The end of the Kids' quilts story

      I have no idea what I was thinking when I left off blogging last year. It was a blur. I have continued to take photos and sew, although greatly interrupted. I finally got a quilt off the longarm and bound yesterday. I have been pulling out unfinished projects and digging in. I have kept up reading all my blog friends with little energy to respond.
    A short version is: I laid out the guild quilt show in late September by photographing all the quilts, printing them out and making a map of the show. All quilts were separately bagged, tagged, and put in organized piles. The last week of September I went for 4 days to the ADK, Old Forge for wonderful fall times. Upon coming back, I got Covid the first couple days of October and missed setting up and attending the quilt show. Thank God the whole show was laid out and marked so others could put it up.
    Then, my dear friend, who had been diagnosed with ALS a couple of months previously, came and picked out a comfort quilt (Blue Bargello) and rapidly deteriorated. I came up with the idea of working on quilts for her grandkids with her when I visited bringing boxes of precut squares and strips, maybe one a month. That had to be accelerated because of her rapid decline so others stepped in to help her lay them out. I was piecing non stop and freaked out over the quilting. My friends, Kris and Kathy of Chasen Dreams, agreed to help when I asked and quilt them (angels for sure). They were fast and refused payment. While they were quilting, I made the bindings and kept piecing. I was able to get all 7 done and washed. I took them to her and she whispered what she wanted to have on each label (I had sewn blank labels on). We wrote it and bagged each quilt in a large ziploc. They were given out at Christmas to her grandchildren. She died 5 days later.
    At the memorial luncheon, many photo boards were on display and they included the quilts on a table for people to see. She might have not been physically able, but she chose every piece and indicated where it would go for all 7 quilts. I taped all the pieces with frog tape and sewed like a maniac. 

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

 

 

What was I thinking? Or how to overload your life...

      Sometimes, a great idea is only as good as how well thought out it is- how to accomplish it and what it will actually entail. I get great ideas, foreseeing how to make them work is where I get into trouble.
     My dear friend was diagnosed with ALS in August. Went to lunch in September, she drove. She is the one who chose the Blue Bargello. By October, she had to sell her car and had to be helped to her feet and supported walking. By November, she is in a wheelchair, unable to move or reposition herself sitting. And in a lot of wincing pain. She is one of the most creative people I have ever known. She can make anything- collage and jewelry her favorites. She was a fabulous elementary art teacher.
     My heart was just breaking seeing her unable to do anything creative. I had this bright idea that I could take my kid/novelty boxes of cut 5" and 2.5" squares to her house, with a fleece I drew a grid on and she could layout, with help, quilts for her grandchildren. My thought was we could layout one quilt a week, I could sew it, bring it back and we could decide borders, take it home, quilt it and start another. Apparently the idea took ahold of her. Everyone who visited her helped her layout quilts and tape the blocks together, putting them in columns for webbing. When I returned after sewing the body of the first quilt to work on borders, I was given bags of seven quilt layouts. I should have asked how many grandchildren at the beginning.
      After I started breathing again, I had to figure out how to get these sewn and quilted. Once the squares were sewn together as you can imagine, the quilts were a lot smaller. I figured out to add lattice to the column quilts and coping strips around the smaller squares to fit the 5" ones. I ordered Bills fabric (the only fabric I bought). I made a chart for the quilts and all the component steps and freaked out. I took some quilts to the November retreat and one dear friend, Carolyn, sewed one all squares one, and one columns components for the lattice strips one. I had all those backings to make also.
      No matter how fast I sewed and figured how to do the borders and backs, I was far behind. I got the Bills quilt on the longarm, but no time to quilt it. I had a flash of brilliance and asked some friends who own a longarm business, Chasen Dreams, for help. They are incredibly generous quilters who quilt tons of kids quilts for camps, vets, and other community needs. They said they would help me out. I dropped 5 quilts with them on Friday. Today, I finished sewing quilt 7 top and backing. Now onto the longarm for quilt 1 and then all that binding for 7 quilts- omigosh- get panicky thinking about it. They are about 55 x 68 roughly.

Quilt 1 in squares

Ready for the longarm, backing made

Quilt 2 needs lattice to separate columns. Instead of pins, they used tape to hold 4 patches together.

Quilt 2 all sewn with lattice and borders, gone to Chasen Dreams

     The other quilts will be in the next post as this one is way too long. Quilts 3-7 coming.

Aliens have landed

     The aliens/superhero quilt is finished. All quilted and bound and labeled. When I find out when and where I can mail it, I will wash it, remove it from the dryer with gloves, put it in the tote bag which is also ready, add a card and book, and then plastic zip loc bag it, put it in a box and mail it to New Jersey for the little guy.
     I loved to quilt it and some may think it is over-quilted, but I love the texture. Once it is washed, it will have that lovely texture crinkle. The backing is an ombre dark blue that I have been saving for something. I think it works here- it is not faded, just ombre. And yes, I see the block error in repeating (saw it when I got to it in quilting).

The aliens are coming

     I did figure out a quilt for my cousin's grandson who is three and  facing real nasty surgery to repair a birth defect. Previously I shared some quarter square blocks that did not work. This quilt was inspired by the geometric quilt ideas from Quilted Twins. I fussy cut the squares to showcase the animal or alien or superhero. My idea was that as the little guy was laying in bed, he could "I Spy" all the various characters hopefully distracting him from his recovery. 
    For the shadows, I did not use solid fabric, but a dark blue with black spirals. The lighting does not do the quilt justice. Too wet and icky to photo outside.
    I used some alien green fabric for the outer border and some blue fabric that had some scrubbed character to it- think it is a Lori Holt. I own some in green also. I thought it would make a great border for some quilt when I was fabric shopping in Ohio. 
     The backing is ombre fabric I had for a while, and a friend gave me the cartoon superhero word fabrics used in the center. I think the back goes together well with the front.
     Now it is loaded on the long arm and trying to get it done.