 The Hearts and Hands Quilt guild that I belong to had a get together in the park this week and we brought along all the quilts we've been working on for the past months to give to our local hospital's chemo unit.  Each person coming for treatment gets to choose a quilt to keep them warm and bring them love during this difficult time in their lives.  Fifty quilts were brought in this time.  We had a wonderful show and share seeing all the quilts.  

I had two quilts that were finished over the last while.  We had received a donation of a bundle of Fat quarters and I used them to make these two quilts.  Click on the photo for a larger view.

Half square triangles are arranged to form diamonds. 

Chris Bogart quilted it for me with this lovely butterfly pantograph which really suited the fabrics

This quilt was made from strips from the same fabric bundle.  The pattern is called One Way from the Purple Pineapple Studio.  The pattern is on a postcard and the price was very reasonable.

I decided to quilt this one myself and tried out a funky swirly flower which worked well using a light blue thread.

quilting closeup

 

40th Anniversary challenge for the LFQG

 This year was the 40th anniversary of the London Friendship Quilt Guild and of course, due to covid, none of the usual celebrations could take place.  However, this does not stop a bunch of quilters from having fun! 😁

The guild put out a round robin challenge, but we would be making our own quilts.  The first task was to make a center block and put 40 on there somewhere.  I dug through my stash and found a couple of charm packs of Mama Sews fabrics as well as the leftovers of a scrap bag I bought and some miscellaneous yardage from the same line.  It had a sewing theme which was appropriate for a guild challenge.  I also found solid red and black and grey in the stash that could be used.

Each month, we met on zoom, showed our progress and drew the next border instruction.   The borders were:  houses, flowers, diamonds, four patches, paper piecing and rail fence.  There were some real challenges along the way, but I combined the diamond with the flower border (making the corner stones diamonds) and used the paper piecing for corner stones on the four patch blocks.  My original idea was to use the rail fence block to make a picket fence, but it just would not work colour wise.  You just have to listen to what these quilts tell you!

I did some extensive quilting on it and had fun with it.  And, we really got to know some of the members of the LFQG.  At the regular meetings, the group is so large and we tend to sit in the same spots and there are a lot of faces, but zoom has really helped us to connect with other members during this challenging time.  Quilters know how to take lemons and make lemonade.  My thanks to the program committee and board of the LFQG for all the wonderful ways we were able to stay connected this year.  Here's to the next 40 years for the guild. (Click on the photos to enlarge the picture.)

The finished quilt

The center block is from an embroidery pattern by Shelly Burge for Country Cabin Craft Patterns.  I added beads spelling forty on the sewing machine.

The diamonds quilted in the corners continued the diamond theme in the next row

These fun watering can blocks are from a wonderful book "The Paper-Pieced Home" by Penny Layman.  I resized the block to fit my borders.

Swirly quilting in the border

The back was pieced with bits and pieces of leftover charm squares, yardage and leftovers from my grandson's quilt backing.

The quilting from the back

 

Another lap quilt completed

 After making the quilt for my aunt from a layer cake, I had 17 squares left, so I rooted around in my stash and found enough fabrics that went with the focus fabric to make another lap quilt.  I found the perfect border fabric at Cherished Pieces and finished this quilt last week.  I quilted it with all over loops with a salmon coloured thread.  I gifted this one to another senior friend from my Church.  

This is a very fun pattern to make from Anita Solomon's book "Rotary Cutting Revolution".  (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

The finished quilt

Quilted with loops

 

Canada/Hockey jelly roll race quilt

 This morning we delivered a jelly roll race quilt with a Canadian theme to friends of ours.  He's going through treatments for cancer so a quilt was needed for him and his wife ☺.  I started out with a camping theme as they have a trailer so I figured they could use the quilt in their trailer if they are able to get away this summer.  However, all my camping fabrics were pink or more suited for children.  I spotted the panel that I used on the back at a quilt shop and ordered it online.  When I got it in the mail, I noticed it said "hockey" on it.  Our friends are avid hockey fans too so that gave me the idea to do the jelly roll race in Canadian fabrics.  I used 54 strips of Canadian fabrics (2 of each print) and the quilt turned out to be 59" x 64 1/2".  They loved the quilt and we pray it will help a little to know others are thinking of them while they go through a difficult time. (Click on the photo for to enlarge.)

The colours look a little yellow as the morning sun was shining on the quilt.

Some of the prints in the quilt.  I was thrilled to find the maple syrup fabric awhile ago

The poppy fabrics are among my favourite Canadian prints

The Canadian word panel which I used in the back of the quilt

 

My friend sent a picture of the quilt in her family room with her teddy enjoying it 😀.  This photo shows the colours of the quilt quite accurately.

150 Solids in One Quilt

 In 2012 I participated in a stash builder program from Mad About Patchwork in Ottawa.  Over a year we received 150 Kona cotton solid fat quarters.  I kept them together all these years as I had a dream to use all those lovely colours in the same quilt.  I found Tula Pink's 100 Modern Blocks book a few years ago and thought perhaps I could use that for the challenge. But, how to combine all those colours successfully?  

Kaffe Fasset to the rescue.  He mixes warm and cool colours in his fabrics effortlessly and pulls it off.  So, I used all 150 of the solids with some Kaffe scraps in each block and hoped they would go.  It was actually amazing how easily the design came together.  I arranged the blocks by colour from darker to lighter from bottom to top and fell in love with this arrangement.  I was originally going to use grey for the background, but this quilt demanded yellow!  

Julie Cassidy quilted it with straight lines through the blocks and custom feathery quilting in the yellow.  Click on the photos to see the detail of the lovely quilting.  I was very happy with the way this quilt turned out.  It will be added to the pile of quilts for the grandkids to choose from when they graduate from High School.

The yellow is softer than it shows on this photo

I had a large piece of this happy Kaffe Fasset fabric in my stash which I scored in a sale bin years ago and this worked perfectly for the back

A close up of Julie's beautiful quilting

 

Kaffe Fasset Mystery Quilt finishes

In 2018, Hyggeligt hosted Kaffe Fasset's mystery quilt.  I had kept up quite nicely with the blocks until the 2nd last month and then life got in the way.  I got them out last summer and finished all the blocks.  But, I didn't want another queen sized quilt so decided to play with the arrangements until I could come up with two lap quilts.  The fabrics with the kit were generous so I was able to make up a few extra blocks in the right colours and dug into my stash to make the two quilts work.  I'm very happy with how they turned out.  My neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart quilted then both with a nice overall design and they are now in the grandkids' graduation quilt collection. (click on the photos to enlarge)

First clue and instructions plus a little gift of FQ's

The shipment came in a handy box to store all the instructions and first blocks

We received a lovely gift of some KF FQ's

                                      

This is the first quilt with the blues and cool greens

I had a lovely Kaffe print which I could use for the back

A rounded swirly pantograph for the quilting that Chris used

The second quilt made of the rest of the  warmer colours plus additions

close up of the quilting

This backing was one of those lovely internet purchases where I sent Chantal at Hyggeligt a photo of the top and asked what she would recommend for backing.  She just got this in and I ordered it right away and it was perfect!

 

These two quilts were finally finished and bound in early March.

 

Handpiecing Fun

 A few years ago, I attended a class at Hyggeligt in St. Mary's on hand piecing.  I had actually done quite a bit of hand piecing but a bunch of friends wanted to learn and I was interested in getting the templates and you always learn different techniques by taking a class.  The project we were doing requires only two templates.  I grabbed a few fabrics and we worked on the center part and Chantal suggested the black with purple polka dots for the next round.  I had the green in my stash, but it didn't look finished after that so I added the stars around it.  These were the greens I had in my stash.  They are a little subdued for my liking, but then it sat for quite awhile because it still didn't look finished and I didn't have anymore purple.  Awhile ago I found more purple in a basket and was able to get another round on with some more polka dots.  I then decided it would be a lovely small project to hand quilt and that took awhile as well.  I put the last stitches in it last weekend. 

The finished table topper

close up of the quilting

I quilted circles in the center and in each of the stars

I found this piece of fabric in a bag of Kaffe scraps at my quilt guild's rummage sale a few years ago.  Perfect for the backing