Monkeying Around
April 2020

Here is the fifth baby quilt to be donated to the Little Lambs Foundation as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge. I used the 7 Seas design from McKay Manor Musers for three of the five baby quilts, as choosing and doing a unique applique for each was fun. It also was less time spent on the piecing part, so more time could be spent on the quilting part. For the quilting, I stitched intersecting circles, using a trick I picked up from the Thimblelady website. They have a lot of free quilting templates – and a whole lot of other quilting related stuff – as well as some great tips that I found very helpful.

The name Monkeying Around sort of encompasses my general approach to quilting 🙂 It’s fun to experiment and play around with designing quilts. And now that I have dipped my toes into the quilting aspect as well, it adds a whole other dimension to the creativity aspect that I so enjoy!

This was included in this year’s Hands2Help Challenge hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict @fabricaddictquilts, and went to Little Lambs Foundation for Kids @littlelambsfoundationforkids

#h2h2020 #hands2help2020

Peach (Dino Dragon)
April 2020

I seldom make baby quilts, however this makes the fourth I’ve done in the last several weeks, and I have one more that’s almost finished. All five will be going to the Little Lambs Foundation based in Utah as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge.

I really liked the simplicity of the 7 Seas design, from McKay Manor Musers, which I used for Deep Blue Sea. Here too, I chose to deviate from the original puppy or kitty design and instead used a dinosaur for the applique to match the dinosaur fabric in the second horizontal block. For the quilting, I stitched veritical lines in each block, using the lines from the striped fabric as my template.

The name is inspired by two things: one being the peach fabric backing that was taken from a bed sheet. The second is my three and a half year old granddaughter, who likes to pretend that she is a dino-dragon called Peach. I’m not exactly sure what period dino-dragons lived in, but from her play acting, they were certainly a fierce creature not to be taken lightly 🙂

This was included in this year’s Hands2Help Challenge hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict @fabricaddictquilts and went to Little Lambs Foundation for Kids @littlelambsfoundationforkids

#h2h2020 #hands2help2020

Deep Blue Sea
April 2020

The design for this baby quilt is called 7 Seas Blanket, from McKay Manor Musers. While the pattern calls for a kitty or puppy applique at the bottom of the center vertical block, I opted to use a whale to match my bottom fabric. I stuffed him with puff batting to make him more three-dimensional and backed him with flannel to add stability before attaching to the quilt. Since I am still a newbie to quilting on a domestic sewing machine, I played around with different designs, making waves, rippling water, currents, and jumbo letters, W-H-A-L-E.

Sailing off California’s coast has allowed me the opportunity and joy of seeing whales in the ocean: Humpbacks, Grey Whales, mama whales with their calves, and the largest of all, the California Blue Whale. I never tire of seeing the spout, the slow roll of their back as the dorsal fin cuts up through the water, and back down again. And if they are diving, catching a glimpse of their tail fluke as they make their descent. While each encounter is unique and incredible, the most amazing thing I got to witness was a whale doing bubble net feeding.

This was included in this year’s Hands2Help Challenge hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict @fabricaddictquilts and went to Little Lambs Foundation for Kids @littlelambsfoundationforkids

#h2h2020 #hands2help2020