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