Monthly Archives: January 2022

Scooter

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Scooter
January 2022

Every Spring, I try to participate in the Hands2Help Challenge hosted by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict @fabricaddictquilts. This year I decided to get a jump start on making baby quilts for this great cause. Since I was working to deplete my scraps bins with my recent Tod quilt, I kept the momentum going and made these yellow and blue log cabin blocks with “mostly” scraps. I say “mostly” because I was being a bit too fussy about the colorway, and did go into my stash for some of the blues and yellows. I made the airplane using a raw-edge appliqué technique.

Why the name? Scooter was a super sweet pound puppy that my sister had year’s ago. While this isn’t a dog, I thought the airplane was super sweet, and it reminded me of my sister – she’ll know why.

This was donated to Friends of Short Avenue Elementary for a silent auction in March, 2022.

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Tod

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Tod
January 2022

While putting away my holiday scraps, I found that my reds bin was close to exploding. So, time for a red scrappy quilt! I kept this baby quilt super simple, patchworking 2″ blocks. As for the fox, I found a coloring page online, and then enlarged the image to the size I wanted, and traced directly from my monitor. I know all you techies are cringing, yes, it’s probably not good form to trace off a monitor, but I try to press only ‘very, very lightly’ 🙂 Typically, I either trace using my monitor, or against a window… of course, during daytime for using the window 😂 I made the fox using a raw-edge appliqué technique.

I often hear new quilters ask about the best way to store and manage their scraps. I hear some quilters suggest cutting into standard sizes before storing, and to only keep those pieces larger than 2″. My recommendation is to keep it all, and to not pre-cut it. Since I often dig into my scraps for appliqué projects, the size and irregularity of a piece is not a problem. I also enjoy the crumb block technique, which uses not only irregular shapes, but also very small pieces. Lastly, I sort scraps by color and use photo boxes to keep them in. This way, when the lid no longer wants to stay properly on the box, I know it’s time to do a scrappy quilt! If you are needing ideas for a scrappy quilt, check out Quilting is more fun than Housework’s blog.

Quilting is more fun than Housework

This was donated to Friends of Short Avenue Elementary for a silent auction in March, 2022.

Traveller

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Traveller
January 2022

I’ve been wanting to make a Wanderer’s Wife quilt for awhile and when I came across these jelly rolls, I knew they would be perfect for this project. Part of wanting to do this quilt was the desire to use up some of my orphan blocks. As it turned out, the blocks I used are about half new and half orphan blocks. It does not have as many blocks as some Wanderer’s Wife quilts I’ve seen, but I like its simplicity.

I like being able to repurpose, and I really like how this quilt pattern enables reusing scraps and orphan blocks. The jelly rolls were the only new fabric used, while the blocks that were newly pieced used scraps. I made this as a quanket, finishing it with fleece backing and tying it.

When I had added this quilt to my ‘to do’ list a few year’s back, I knew it by the name Gypsy Wife quilt. Since that time, it has been renamed to Wanderer’s Wife. There is excellent information about the history and current Romani and Traveller human rights crisis here.

While I had intended this quanket to be donated to a foster child, sometimes life just has different plans. In mid-2022, my connection to CPS sort of just dried up. The facility I had been dropping my quilts off to, closed. I left many messages for my contacts with CPS, to no avail. So, the quilts were just sitting, waiting to find a home.

In early 2023, my Dad was admitted to the ER. It’s a long story. Anyways, Joe was Dad’s room mate. I really enjoyed my time hanging out with Joe while visiting my Dad in the hospital. Joe’s sister Gayle and his son Daniel, were so wonderful, and made the time in the hospital much more bearable. Daniel was always such a huge help with my Dad, when the nurses were otherwise occupied. I miss you Joe, and I hope you, Gayle and Daniel find peace and strength in your journey through life.