What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I know I thought I was going to be sharing the second FiddleSticks quilt this week, but I didn't get all of the binding completed.  But I will share the first of the red, white and blue quilts I am working on for Covered in Love.

This quilt is made with 12.5" star blocks of all different designs.  For this first quilt, I used all the star blocks that had a white background to them.

There wasn't quite enough white blocks for the entire quilt so I added in some more colorful blocks in the center of ...

I decided to go ahead and get working on the string blocks during our snow storm.  These are the string blocks foundation pieced onto batting that CiL did for our Jan/Feb drive.   You can see my tutorial on how I am assembling and "quilting" them here. 

I'm having a lot of fun picking our color groups and playing with  patterns. The top quilt is pink, purple, and yellow moving in a diagonal across the quilt.  

Next is blue, aqua, and green color blocks.  I've decided it looks best when I have all the stripes slanting the same ...

 With the end of February coming up fast, I spent the last week cleaning up some of my scrap projects and making sure I had all my yellow blocks completed.

 I am happy to share the first quilt finish of the Covered in Love blocks sent to me by Kat over at Kat and Cat Quilts.

I know a lot of people have been curious about how the Jan/Feb string blocks that are foundation pieced onto batting will be put together.  I took advantage of the snow days to start putting some together so you can see.

I sorted out red and orange blocks for my first quilt.  Step one is to put right sides together and sew with a fat quarter inch seam through all the layers.

Step 2 is to finish the seam. I've done this before by finger pressing the seams open and stitching over them with a triple zigzag (visible ...

 There was a giant box of goodness that landed on my doorstep this afternoon...

Happy Scrappy Weekend, quilters! These 3 quilt tops were sent in by Erin and quilted by me this week.

They are all ready to be taken up to the hospital with the next delivery for Covered in Love, which will be a big one!

apologies for the incredibly blurry photo!

Erin has sent in some beautiful tops to CiL before and I especially love her scrappy ones. 

Covid is still raging here and our chaplains are providing quilts to as many of the families as we can.  Infection precautions and the sheer number of deaths unfortunately makes it difficult. 

In ...

Linda has been a busy bee last year! For the last few drives she finished and sent in completed quilts that I wanted to show you.  This first one is her version of the Fiddlesticks drive, completed with microstippling. 

I find this kind of quilting so impressive! I know I could never have the patience, but I love the texture it produces. 

I really love the backing fabric she found to use with for the quilt as well. I haven't started working on the Fiddlesticks block drive quilts yet, still getting the red, white, and blue ones done. But ...

Here we are in 2021 at last.  My neighbors brought in the year with a huge amount of artillery! (The kitties were not impressed.) It remains to be seen if this year will be much better than last, but we can hope!

At the very least we can start the year off with some beautiful quilts. This batik tumbler was sent in by Jan O. and quilted by Meloney with loops.

This fantastic top was sent in by Kelly C. and also quilted by Meloney.  It's far to big to hold for a picture of the entire thing!  Kudos ...

Happy New Year!  We're plugging right along with block drive finishes. These six Spring Pinwheel quilts bring us to 18 from the March/April block drive.

I have to give huge props to Gail, Nicki, and Holly who sent in prepped bindings which really helped mew with finishing these quilts.

These first two quilts were assembled and quilted by Linda D. from blocks sent in by Mina during the July/August block drive.

Yes, just short of a year from it's kick off the 2020 string block drive is wrapping up. Thanks to the many of you who participated in this drive, like Beth T. who made the top above and Kathy C. who quilted it!

I love the gingerbread man backing this quilt! The rest of these were assembled by a combination of Pam M. and me and quilted by me.

The seven quilts here plus those previously posted bring us to a total of 23 out of an expected 24 from this drive. There is still one out in the ...

Welcome to the weekend, quilters, and happy holiday season! Just one quilt to show today. Officially, this is the first finish from this summer's red, white and blue block drive.  It's a "bonus quilt" I decided to finish with the patriotic batch since it matched so well. (Thank you to Alycia who commented to let me know this pattern came from a mystery quilt "A8" she ran in 2018!)

Christy sent in the top a while back. There are a mix of shirtings and quilting fabrics in it and it measures a generous 66"x78" or there abouts ...

Happy Thanksgiving, quilters! I hope you are warm and maybe enjoying some cozier, smaller gathering than usual this year amidst everything that's going on.  This year I'm more thankful than ever for all my helpers! Like Beth T. who sent in this top, and Kathy who quilted it.  The seven quilts in this post bring us to 12 for the March/April block drive ...

Hello quilters :)  These three quilts came from Louise, who continues to assemble donated UFO and orphan blocks for Covered in Love from her sewing room on her floating home.  If you haven't seen her series on how she manages to quilt on a boat you definitely should!

Louise posted about these three quilts here.  This first one was made with "vintage" bits sent in by Priscilla.

This one is a mix of orphan blocks I sent her and some blocks from an online guild.  I love the quilting style Louise used on it!

You should go read Louise's ...

Since she first contacted me in early 2017 Kathy has assembled and quilted for Covered in Love, completing a total of 102 quilts! That's 14% of CiL's total quilts. She has also spent a lot of hours standing in the parking lots of CVS and Dairy Queen with me chatting about quilts, and nursing, and ...

Another week and another batch of string quilts! These six were quilted by me, but some of them were pieced by Pam. She helped out by piecing two great big boxes of blocks I sent her into 8 tops and sending them back. Great big thanks to Pam, she did a lovely job of piecing and pressing nice flat seams!

Also obviously thanks to those who sent in cool backing fabrics for these quilts. Patients and families love to look at the backs and often connect to them. 

There have been quite a few of these string quilts so far ...

Almost twelve months later, the Winter Blues quilts from the Nov/Dec 2019 block drive are all done! (Hey, it's less than a year, right?)

All 5 of the quilts in this post were tops made by Gail C. and quilted by me.

I love Gail's beautiful, intricate piecing style and her eye for color. Bonus, she's a local to east Texas!

She usually sends several tops kitted up with backing and binding for each drive we do. 

Hello quilters, welcome to the 2020 Nov/Dec Covered in Love Block Drive! For anyone who may be new, basically CiL is a charity that makes quilts for patients dying in the hospital. I run a block drive every two months where anyone can participate and make as many or as few blocks as you wish. Scroll to the bottom of the post for more details if you'd like to participate!

For the end of the year (gosh I can't believe it's the end of the year already!) we are going to be making these pretty Sunflower ...

These next two quilts were assembled and quilted by Linda D. I'm excited to show you more of her quilting if the future!