It's a Quilt-in-a-Box

Jan's generosity to our Holy Trinity quilters continues to shine through. This week I unearthed a box filled with the makings of a very scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilt, basically a quilt-in-a-box (do they even make jack-in-the-boxes anymore?). I ended up bringing it home because no one else was willing to tackle the curved piecing required to get this to the finish line. 

There's been so much work done already to get it to this point that I just didn't want to see it waste away on a shelf someplace for eternity. From the look of the fabrics, I'm thinking that it may have been cut in the 80s. Jan couldn't confirm but she did say that she bought everything as a kit, so it looks like someone else may have cut all of the pieces.

Just about everything that I need to get started appears to be here: several oval sections either completed...

or in progress.

There's also a bag of pieces all bundled and ready to sew.

And I think that all of the oval and ring centres are cut, too, with some to spare.

There are two columns of seven rings already assembled. I'll have to measure but I think I only need to add three more columns to get it to the 48" x 64" needed for Quilts for Survivors. It may be a little long so there's a chance that I'd take two rings off the bottom in order to make the proportions work.

Job one is going to be sorting all of the bits and bobs and then giving everything a good press. Once I know what's what, it will be time to sit down at the machine and figure out just what I've gotten myself into!....M

The 8,000 Orphan Block Challenge

For the fourth year in a row now, the sewing machines of Holy Trinity’s quilters and our friends continue to hum as we sew quilt blocks and tops to send to Quilts for Survivors for residential school survivors. Several of the quilt tops we make are also hand quilted throughout the year and delivered with our fall shipment (last year we shipped 41 quilts and flimsies and 34 16-inch blocks). These quilts are a symbol of support, respect and love for those who have undergone the trauma of attending a residential school.

This year, we’re also joining in on a fun new challenge. Quilts for Survivors are asking for donations of orphan blocks – you know, those projects that somehow never made it to the finish line and are now tucked into bags and boxes around the house. 8,000 in total! They will be transformed into quilts of comfort, healing and love.

Any and all sizes of blocks are welcome as long as they are made of 100% cotton. As usual, we are asked to avoid fabric with religious symbols, school-related imagery, travel motifs or graphic content as they may be triggering or inappropriate for survivors.

The bulk of the blocks will be accepted in June at Quilt Canada in Winnipeg but they have already started accepting them by mail and have received over 2,000 to date, a terrific start! (These little guys are less than 6".)

Our current orphan block count at Holy Trinity is 64 and we would love to see it grow. The blocks you see are a combo of mine and donations from some of the gals at the church. I'm hoping to collect a few additional hidden treasures from my quilting peeps to add to the total so that we can include them in our fall shipment. If you have orphans that you would like to send to a good home, check out this Facebook post.

I keep my orphans in a little basket and have dug most of them out to send, but, of course felt that this might be a chance to make blocks smaller than the 16" size that they usually request. You know, just to get them out of my system. 

I've been wanting to try a spool block for ages, so I gave it a shot and made two. They are 12" and came together quickly. Not sure that I would ever make a spool quilt but it was fun to have a reason to try out the block. I suspect that there will be a few more sample blocks made before our shipment is packed up in the fall 😉....M

Spring Geese

Well, it's April 21 and you would expect to see lots of signs of spring and some nice warm weather to help us say goodbye to winter, but that seems to be a big ask from Mother Nature right now. Spring is, for the most part, still quite chilly and we actually saw flurries this morning, so we aren't out of the woods yet. Despite that, I've been working on decidedly spring-themed Flying Geese.

They will border my Snowballs & Nine Patch quilt, an idea that I got from Then Came June. Actually, the inspiration for this entire quilt has come from her Barret quilt pattern.

Originally, it was just the colour palette and blocks that appealed to me but as my sewing progressed and I started to think about border/no border, I took a second look at what she had done and realized that the picot border was a collection of Flying Geese blocks. Brilliant!

One of my favourite quilts - and the first that I completely pieced by hand - has a picot border and I really love it, the only difference being that it's constructed with HSTs. It always makes me smile. I did the math and realized that if I used the four-at-a-time method to make the geese they'd come together quite quickly. 

Making them scrappy really worked with the rest of the quilt layout.

I'm well on my way and looking forward to starting to sew the rows together....M

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

It's Ready To Wrap!

The beautiful Double Wedding Ring quilt that our church group has been quilting is now a fait accompli and it couldn't be prettier.

Since I had the binding, I drew the short straw on being the binder, which meant attempting to figure out dealing with a scalloped border. I looked at several videos but could not find the one that I had come across a few weeks ago so I had to wing it a bit.

It was a little nerve wracking making that first cut to trim the edges but once I got started it went as smoothly as I could have wanted.

Attaching the binding to the quilt went quite well too given that we had hand basted the entire edge before we started quilting. It was just wrestling with a quilt this large that took a bit of time.

When it came to hand stitching the binding down it was the interior points that proved to be time consuming - it took me about eight hours to bind it, if not more. In the end, I created a very narrow pleat at the corner (approximately 7/8"!) to make everything work. Then I put in a few small stitches front and back to hold it all in place, keeping the very edge open to allow for a little movement.

A little midnight oil was burned to finish it this week as Jan, who is moving on Wednesday, had volunteered to connect with its owner en route to her new home to drop it off. I have to say, that's probably the last thing I would have entertained if it was me, but she is game.

I shared it with the quilters this morning and everyone agreed that the soft green binding was a perfect choice. And, as much as I like the front of it, the quilting shows up so beautifully on the white backing. We put in about 165 hours of work to finish it up so I can only imagine the total number of hours put in by the maker.

So, now it can be wrapped and gifted. We're hoping that the mother-of-the-bride is able to share a photo or two with us later this spring. It was such a gift to all of us who were able to work on this quilt to see it completed and ready for its new home....M

The Double Wedding Ring is Off the Frames

Our quilters are doing a little bit of a happy dance because on Friday, the Double Wedding Ring quilt came off the frames. It is beautiful. 

So many quilts are machine quilted these days for speed and convenience but there's still nothing like the look and feel of a traditional hand-quilted quilt. 

When we started working on this one at the end of last year we thought that it could take us until March/April, but we thrilled to have surprised ourselves. It's ready to bind!

I made the binding when I marked the quilting pattern so it's all ready to go, but first I have to trim the edges, which are all large scallops. Then I need to figure out how to attach the binding so that things don't bunch up at the corners, but I've found a good instructional video to follow. Having relatively large and shallow arcs will help.

We've noticed a couple of small stains on the front of the quilt that will need to be looked at and today I found another small one when I was examining the back. I don't think that it will be the end of the world if they don't come out, given the sentimentality of this project.

With so many different quilters working on it sometimes we wondered what the quilting would look like when it was all finished but it has turned out beautifully. It's such a treat to look at....M