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February 18, 2023
Bountiful – 2023 Charity Quilt Along from Want It, Need It, Quilt It!

‘As we embark on our 10th Annual Charity Quilt, we continue to be amazed by the generosity of this sewing community and inspired by the stories of the children who have been granted life-changing Wishes.’ Fatquartershop The fundraiser works by offering the Bountiful patterns as FREE downloads during the event for a suggested donation to the Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas campaign. From March to August, Fat Quarter Shop will publish a new pattern on the first Friday of each month. Watch the introductory video here Block Releases and Videos Visit this page every month to get your Free block patterns ...

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January 3, 2023
Charity Finish and Tried a New Ruler from Alamosa Quilter

 I finished this quilt recently.

charity quilt finish

I used some scraps of older Kim Diehl fabrics and the Cats Cradle ruler from Creative Grids.

Cats cradle ruler
I tried several different layouts of the blocks and blank squares. I went with this one because I had enough fabric. Other layouts would have required me to dip deeper into my stash or buy more fabric. The only thing I had to use from my stash for this one was the inner border fabric and binding. The binding was actually leftovers from my binding bin. They are several different black fabrics but it is hard to tell ...

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December 15, 2022
Charity Finish from Alamosa Quilter

 I did a big clean out of my office at my shop last week. I threw out a bunch of junk and found a few treasures.

I found a one yard piece of convenience fabric (cheater cloth). I also found a scrap of batting that was the perfect size, left over backing fabric from a shop sample that was the perfect size and leftover binding fabric from my binding leftovers stash at home. So this project cost me nothing!

convenience fabric charity quilt

Not sure if I will just donate this to my local guild for them to do whatever they want with it ...

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September 19, 2022
Current Charity Quilt from The Quilt Yarn

Missed out on the To Do Tuesday post, but we had people over for a few days so I did not get much done. Will link up again later this week.

Made a start however on one of the charity quilts from the Orange Tree Quilters. Always a surprise...I don't open the packets of quilt, backing and wadding until I am ready to quilt them...always a surprise! This one is a Disappearing Four Patch quilt in green and purple tones. The blocks seem very old, so I ditched every single seam of this.

Then I did some ...

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September 7, 2022
Trying Out a New Ruler from Alamosa Quilter

 I recently came across a new-to-me ruler: Cat's Cradle Tool from Creative Grids.

original size Cat's cradle ruler
This is the original size and it makes units that finish from 1.5" to 4". There is a larger size too that makes units that finish from 4.5" to 8". I don't have the larger one yet, but I've ordered it!

large size Cat's Cradle ruler

What can you do with this tool you may wonder? Well, it makes these units.

unit made using the Cat's Cradle tool


I have always struggled with these units. I don't have the patience to cut triangles (which always have at least one bias edge) and sew ...

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May 23, 2022
The Positivity QAL 2022 - Sponsors and Prizes from Sew Preeti Quilts

I am thrilled to announce the generous sponsors for the Positivity 2022 Quilt Along to make Mercyful Quilts. There is a lot of information here, so you may want to bookmark this page.

If you are new to the Positivity QAL or have not heard of Mercyful Quilts, you may have some questions. Well, I have answers :-)

What is a Mercyful Quilt?
The Palliative Care Unit in the Mercy Hospital gives quilts to their terminally ill patients to bring some measure of comfort to the person and their family as they go through the difficult process of dying. The family ...

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March 25, 2022
Nine Patch Quilt :: A Finish from Alamosa Quilter

 My mom pieced the top of this quilt and sent it to me to finish and donate to charity.

nine patch charity quilt 1

For the back I used this adorable elephant fabric.

nine patch charity quilt backing

To quilt it I used a few different rulers.

nine patch charity quilt rulers used

In addition to the two above, I also used a straight ruler for stitching in the ditch. I stitched in the ditch around all of the blocks first. Then I used Elvira to quilt the nine patch blocks.

nine patch charity quilt Elvira quilting

The nine patches were made from 2 1/2" strips and Elvira is designed to quilt this pattern on 2" finished size pieces.

I used ...

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January 19, 2022
Quilt donation opportunity from The Crafty Quilter

Hello friends. You know how I like the idea of paying it forward. A quilt donation is a great opportunity to do that. Often the question is asked, where can I donate a quilt? Today I am honored to introduce you to a family that has come up with a plan to raise money for charity one quilt at a time.

The Arnold family created The Sandpiper Project, an online silent auction via Facebook to raise money for Make-A-Wish Oregon. After their daughter, Elizabeth (Liz), was declared cancer-free, the Arnolds were so full of gratitude that they wanted to find ...

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January 6, 2022
Another Charity Quilt from Alamosa Quilter

I completed the quilting on this before Christmas but just finished the binding. It would have been better to photograph it outside, but we finally got snow on New Year's Day and I didn't feel like putting on snow boots to go out in the back yard to take a picture.


Frivols Charity Quilt

This is another digital sample from 5 years ago that I just recently quilted. I used a ruler to stitch in what would be the ditch if it were pieced then did an all-over meander. This finished at about 54" by 54" and I will turn it ...

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December 20, 2021
Another Finish from Alamosa Quilter

 This is third quilt I quilted with my new Q20 sit-down machine. It is a digital sample (that is, the quilt is printed on the fabric, not pieced) that I got in my shop back in 2016 for some fabric I had in the shop at that time.

digital sample 1

I quilted it in what would be the ditch if it was pieced using a straight ruler. Then I added a bunch of free motion quilting to fill in.

detail of quilting

Normally I wouldn't add this much quilting to a charity quilt but I was really having fun playing with my new machine ...

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December 16, 2021
2021 2nd Saturday Sampler Version 3 :: A Finish from Alamosa Quilter

 This is the second quilt I quilted with my new Q20 sit-down machine. I used a ruler to quilt wavy lines across it.

2021 BOM version 3

quilting close-up

Yes, I probably could have done this design without a ruler, but I wanted to experiment with using a ruler on my new machine. Worked great! And the best part is that I can use my regular Bernina ruler foot (#72 foot) on my Q20.

For the back I found this fun print in my stash that complemented my color scheme on the front.

back of quilt

This quilt will be donated to my local hospital for the oncology department ...

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December 14, 2021
Charity Quilt Finish from Alamosa Quilter

 I have no idea when I pieced this top but it was well before I opened my shop in 2016.

squares charity quilt

This is the first quilt I quilted with my new Q20 sit-down machine. I fell head over heels in love with that machine on this project! 

squares charity quilt back

For the backing I found this very old print in my stash. I must have really loved it when I bought it because I have 5 or so yards of it! 

This quilt will be given to my local guild to donate to a local charity. It finished at about 40" by 50".



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December 9, 2021
Q20 Play from Alamosa Quilter

 I have been bonding with my new Q20 machine.

Q20 machine

I have quilted two charity quilts already with her but don't have pictures of those yet for you. Next time! The first one I just did a quick all-over meander to get used to the machine. The second one I quilted with a ruler that I have had for a while. I'll give details on that when I show you the finished quilt.

Right now I am working on a third charity quilt with her. I'm getting fancy with this one. It is an old digital sample that ...

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November 4, 2021
AGF Gift of Giving from Art Gallery Fabrics-The Creative Blog

IMG_1250 blog

Hi, Makers! 

 

The holidays are around the corner and it’s that time of the year where we makers really shine! Today, I would love to talk about something a little different, deeper than just sewing, and it’s about the wonderful gift of giving. What it really means to make something with your heart and hands and give them to the people you love and appreciate. Last year was a very difficult one, due to the pandemic affecting every one of us. Most of us couldn’t spend holidays at home with our families as some are sick and ...

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September 8, 2021
Working on Safelight Quilts from From My Carolina Home

Last week, I did some blocks for the Safelight quilts project that my guild’s local area is coordinating. I used a couple of pretty prints, so I could do blocks with florals and whites. Making a lot of half square triangles at once means allows the prints to be mixed between blocks.

I wanted to show the ladies what I had in mind. Here are the florals with white tone on tones.

One question asked is could white backgrounds with tiny prints be used. The answer is really no. As you can see in the quilt top below that ...

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March 22, 2021
FNSI/National Quilting Day Report from Wedding Dress Blue

Because life is life, I didn’t get to sew as much as I hoped for either the Friday Night Sew In (FNSI) or National Quilting Day.

At first, probably because, again, life is life, I couldn’t even settle in. I cleaned. I sorted. I moved fabric around.

Finally, I decided to choose backs for a few charity baby quilt tops recently finished.

Then I worked for a while on a new baby quilt project, also for charity.

And that was about it.

But, any sewing is better than no sewing, and my room is in better shape.

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March 9, 2021
Quilting the Bento Box Quilt from From My Carolina Home

This past week, I loaded up a charity quilt and began the quilting on it. My friend said to use whatever I wanted for thread color and pantograph pattern. Auditioning threads, I decided on a light golden taupe with a pantograph that has curves.

I showed this quilt on Sunday, and didn’t know the name of it. Thanks to reader Jannette who commented that is called Bento Box. You can find the pattern for it here – Bento Box.

The pantograph is called Halcyon by Willow Leaf Studios.

Rolled up for the next pass, all was going well.

Rolling and ...

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December 22, 2020
Scrappy Binding Attached from Wedding Dress Blue

These two little quilts were made by a different member of Sparkle Jane’s (Daughter) charity sewing group.

But, we did the binding, using our scrappy binding bundles.

Quick and easy, and pretty good looking.

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October 27, 2020
Sweet Scrappy Saturday from Wedding Dress Blue

Sparkle Jane (Daughter) has started a scrappy sewing group that meets at her shop once a month and makes items for donation.

The favorite project these days is the Welcome Home blocks (tutorial coming sometime soon) that are assembled to make large couch or twin sized quilts (60″ x 80″).

Sparkle Jane herself did the assembly work on my “new” Featherweight. It sews straight and true.

And in the end we had one completed top and only 6 blocks short of second. YAY! Next day scheduled for November 21.

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October 10, 2020
Caterpillar in My Curry from Sew Preeti Quilts

The fear of an unfinished object is real.  It is not that the UFO will physically attack me but the passive aggressive nature of the silent taunts can be pretty traumatic.

A new finish


Therefore the leftover strip sets from "Playing with Fire" had to be quickly repurposed.  



Repurposing Leftover Strips


Paul: Very Halloween
Me: I am calling it Caterpillar in my Curry
Paul: WHAT!!!
Me: If you can have a wasp in your hat then why can I not have a caterpillar in my curry?
Paul: You mean "a bee in your bonnet"?
Me: Yup, that's what I ...

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