It's the Shamrock!

I did not take time to color correct these pictures - the backgrounds are mostly white, but everything looks pink. Sorry about that. As I've written before, my local quilt guild (The Preston Piecers) have a block drawing each month. We're working on seasonal blocks this year, and if you commit to this group, everyone makes a specific block in colors of choice, and bring the signed block to the monthly meeting. Then a name is drawn from the group, and that person gets all of the blocks. There are about 17 participating, so you should end up with 17 blocks - eventually. I received the shamrock blocks this month, and haven't the slightest idea what to do with them. You can all help me by making constructive suggestions. (Non-constructive not appreciated.) Again, imagine most of the backgrounds as white, except for one that is yellow. And one that is green.........If I were Irish, this would be more appropriate, right?

Friendship Quilt Blocks

Some of the members of my local quilt guild decided to make a Friendship quilt exchange. There are many ways to do this, but this is what we are doing. The quilt coordinator gives us a new block to make for each month. The mitten block below was for January. If we each make two blocks, then we have one to keep and one to give away. Then a drawing is held of those who committed to make blocks, and one person wins all of the blocks. That person can not win again, but is committed to make all of the blocks remaining. Since we all sew just a little different, there is a slight challenge of putting the quilt together, but it would be fun to get a lot of blocks that you could put into a small quilt. Whoever wins the February block, appropriately a heart, will have a nice little baby quilt. However, several of us found that block to be a little off in the cutting instructions, so we all made interesting modifications to the pattern. (The first one I sewed was more perfect than this one, but because I followed the original instructions carefully, I lost the bottom point on the star. Oh, well, better finished than perfect, as a famous quilter once said.

Quilt from a Jelly Roll

This is a hurry-up quilt made for a dear friend who underwent a mastectomy last Monday morning. Finding out you have cancer has to require a difficult adjustment, but the move to positive outcome is very important. I had a jelly roll (for the uninitiated, that is a roll of fabrics cut to 2-1/2" . You can make many different kids of quilts out of them, but the easiest is to miter the adjoining strips, vary them a little bit, and sew them together. I really did a hurry-up job, but hopefully, the quilt police will look at my motives and forgive me. The quilting was simple - I did curves in every other row, hoping that would hold everything together. And I free-handed feathers in the border. Some were great, some were so-so, and some very sub-par, but the important thing is, the quilt was made with love, and is backed with soft flannel so that it will be cozy for the next few months. (The binding was really slap-dash. I sewed the first seam on the back, turned it over to the front, added steam-a-seam tape underneath, fused it, and sewed it down with a decorative stitch. I finally caught on to the technique by the third side, but I'll never do it again that way.) My friend was very happy to get her quilt.