A refreshing Maggie Pearl

     Although I finished the Maggie Pearl quilt top at retreat in March, I just quilted it. I did not think a pattern would show up well with all those pieces but did not want do straight lined. I thought of the wandering curves that make up a circle and it was easy to do. It moved along swimmingly and I think it looks good to have that curvy pattern on top of the block pattern consistent with each pieced square. I made a striped binding. Once again, I added a border so all those seams won't be in the binding.
    This is an available comfort quilt.

Choosing binding

All Bound in stripe

Back

Another out the door!

     I received a quilt referral from a woman at church who has a niece undergoing treatment for aplastic anemia and a bone marrow transplant who is 22. Yikes. She is very scared and having a hard time with treatments. They basically kill everything off inside you, then add the bone marrow. Has to be a horrifying experience. I sent some photos of what I had, and the woman picked one. I washed and made the bag and kit up for her and she delivered it. I understand the young woman is pretty ill and no progress yet.
    This was the quilt and package.

    This was the quilt package. I actually had an extra block from the quilt to make the pocket on the bag. I sewed it on the premade tote bag with the classic Bernina 830 Record in the background as it is my only machine with a freearm.
    Originally, I made the quilt inspired by one I saw in a show. It did not turn out how I was thinking, but it is pretty. I was going for a floating effect. I have a hard time using black fabric. I used different black prints here, but it is still too harsh and did not give the floating floral effect I wanted.

Quilting detail

The green and gold!

      Another done quilt, this time the pieces and fabric from Quiltdiva Julie. This was part of a boxed set of goodies/quilt pieces from Julie to put together. My husband's high school colors were green and gold, so he really liked to see this one finished. It is a comfort quilt waiting for a referral to recipient who needs the comfort contained within.

Choosing Borders

Quilted and trimmed

With binding provided by Julie

Quilted details

Back, love that Blueberry Park fabric!

Back Detail

One Wandaful Quilt

      Wanda sent me a top to quilt for a comfort quilt. It is pretty unique and beautiful. She staystitched all the edges so it was a dream to longarm. I did outlining in the butterfly blocks, stitched the shape of the log cabin in that block and did a locking curved motif in the light print blocks. Mocha Glide top and bottom. I think it came out terrific. I auditioned a dark blue and a gold dotted dark red fabric for the binding and chose the dotted one. I usually don't use gold printed fabric, but it looked perfect with the mood of the quilt. So now it is waiting for a referral to make a special person extra comforted. It was such a treat to quilt such a wonderfully sewn and pressed quilt top! Thank you, Wanda!

Border auditions at sides

Back

Back detail

Nine patch comfort

       I finished the quilt that was given to me as a kit from someone who was passing it on because they know I make comfort quilts. I love the back more than the front. Yesterday, I was able to get it washed, packed up with pocket quilts, CD, book, handmade card, and custom pocket ready and gifted to a friend's brother in law facing a bone marrow transplant in early September. He is very ill and scared I am told. I pray the quilt will give him some measure of comfort. I heard from my friend, that her brother in law took it out of the bag and has been cuddled in it on his couch since he opened it. Can't ask for any better than that for a quilt.

     This the quilt bag and accessories that I send with the newly washed and dried quilt. If anyone has other suggestions what to put in, I would love to know that. I am always looking to upgrade.

Bag with custom pocket, devotional book, handmade card, 2 pocket quilts, instrumental CD

All packed and ready to go in XL ziploc bag and sealed to deliver.

Hoping for loads of comfort

      Ninety five percent of my quilts are comfort quilts. They are made to be given, by referral, to those in need of comforting due to illness, treatment, bereavement, or serious setback. Most of them tend to go to those undergoing cancer treatment because that is the most common referral. I received a message from a friend whose cousin had just found out she had stage 4 lung cancer and has a short time to live. Fortunately, I had a done quilt that only needed washing and bag preparation. I was able to get it to my friend so she could give it the next day. I prefer that the referring person be the deliverer, but that doesn't always happen. I prefer the focus on the message of the quilt.
     This quilt was made from a batik layer cake and 10" white squares. A batik to a white square, sewn all around, then cut twice on the diagonal. I love to use the Perfect Slotted ruler, because I only have to cut twice to trim to size. I used Glide celery on top.

This is a pretty large comfort quilt

The whole quilt package

Batik Diamonds, big and done!

      A while ago, I bought some batiks on Etsy that were very reasonable. I think they were Boundless. I bought a layer cake and some jelly rolls. The jelly rolls made an Upstairs, Downstairs and I sewed the layer cake to kind of grunge white 10" squares. I made HSTs by sewing around al 4 sides, and then cutting diagonally twice. The trimming is the long part, but I used the Clearly Perfect slotted trimmer ruler and I had to cut only 2 sides. I showed the layout before. I was able to web it during the fall quilt retreat and used a wide backing as it is quite long and wide. Glad I stocked up on some a while ago.
     This was the first quilt on the longarm since November when I did one of the kid quilts for my friend before Chasen Dreams finished all other 6. I use chalk to draw my designs on the fabric and pencil doodle on newsprint before I start. I used Blizzard Glide on the top and PremoSoft prewound blue on the bottom. I find I like a finer bobbin thread, so I have been mostly using DecoBob or Glide 60 and it makes me the happiest quilting. The grandkids helped me pick out the green batik for the binding and I am happy to say it just needs a recipient and they can be quite tall.

On wall before webbing

Back

Detail

The lineup, drumroll please

      Finally, after a lot of sweat and tears, six kids quilts are quilted, bound and labelled, ready to go to my friend. One more is at the longarmers and the binding is ready. Fronts and backs. The first finish is on the previous post, so 5 are here.

This one I quilted

      I was only able to quilt one of the kids quilts because I had to keep sewing backing, bindings and quilt and I have not been able to do two things at the same time. This quilt seems appropriate to show today as the Buffalo Bills won their game, which is big news in this city; doesn't matter to me. The whole mood of the city rests on the team's performance which is really not an ideal situation, especially if you know Buffalo's history.

Parade of Kids' Quilt Tops

      As promised, here are the rest of the kids quilt tops. I previously showed 1 and 2. Here are 5-7. As I am typing this, 1 through 6 are quilted and bound. Number 7 is at my friends who are the longarmers. The done quilts are going one at a time through the washer.
     Miles of stitching and pressing. The big squares are 5" and the small ones 2.5" unfinished. Borders are 2.5 and 3.5 unfinished. Choosing that many borders and making all those backs and bindings has drained the brain for the time being which is not good when I have all kinds of Christmas stuff to attend to.

 

Backing for the above quilt, No. 7 being quilted now