Hitting the Blocks

Recently a young girl in our church was diagnosed with leukemia. Knowing from (second-hand) experience how miserable hospital stays are, especially for chemo, I thought it would be appropriate for our church’s quilt ministry to make her a big, soft blanket to snuggle in when things got tough.

The information I was given was: green, pinks, and reds, and likes dogs, cats, horses, and her American Girl dolls. I finally settled on hearts and an adapted Scottie dog pattern, turning it into a West Highland Terrier instead (one of the American Girl accessories is a little Westie named Coconut.)

Usually when we make quilts, we ask the church members to make a “signature” block, some sort of design, verse, etc. that fits the theme of the quilt. This time however I thought it would be more meaningful if the girl’s peers made the personalized blocks. The artwork may not be tops (what do you expect of 5-12 year olds?), but the love definitely comes through.

In another change, since I wanted an extra-soft quilt, I decided to work with “Minky” (or Jo-Ann’s answer to Minky, though the adorable red paw print fabric came from Hancock’s). But while the stuff is super-duper cuddly, it’s stretchier than all get out, and the nap makes it annoyingly slippery. The stretch I got around by ironing stabilier to the back of all my fabrics before cutting them out. The slippery I just had to learn to pin the things like crazy. Thank God for my walking foot.

I really wanted to get this quilt done by the end of November, so during Thanksgiving holidays my mother and I sat and quite companionably pinned, ironed, and stitched together the whole quilt (Thanks, Mom!). Between Thursday evening and Saturday at 2:30pm we managed to finish the thing.

Instead of batting, we ended up using a big piece of white fleece. The backing too is fleece–that wasn’t my first choice, but the first choice didn’t look right, second didn’t have enough fabric, and third would have required me to iron on stabilizer to the whole 56″ x 56″ quilt backing. I don’t think so. I found another big piece of red fleece in my stash, and away we went.

My mother had the cutest idea, one I think I’ll use again. The top corner heart has a hidden pocket. If you just look at it from a distance, it looks the same as the other hearts. Up close you can see a little pocket, perfect for hiding treasures right within easy reach.

Anyhow, it’s done. Now I just have to finish six quilt patterns, eight swimming cover-ups (I’ll post on that one tomorrow…hopefully), and my convergence quilt before December 13th, and my niece’s baby quilt before Christmas. Sigh. So many projects, so little time.

Finally.

Started this in August for a contest. Got the top done in a weekend, as the contest required, but the quilting took much, much longer. Didn’t help that I kept getting side-tracked to other projects.

This is one of the quilt patterns I’ve actually sold in our Ebay store. You can find it here.

I’ve donated the quilt to a charity event to be held this Saturday. It’ll be auctioned off to help raise money for a very sick little girl.

Here are some of the quilting details I put in. They were fun, but a bit time-consuming, especially those pinwheel blocks.

So, I’ve been waiting for my non-winning Hoffman Challenge quilt entry to return home. I finally broke down and emailed the coordinators, asking when I should get worried. This was the reply I received:

I’ve researched your entry and your quilt was selected to travel in Quilt Collection “D”… CONGRATULATIONS on being selected to travel in this year’s Hoffman Challenge.

After sitting there and blinking my eyes stupidly for several minutes, I picked my jaw up off the keyboard and went to the Hoffman Challenge website to see where exactly my little baby was traveling. Seems she’s been in the Midwest (Colorado, Texas, and South Dakota) since August, and will eventually hit Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Washington, California, and New York before I get her back next September.

Okay, so she’s only one out of 200-plus quilts chosen, but it was my first contest entry ever, and my first completely hand-stitched and hand-quilted piece, so I’m still quite startled and more than a little pleased. Truth be told, I’m proud as a…as a peacock

My aunt works for United Airlines, and gets to travel the world much cheaper than the rest of us mortals. A few weeks ago she asks my mom (her sister), “Hey! Wanna go to Australia?” Of course my mom, being quite sane, immediately said yes. They got back to this side of the planet on Tuesday–the Punkin and I drove up to Dulles to pick Mom up and take her home to WV.
When it comes to gift-giving, my aunt and mother know me quite well. So, unknown to each other, they both bought me the same kind of gift–fabric! Coordinating fabric no less! The package on the right is actually designed as a patchwork kit. The three smaller designs on the left are 100% cotton handkerchiefs (there are 6, but 3 are repeats of the patchwork designs). There’s even a 54″ coordinating square tablecloth residing at my mother’s which is fair game if necessary.

Now the question is…what kind of quilt to create using these unique designs? Ah, decisions, decisions, decisions

The YMCA recently opened a branch here in the boondocks of King George, and my daughter loves the pool. We’re there at least five, sometimes six times a week.
However, the Punkin is a skinny little thing, and only lasts about 20 minutes before she turns blue with cold. And the locker room is even colder than the pool. A cover-up is almost a necessity.
So when I realized she’d grown out of her old cover-up, I decided to make her a snuggly warm new one. Cost–$4 for the towel. Took a bit of time in labor, since all the blue binding is hand-stitched on, as is the ribbon decoration. It did have a cute little J up on the chest, but it fell off in the wash and I haven’t found it yet. Bummer.