Whisper
June 2024

I’ve been focusing my quilting this year on using what I have in my scraps and stash, and to avoid (as much as possible) buying new fabric. Between these two sources of fabric, I probably have enough to make a few dozen quilts! This quilt, like All Star and Homecoming that I made earlier this year, was also inspired by an orphan block that I received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. The inspiration block for this quilt is on the left side, immediately below the fold (row 3, column 1). If you look at it closely, you’ll see that the floral fabric is different from the other block’s floral print fabric.

I had plenty of yellows in my stash and scraps, however, I did end up purchasing the floral print fabric as I wanted a similar colorway to the inspiration blocks’ floral print. The purple/white flying geese were also made from using what I had on hand. I finished this as a quanket, backing with another stash item of a solid buttery yellow fleece.

I have named this quanket Whisper to represent the orphan block that quietly hinted at what this quilt has become. The name is also for the flying geese whose wings whisper on the wind as they fly in formation across the sky.

I donated this to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that provides children living in poverty across the country with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.

Explorers

April 2024

These cute little explorers were among the fabric I received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. I fussy cut them, and then dug into my scraps bins to make the string and four-patch blocks. The backing fabric is a print of boats, telescopes and compasses – everything an explorer needs for a grand adventure.

As a sailor, backpacker and general fan of the great outdoors, this saying speaks to me:

“Not all who wander are lost”
                            — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well in my case, not always. There was one backpacking trip when my husband and I were lost, but only for a little while. While training for the John Muir Trail (JMT) back in 2009, we hiked Canyon’s Cottonwood and Marble Canyon Loop trail in Death Valley, a 28-mile cross country hike. For those that aren’t hikers, cross country hiking means that there are no posted route signs marking the way, and you must rely on the topo map and compass. We did have a SPOT GPS tracker with us in case of an emergency.

We went in January, when the weather is nice – not too hot during the day, and not too cold at night. It’s also a time of year when there are fairly reliable water sources along the trail. The first day was pretty uneventful as the trail follows mostly along a 4 wheel off-road trail. Day 2 is when the cross country navigation begins. We did fine until the afternoon, when instead of going over a ridge and dropping into Deadhorse Canyon, we turned too soon and began descending into a dry slot canyon, mistaking it for Deadhorse Canyon. We were probably a half mile down the hillside when the rocks and boulders became nearly impassable and we determined that we had taken a wrong turn coming off the ridge. While we may have been able to scramble down the dry slot canyon back to the prior day’s 4 wheel off-road trail, the risk of hiking a dry slot canyon was not one we were willing to take. These canyons are extremely dangerous in the event of rain: in the desert, they become dangerous, raging rivers. We decided to turn around and head back to the ridge – the point where we believed we had gotten off course.

It was late afternoon at this point, and we felt it would be safer to set camp and get a fresh start in the morning. As the sun was setting, we saw wild horses on the ridge, not a 1/4 mile distant. It was an amazing sight, and had we not gotten temporarily off course, perhaps a sight we would not have seen otherwise (not saying being lost was a good thing, just seeing the horses was pretty cool).

The next morning we headed back to the top of the ridge and found our way to Deadhorse Canyon, which led down through Marble Canyon (pictured below) and back to our car.

I donated this to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that provides children living in poverty across the country with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.

All Star

February 2024

For the past two years, I’ve been making an effort to use only my stash and scraps for making quilts and quankets, as I have no shortage of either! I do bend this self-imposed restriction when my artistic-self tells me that purchasing that ‘just right’ fabric is necessary.

Last month, my design of Homecoming began with orphan blocks and was then rounded out with scraps. This quilt – All Star – also started with orphan blocks that I had received from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. She had given me two blue and two beige/golden strip blocks that got me started. I then made 28 more from my scraps: strip blocks are a great scrap-buster. The darker red border was also inspired from a few random orphan blocks of mine. I dug into my scraps boxes to make enough to complete the border.
TIP reusing dryer fabric sheets works great for backing/stabilizer for strip blocks.

I decided to bend my self-imposed ‘no new fabric’ edict, and purchased a fun dark blue with white stars for the backing fabric. I quilted an echoed star design – done on my circa 1950’s Singer domestic sewing machine. Figuring the math for quilting a star was taxing, but who doesn’t love pentagon geometry with 72 and 108 degree angles! (me, that’s who). I used 1.5″ blue tape as my quilting ruler. The lines aren’t perfectly straight, but perfect is overrated don’t you think? Here’s a look at the back: I quilted one star with a gold thread in the bobbin and all the echoes are done in a dark blue thread in the bobbin.

I donated this to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that provides children living in poverty across the country with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.

Homecoming
January 2024

Since receiving a box stuffed full of various fabrics from Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter back in 2022, I continue to incorporate her scraps where I can. The box she sent was stuffed to overflowing with small scraps, a few orphan blocks and a few larger backing-sized fabrics. I’ve featured two of her orphan pinwheel blocks in the center of this baby quilt and made two more of my own to complement her two. I then used other orphan blocks from past projects of mine, including some from, Onshore Breeze and Palahdee. I think that all these orphan blocks have joined together quite nicely into this “homecoming”.

I donated this to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that provides children living in poverty across the country with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.