Tag Archives: Quarentine Quilt

Rising Star

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Rising Star
October 2020

A year ago Christmas, I received EQ8 (Electric Quilt software) that has for me, become an invaluable tool for quilting. I have a design wall – another important tool for designing quilts – but with EQ8, it is much easier to visualize what the finished quilt will look like, figure out piece sizes before cutting, and get estimates on the amount of fabric that will be needed. Since many of my quilts are made from material in my stash, it’s great to be able to determine if there will be enough before making that first cut.

My Catnip quanket is the only other Lonestar quilt I’ve made, which I had modified to leave off the star points. I haven’t done a true Lonestar quilt, however, this may still be the case since I chose to offset this one 😉  In EQ8, I chose a standard 6-row Lonestar design and then created several options based on the fabric I was planning to use. I was able to import images of the fabrics I was using, which provided a very realistic rendering of what the final quilt would look like. I used flannel for the backing, so this will be a toasty warm quilt! 

This will be gifted to my niece, who will be turning one in December. It is a bit big for her now, but she’ll grow into it! 

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Mesozoic Scraps

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Mesozoic Scraps
October 2020

I have made several quilts and quankets this year using mainly scraps, making me think scraps must be genetically related to rabbits, because they multiply so quickly! My gray, white and black scrap bin was still too full for the lid to sit on it properly, so I made this string quanket. I had the green fleece for the backing in my stash, so I pulled in some green scraps leftover from my recent Tiger Tracks project to add a bit of fun color for the top. I also incorporated a few fussy cut squares of dinosaur fabric leftover from my Prehistoric Pennies quanket to add a bit of whimsy.

This was donated to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services for a child in foster care in October 2020.

Phillip

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Phillip
September 2020

Here’s my blue version from Jacquelynne Steves Silver Linings SAL (sew along) that I participated in during the Spring. Like my pink version, Aurora, I stitched an owl to work with my overall owl theme. But instead of embroidering the owl this time, I did it as cross-stitch, since I’m much more familiar with cross stitching — much fewer stitches to know/learn than embroidery 🙂

I used scraps for all the blocks, and fabric from my stash for the sashing, cornerstones and binding. The blocks are 6″ and since the SAL only had twelve blocks, plus six embroidery blocks that I chose not to do, I pieced extra blocks to make the finished size 40″x46″ so it can work for a baby or young child.

This was donated to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services for a child in foster care in October 2020.

Pocket Full of Monsters

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Pocket Full of Monsters
August 2020

Patterns for quilts can come from a variety of atypical places. I often notice quilt designs in tile installations. My grandson has a math activity book that has Pokemon characters drawn in grid format, which on seeing it, I instantly saw quilt potential.

At the beginning of the pandemic, my daughter asked me about doing a sewing project with her and my grand-kids via video calls. Since my grandson is currently into Pokemon, I had her send me the Pikachu picture from his activity book, and I then cut the needed pieces from fabric I had in my stash. Each week I would mail them two rows which they would sew together. The pieces were 3.5″ which by placing into two stacks,  fit into a standard #10 envelop. I added card stock on either side of the fabric to add rigidity. My grandson enjoyed ‘decoding’ the pieces each week – sort of like a puzzle, figuring out where each piece needed to go.

When they finished the Pikachu portion, my grandson asked, “what do we do with it now”? He felt that using it as a blanket at that point seemed like it was going to be too rough and scratchy on the back – the seam side 🙂 We discussed using it as a wall hanging, a quilt or a quanket and he decided he wanted it finished into a quanket.

They returned Pikachu to me for adding the borders, binding and backing. Luckily I found the Robert Kaufman Pokemon card panel from Hancocks of Paducah which was perfect for the border! I say ‘luckily’ because before the pandemic, I probably would not have known this particular fabric existed as I rarely purchased fabric online. I would just run down to the local fabric store to get something that worked with my design and I’m pretty sure they would not have had this fabric. In the first few months of the pandemic, running down to the fabric store was not an option. Since March, I have shifted pretty much all of my fabric and notions purchases to online, with trips into my local store being the rarity.

The finished size is approximately 54″ x 60″. I typically tie quankets, but since the Pikachu didn’t really work for this, I instead did a running stitch to outline him and did ties in the border.

 

Onshore Breeze

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Onshore Breeze
August 2020

When I can’t sail, I quilt. My husband and I have been sailors for over 30 years, so naturally, when the grandkids came on the scene, we taught them that a nice onshore breeze is synonymous with good sailing. We often say, “Nice onshore breeze, we should go sailing!” Now that they are a bit older, we merely start the sentence, “Nice onshore breeze”, and they finish it 🙂

 

I made this quilt as a gift for my granddaughter’s 4th birthday which was earlier this month. When trying to get ideas for a design, I asked her what her favorite color is (blue, at that moment) and her favorite animal (cow, at that moment). I opted to design around her favorite color, as while I like cows, they were just not sparking much creative inspiration for me.

 

But, I didn’t have much in the way of blue fabric left in my stash (no cows either). With more time on my hands during the past several months, my stash has been substantially depleted. The pandemic has also made fabric acquisition very challenging! I was able to order three jelly rolls – two in a blue colorway, and one in aqua, however getting solid fabrics has been nearly impossible – both online and in stores! Where once there had been a dozen or two of various Kona solids on the store shelves, now there are seldom more than a half dozen. Fortunately, on one of my rare trips to the fabric store in the past two months, they happened to have turquoise Kona fabric. Needless to say, I scooped some up right quick to use for the back. I incorporated the leftover fabric from the front to create a strip down the back, which helped get around the issue of the solid fabric being only 45″ wide and my needing 54″ for the width. Warning for fellow quilters (in case you haven’t already found this out): the jelly rolls were supposed to be 2.5″ wide, however they were not! I am so glad that I checked them before I began assembling. The blue rolls were 2.75″ while the aqua was 2.625″. So, I trimmed the blue to be the same as the aqua.

 

As with the past few quilts I’ve made, I did this using the quilt as you go (QAYG) method. I built the quilt in three horizontal panels roughly 20″ x 54″, so quilting it on my domestic machine was much easier. I kept the quilting pretty simple, doing wavy lines. Because the front reminds me of ocean waves, my intention for the wavy lines was to emulate an onshore breeze across the water.

Aurora

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Aurora
August 2020

Back in May, I joined Jacquelynne Steves Silver Linings QAL (quilt along). Each Monday, she would release a new block, for a total of twelve. There were also six  optional embroidery blocks as part of the project. Since I’m not overly familiar with embroidery, I only did one embroidered block. I used a coloring page for the pattern, and did an owl to work with my overall owl theme. Although the group QAL is ending this week, there is still time to download the block patterns here.

The first block was a nine patch, which I fussy cut the center square from scrap owl fabric leftover from my quanket Hooty. The owls are in different colors, including pink, which began my colorway for this quilt. I used scraps for all the pink blocks, and fabric from my stash for the borders and binding. The blocks are 6″ and since the QAL only had twelve blocks, plus the embroidery, I pieced an extra seven blocks to make the finished size 40″x46″ so it can work for a baby or young child.

As I suspect with many people, the pandemic has become a depressing pall over daily life. The hardest thing for me has been the infrequency of seeing and spending time with family and friends. And when I do see them, it’s at a safe social distance, so no hugs 😦 The not being able to plan for parties, camping trips, vacations, etc. is particularly difficult for me, since I so enjoy planning for the next big adventure! In a nutshell, the inability to ‘look forward’ to something concrete has been the biggest loss (for me) as a result of the pandemic. This QAL has been a breath of fresh air during this difficult time, as while it was just a small thing, it gave me something to look forward to each week. 

The name Aurora means dawn. For mariners, a pink/red sky in the morning is a warning of a potential storm. While a storm at sea can be scary, if a sailor uses the scientific knowledge of prevailing winds, along with the fact that a pink/red sky in the morning could indicate a high pressure system to the east, and a possible impending storm, then they can take the necessary precautions to be better prepared to ride out the storm. The pandemic can certainly be likened to a storm, and if we rely on the scientific facts and take the necessary precautions, we will get through this!

This was donated to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services for a child in foster care in October 2020.

Fancy Fox

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Fancy Fox
July 2020

After experimenting with the quilt as you go (QAYG) method on my recent quilt Persistence, I continued practicing the technique here on Fancy Fox. However, instead of quilting each individual block, I quilted two rows at a time, which I liked better, especially since I prefer to hand stitch the back seam of each joined panel. I had originally planned six rows, but in the midst of making it, I decided to gift it to my grandson who likes foxes. So, I added a seventh row to make it a better length for his twin-sized bed.

 

The fox fabric was fairly new, while all the other fabrics were leftovers from other quilt projects.

 

Persistence

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Persistence
July 2020

I’ve been working on this off and on since January 2019. Life got crazy in 2019 with my daughter diagnosed with breast cancer, so this got put to the back burner. I am calling this Persistence, in recognition of my daughter’s fight with cancer, and for this quilt challenging my quilting and sewing capabilities to the max! Today is my daughter’s 1 year cancer-free, cancerversary.

 

“Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.” ― Roy T. Bennett

 

I had received ‘The Quilt Block Bible’ (Rosemary Youngs) the Christmas before, and wanted to play with making different blocks to create a sampler quilt. Well, why not try it as a QAYG method, something I hadn’t tried until then. And, why not throw in a Mola as the center block, which is a different size format. What was I thinking?!?

 

“Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.” ― Roy T. Bennett

 

Most of the fabrics were newly purchased fat quarters, but there are some pieces of the past fabric in there too. Each block has a different orange fabric backing, using leftover fabric from the front blocks. After adding the sashing (stitch in ditch on front, seam shows on back), I was not happy with the seam showing on the back. So, I ripped them out and hand sewed all my back seams. Then, I thought I had done enough quilting on top, but when I washed, I realized I should have done more quilting in the piano key border, as the batting there rolled, requiring me to rip open some of the edge binding to get in and lay it flat again. Then back to the machine to add quilting to the border to make the batting stay in place. So, as you can see, Persistence is a fine name for this!

 

“It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than you were knocked down.” ― Roy T. Bennett

 

Zuzu’s Petals

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Zuzu’s Petals
July 2020

A few months ago, I experimented for the first time with making stack and whack blocks. At that time, I only made two blocks, using different fabric for each block. I then turned each block into a trivet. I was not overly impressed with the stack and whack technique and results: starting with “nice looking fabric”, cutting it up and reassembling it, and ending up with a different “nice looking fabric”. When I expressed this observation to a quilting group that I’m a member of, I was encouraged to make more than just one block – that with more blocks from the same fabric, the results would be much more dynamic.

Zuzu’s Petals is the result of my giving the stack and whack technique another shot. The fabric is some that I’ve had in my stash since the 1990’s, back when the colors country blue and rose were all the rage. I used this same fabric for the border.  Aside from the construction nightmares of having two different sized hexies, and wanting to add white sashing between them, I had fun making this quilt, and will definitely try the stack and whack technique again!

This was donated to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services for a child in foster care in October 2020.

Yellow Ribbon

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Yellow Ribbon
June 2020

In 2012, I began this journey of making quilts for kids in the foster system and Yellow Ribbon marks my 100th donation quilt. I had inherited a lot of fabric after my Mom passed away, and while I had no urgent need for fabric at that time, as someone dedicated to recycling/reducing/reusing/repurposing, I figured I could put it to use, and ultimately decided I would make quilts to give to foster kids. I always try to incorporate a piece of fabric that was from my Mom, Granny, Mother-in-law Edith, or Aunt Betty, but in the past year it’s becoming more difficult, as the stash I inherited has dwindled considerably! For this, I used my yellow, white, grey and black scraps, so there are a lot of pieces of the past fabric in it.

I have been making quilts since the ’80’s, but have never been what I would consider a hard core quilter, and I still don’t actually consider myself a typical quilter. I love the piecing aspect of the quilting process, but the sandwiching batting and then stitching/quilting has been something I’ve only started doing more of in the past two years. I usually back my tops with fleece, and tie them, which is a process that just seems to work really well for me. If you’re interested in the process, check out my posts about making a quanket:

This was donated to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services for a child in foster care in June 2020.