The Last of My Quadrangle Blocks

Since January, my hand stitching project has been sewing scrappy Quadrangle blocks for a Quilts for Survivors quilt top. As you can see, Minnie is doing double duty as my side table until I return to quilting her...

The colours are quite cheery and spring-like and have been fun to pull together.

The fact that the word 'LOVE' showed up in gold alongside these orange squares made me smile.

Slow but steady progress means that I now have the last of the required 20 blocks at the finish line - I saved these pretty blues for the last.

There are about half a dozen blocks still to press and then it's time to cut a variety of 9.5" low volume squares to alternate with the pieced blocks. I think when it's time to assemble everything I might use the machine....M

Scrappy Stars for QFS

From January thru June on the last Sunday of each month, the church quilters put up a small display during Coffee Hour to encourage donations to help offset the cost of shipping quilts to residential school survivors - a flimsy or quilt and several blocks. It's a nice let everyone see what we are working on throughout the year and a good way to engage the congregation in this group effort. This coming Sunday is one of those days so I have been busy putting together a collection of 16-inch Scrappy Star blocks.

Quite some time ago, I cut a variety of 4.5" blocks in blues, aquas and yellows trying to have enough variety so that there isn't too much duplication of a print in a block, and then occasionally I sew one or two together.

The stars are the stitch-and-flip variety - easy peasy. I just lay out 15 coloured squares and one white, set two 2.5" blocks on the four coloured squares that will have star points, and off I go.

I think that there's only one yellow block, the rest are blue and aqua. And I think it's getting close to the point of there being enough for a quilt top but I'm undecided yet as to whether I will assemble them all or send them off as they are.

In my book, you just can't beat scrappy....M

Snowballs Are Flying!

Mother Nature seems intent on giving us one or two good blasts of snow before letting spring through the door so, rather than fight her I've decided to join her and make a few Snowballs of my own!

I'm going to blame Jan for this one. Included in the scrap bundles that she donated to the church quilters recently were a few nice pinks and peaches, which got me to thinking about a lovely, soft Snowball and Nine-Patch quilt I'd seen recently.

And, I had a few small pieces in that colour range just dying to be used up, so I started cutting. It's a Quilts for Survivors project so it will be lap sized, which means that it should move along nicely.

The year before last, I made a pink and orange QFS quilt and loved the combination, so it wasn't a huge stretch to jump in feet first.

Just to make things interesting, I've included the large floral in the upper right. This was one of Jan's scraps and there wasn't very much of it, but it adds a lovely bit of interest. Doesn't take much.

There's also a wee bit of mauve added to the mix. It's coming together very nicely, despite the pinky tinge that my sewing room lighting is casting....M

Another One Off the Frames

Taking the Double Wedding Ring quilt off the frames reminded me that I haven't shared another quilt that our small group quilted last fall. It's this gorgeous Zig Zag that Jane hand pieced which she has called Water's Edge.

She had made it for a Christmas gift and was keen to have it hand quilted; we were very happy to oblige.

It's amazing the impact that a simple HST and a fabulous colour palette can make. The quilting is very straight forward, with simple 1/4" lines bordering the dark teal and dark grey zig zags. 

All of the quilters were quite fond of this one and because it was lap-sized we were able to get it quilted up in short order. We love seeing what quilters outside of our circle are working on.

Where we struggled a little bit was in trying to decide if they should just run right across the quilt or do something else in the dark border. We considered a cross hatch, but because of the hatched pattern in the print, opted for two parallel lines so as not to complete with the print, and it was a good decision.

It was ready in good time to be bound for Christmas, and by all accounts is being enjoyed by it's new owner....M