More Linus Quilts

  

The Linus Connection gave away so many quilts last fall that its storage unit is empty.

My friend Sharon (who is my Linus Connection connection) gave me a kit of precut white squares and a charm pack.   

This is what I made of it.  My plan is to turn it in as is.  Someone else will quilt it and then a third person will bind it.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

Duckworth bordered panel quilt

 My local guild passed out preprinted panels to anyone willing to make a quilt for the Linus connection out of it.

I took one and pulled fabrics from my stash to make 4.5" Modified log cabin blocks to use as a border.

Because of the panel proportions, I also pieced two coping strips to add to the panel before adding the border.

Because this quilt turned out so well, I arranged with the challenge coordinators to give it to a 90yo friend of mine - a former quilter who has given away all her quilts and and has become bedridden.

As a part of the arrangement, I agreed to take two more panels to finish and donate to Linus.  One is done but the other is still on the design wall.

I've posted this picture in a Facebook group and received over 400 Likes and 60 comments.   

Linus Quilts

     At .a quilting retreat in Stonewall two weeks ago, I put a binding on a quilt which is destined for one of my great-grand-newphes for his high school graduation.  When I got home, I labeled it and put it into the growing pile in my studio closet.

Next projects were to take panels given to me at the Linus Connection meeting and make quilt tops of them.  

 I finished one larger top, two for toddlers, and one for an infant.   The three smaller ones began as one piece of fabric, but I separated the motifs and featured each one in a quilt top. 

Retreat at Three Oaks, Yoakum, Tx

NOTE:   Whoops.   Just found this in my Draft folder.   I'll be going back this month!

 

I recently spent several days at Three Oaks Retreat Center in Yoakum, Texas. There were 11 of us there this time. Although the center is designed for 16 quilters, 11 was a good sized  agroup.  It's a  lovely place, with a decent sized workroom, four bedrooms, and a small but well stocked fabric store in the front. Best part of the trip was the Shop Hop on the day we left. Can you say SALE???? A traveling sewing machine repairman was there for several days, and several ladies took the opportunity to have there machines cleaned. He picked the machine up, took it to his trailer to clean and check up, and returned it a few hours later! So convenient! 

The group split up meal assignments and the food was very good. Of course, any meal that I don't have to prepare myself is a winner in my book. Cheryl's Pomgranite and Strawberry Margaritas were excellent. 

 I didn't take too many pictures, but will add some later. I bordered my yellow rose piece, made several of my Japanese-inspired blocks, and finished up a baby quilt for Linus.

Batik Linus Challenge and Mystery Class Combo

 My quilt guild in Pflugerville issued its weekly Linus Connection challenge and brought in boxes of batiks to choose from.   I nabbed some sweet blues.

Susan's Lifetime Learning class was just starting its Spring semester and the topic was Mystery Quilt.

So I decided to do a two-for-one.

The Mystery was harder than I had hoped, but I made some great blocks.   I only used six of them for the Linus challenge, so another quilt will be made later.

I really like the two-fabric binding.

Linus Challange

My small guild in my small town is a strong supporter of the Linus Connection, which furnishes quilts to local children in hospitals, shelters, and other situations where a quilt could be comforting. This Spring we were gifted withsome lovely new fabric in one-yard pieces. Kits were made up of three pieces anddistributed to members. The challange was to make a quilt with all three, addingin whatever was needed. The quilts will be shown in late May and members willvote on their favorite. This picture is of me showing my entry off to a defferent group of quilter friends. (I am currently a member of three local guilds.)

Linus Quilts

My local quilt guild donates to the Linus Connection.   

We make quilts for infants, children and teens.

This month there were kits for our Virtual Sew-In.   My friend picked up a kit for me and, although I didn't make it during the sew-in, I made the top shortly thereeafter.   The pattern is titles something like Boxed In, and it's very easy.   I was given the squares and the sashing.  A couple of the squares didn't make me smile, so I replaced them with ones from my collection.   

I looked through my yardage and didn't find one that worked well with these lovely subdued prints, so I plan to turn the top in as-is and let another member chose a back.   A number of members have longarms and will make quick work of the final step.  Well, final except for labeling and binding.   But many hands make light work.    

Earlier, a friend gave me a panel and challenged me to do a charity quilt with it.   I used a border technique from the Kathy Scamp book "Panels and Prints", but I cut the strata using my Dear Jane ruler, so the pieces were interchangeable.  It made for a fun and lively border. 

It was an easy project to do at a recent retreat - just the right mix of mindlessness.   And nice to have friend's opinions on color choices and how to resolve the end pieces of the border.  Because of course my panel wasn't exactly the size needed and a little adjustment was needed.

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I also had a Noah's Ark panel that was given to me.  

It was a good size for a baby quilt, so I added a small border.   Then for fun, I cut squares for an Abstract Noah's Ark for the back.

Quilts of Valor

Our quilt guild in Pflugerville honored WWII and Korean war veterans last year on Veterans Day by giving them quilts. There were only five attending. But it was a lovely ceremony and I enjoyed talking to several of them. I had made some star blocks for one of the quilts and it was nice to know that it was appreciated.

For the next year, we plan to honor Vietnam vets.

So I made this quilt and donated it. Sarah quilted it and it's ready to go.  The pattern was taken from a blog - MaryQuilts.com.

(This picture shows the completed top pinned to an existing quilt that is on my living room wall.  The vanilla-colored blocks are not part of this QoV.)













I enjoyed doing this so much that I made a set of brown and blue blocks and put them together for another QoV. This one was quilted by a fellow guild member, Sarah, as was the above rail fence quilt with stars.




This spring, the guild had a challenge and issued panels, to be made into Quilts of Valor.   Having just done several panel quilts for Christmas, I thought it would be fun.




For the Challenge, I took a flag panel.   I went through my stash and selected fabrics which played well with the panel and took the whole set to a retreat.   There, I found a border treatment I liked and computed how many units I needed.   I put all of it up on a design wall and figured out the size of the coping strips needed.  One area was too large, so I asked for help and Carolyn suggested a checkerboard.  That worked great.

My bee-sister Laura quilted this one gratis in gold thread with stars and wavy stripes.   Really looks good.

I've entered it into a local quilt show in September.  I put the sleeve on so that the field of stars is in the upper left.

At the next meeting, there were panels left over.  I took one with an eagle soaring over forest and mountains.  It was pretty dark, but I found a piece of grey that worked well and other supporting colors.   (I had bought this as part of a kit from a friend who was trying to lighten up her stash.)

Back to the design wall I went.   I made some Easy Braid again.   My friend Kitty came over one day while I worked on it.  She noted that the whole thing was pretty dark, so I looked in my batiks and found some very light cream and gray and gold strips that lightened things up a bit.  (the picture is a little lighter in person.)

Sarah quilted this one with stars.

This was so much fun I got another panel. 
I had no more of the dark gray, but had a lighter one that worked well.    Laura quilted this one with stars and circles, which echoed the backing.



These felt very good to make.  Can't wait until October, when we'll present them to VietNam veterans,

Pink Linus Quilt

 

I turned in three quilts to the Linus Connection yesterday.
This pink one was made from two Riley Blake salesman's samples that I got at the last month's meeting.  I only had to add one other fabric (a Moda) to cut enough squares.

My daughter bought the red fleece to back it with.

The binding is a pink diagonal stripe - I love stripes for binding.

         

The second quilt was made from three fat quarters that were a gift exchange item at Christmas, featuring cartoon mermaids.  I added two additional prints and backed it with leftovers.   Don't know why I didn't get a picture.

The third was actually just a top and a pieced backing in dark red, green, and brown.  This was made from leftovers from the kit from last month.

Linus Connection

Yesterday I went to my first Linus Connection meeting.  This is a gathering of people who create and donate quilts, blankets, and afghans to children who are  " in crisis situations in our area. The blankets go to children in hospital emergency rooms, in crisis centers, in foster care, battered women's shelters, to any child who is in need of a little extra security in their lives."

An amazing pile of blankets was collected.


 

I had taken a package of fabric a few months ago at a Pflugerville Quilt Guild meeting.   I made a top and turned it in with a backing for one of the longarm quilters to finish up. 
I don't know if it will be returned to me to be bound or if someone else will do it.

The colors were not my favorites, but they played together nicely.

I plan to attend and contribute regularly.  It seems like a good cause and a good group of people.

Baby Bundle Sew-In

On Monday night, the Guild finished up over 90 quilts for babies.  These are given to area agencies serving children in need.

It's been fun working with Gracie this year but I'll be glad when it's over and I get my guest room back.  It's been crowded with the supplies and fabrics for this project for the last year.

For more, see 
http://babybundlesaaqg.blogspot.com/

Big Blue

The HeartStringsQuiltProject is comprised of quilters who use string-piece methods and create countless charity quilts.  Recently, Cricket told of delivering quilts to the boys at a residential facility in Springfield, MA, and the frustration of not having quite enough quilts for the boys at a second facility.
I admire her generous actions and decided to join in.

Several years ago, I made a top that is made up of rows of traditional blocks with a few wonky ones mixed in.  For some reason, I used only blue fabrics.
Although the top was small, it was a good start.

I made a number of string pieced blocks for a border, using many of the same fabrics as are in the original panel. Originally, I planned to do two rows of them.  However, when the first batch went up on the design wall, I could see that they would overpower the center.  A pale border was added and one row of blocks was added in a zigzag pattern.  My math skills are no longer what they need to be for this kind of work, so a "fudge block" was added in the center of each side.

So here's Big Blue - ready to be packaged up and shipped out.
I'm really liking it and hope that some teenager in Massachusetts will, too.

Thanks to Cricket for inspiration.

Pick-up Sticks

Today I finished putting together a top for the Baby Bundle project that the Austin guild sponsors. I had seen the pattern in a magazine and just had to try it.
Then I got bored.
So I made a total of 20 blocks, put them together, and have donated them to be made into a baby quilt for one of the local health department programs.
Our guild does almost 400 quilts a year and I'm one of the coordinators.  Come July, I'll get my guest room back and can spend more time on making quilts and less time on organizing.

Baby Bundles Sew-In

Our guild, the Austin Area Quilt Guild, sponsors the creation and donation of baby quilts to three area charities Last week, about a dozen of us gathered to finish up some that had been donated as tops.

The Quilt Store, on Anderson Lane,
generously allows us to use their classroom for these "mini-sew-in"s.    Gracie, the Baby Bundles coordinator,  brought 26 quilts that were almost ready - they had been sandwiched, turned right side out, and edge stitched.  The members either quilted them or tied them, sewed on labels, and then added them to the stack to be delivered.

The next week, I took 20 quilts to Mom's Place, a breastfeeding clinic which is a part of  the Health Departments Women, Infants and Children's program.  The staff were excited to see me come in, happy to be able to give these quilts to newborns - tummy time in a bright quilt is a good thing.
Quilts are made by members using fabric from their own collection or from kits provided by the guild.  A small budget allows the coordinators to buy rolls of batting so that those who prefer to turn in tops can be assured that their quilt will be finished and donated.

Every quilt is different.  the one on the right uses Cars fabric.  Others are pink and sweet.  Others are a riot of multicolored fabrics.

It's a good feeling to contribute.  I urge you to consider joining in this project.