hands 2 help - february bonus quilt

This is it, folks.  The last Hands 2 Help quilt for 2020.

That's not to say I won't be making more for 2021, but here's to hoping if I take on such a large number, I can actually keep up on them and not have 34000 to blog about at the end.  (Okay, I might be exaggerating some.)

This quilt was a second project in February.  The first one, the one that used 600 squares of fabric I had foolishly cut up for no good reason believing others that having my scraps precut was a good idea.

It was not.

(Sidenote: if you wanna cross out words in the new blogger format, click on the little "<>" symbol up there by the floppy disk/save button.  It will take you to HTML mode and you can get your code monkey on.  Before the text you want crossed out, type "<del>" (no quotes) and after the words use "</del>" and then click the little "<>" symbol again and you will have beautifully crossed out words.  You're welcome that now you do not have to google that.)

(Oh.  Apparently, you can also click on the vertical elipses at the end of the row of options to do stuff to your post and it is in there to cross out words.  Sheesh.  I mean, who the heck cares about the color of your font?  I need to cross out words!  Make that a more important option please!)

Moving on.  Because I have been cranky for like 6 days, I am going to move on and leave this be.

Anyways, I had this small bundle of fat quarters.  It may predate my marriage.  It has been here a while and I was like "what should I do with THAT?" for a long time.

Oh, the fabric.

Looks pretty right?  But the grey and that pukey yellow in the middle were really throwing me off.  And it wasn't enough to do whatever with.  So I just ignored it and let my excuses be enough.

But then one day I saw a pattern for a giant star quilt and thought it would be a great plan.  And I had JUST the right amount of fabric!

Or so I thought...some of these were a little skimpy on the 18" a fat quarter is supposed to be.  The other dimension could have been off as well, but since I needed an 18" square,  I didn't bother with that.

Also, fun markings were found on some pieces!

They are not as obvious in the photos as in real life, but believe me, they were there and they were NOT coming out.  The pink I could cut around.  The orange/yellow required some creative piecing.

Anyways, I ended up sewing and trimming the half square triangles to a uniform size.  No easy feat when your squares are about 17.5" and your cutting mat is only 18" wide.  But I got it done.  And with pieces this large, wiggle room is abundant.

A layout was eventually determined...

...and a top was constructed.

It went quite quickly.

Oh look, snow.  Man, we would have taken a bit of that last week.  Also power.  (We had 90+ degree days and then a crazy storm that ran through here in about two minutes bringing sideways rain at hurricane speeds (we are NOWHERE near a coast that could bring us a hurricane), followed by hail and then gentle rain followed by sunshine and cool breezes and 60-ish highs for a few days.  In the first seconds of the storm, our power went out.  And the wind was so fierce and the rain so pounding, I did not even hear the generator, right below the bedroom window where I was when it all hit, kick on.  Imagine standing 10 feet from a lawnmower and NOT HEARING it start up.  Yeah.  Nuts.)

Anyways, this went to the Rack of Shame for a bit.  I made the binding from remaining black, but at the time it hit the rack, nothing was getting quilted.  I was saving them all for a mad dash, obviously.

And then it got passed over a few times because I just couldn't figure out how to quilt it.  I would have liked to do some straight lines echoing the star points in the black, but it was a touch too wide for the longarm to do successfully with the ruler base on (that shortens my opening a few inches on either side) and I was just stumped.  But finally, I just put it on there and quilted it with swirl hooks.

At least I think that is what I did.

Let's see the finished photo - that will show more detail.

Yeah, I think that's it.

This was the last quilt to be done for Hands 2 Help 2020.  I hand-sewed down the binding while sitting on the porch a few weekends ago, during my front porch quilt show.  The black on black wasn't super easy to see, but I figure that means neither are my stitches!

The back?

This fun bubble print I found in the sale room at my local quilt shop.  Perfect to hide all my oopsies and whatnot.

And Friday, I packed up all 17 quilts, after each got a short stint in the dryer to remove cat hair and creases, and dropped them off to the Suitcase Angels group that will have them for foster kids.  Their grand re-opening (they were donated a building for forever recently and just finished all the repairs and renovations on it a few weeks ago) is tomorrow and I'm excited these will be there to help kick things off.

I can't believe they all fit in just those two boxes!  They're not exactly small boxes, but wow!

And I had plenty of help with that task.  Finn thinks the dryer is an alien spaceship of warmth and wants to get in it every time it is open.  And he goes boneless when you try to get him out.  So extra fun.  Also, he and Freddie inspected the boxes periodically to make sure the quilts were smooshed in properly.  I kept pulling them back out, but dang!  Silly beasties.

So I mentioned my power went out.  This will make you all giggle, I'm sure.  Here is the outage map for where I live.

That purple diamond represents a power outage.  Mine.  It's about a mile or so across.  That blue dot?  My house.  Smack dab in the middle.

But.

Though the "legend" on the map did not indicate it, that yellow area was also out of power.  I thought maybe they were just outlining areas for s***s and giggles, but a coworker who lives about where that "+/-" box is assured me he also had no power.  For like days.  Ours was out about 18 hours, but with the generator running the pump, fridge and a couple of outlets (sadly not the air conditioner, but since it dropped literally 20 degrees in 15 minutes before and during the storm, it was comfortable and then there were the cool, non-humid breezes following), I only had to complain about the generator noise.  Which, in the grand scheme of things, is not really worth complaint.

The funniest part?  I had JUST gotten home from dropping off baked goodies to a friend (she needed them), made it upstairs to change into sweatpants - literally straight from the car to the bedroom - and the storm hit.  Which explains why I was in the bedroom, but also shows how lucky I was to not only have finished the baking, but to have missed being out in the storm.  My barn cats came up with cobwebs on their whiskers at dinnertime.  They must have been hiding somewhere they hadn't been in a long time, but they are just fine.  Hungry as always.

And one more fun story.  And a few cat photos!

Every year, we have a cookout at my in-laws for Father's Day.  The kids all come and it is hot, so we bring squirt guns.  A few years ago, there was a kiddie pool also.  That worked VERY well to allow the kids to refill their own squirt guns so the adults could...well...adult...in the shade.  These pools are often abused the remainder of the year and a new one needs to be purchased.  This year, we had some at work, so I figured I would pick one up - my turn, I guess.

And a coworker teased me about it being a "kitty" pool (since the words sound very much alike) and informed me that cats do not like baths or swimming.  (How does he know?  He doesn't even like cats, vile creature that he is.)

But I put the pool down when I got inside the house and Finn flopped in it.  In fact, I picked it up from the entry and carried it *with Finn inside* into the living room.

You may notice he has a toy.  That was added 10 minutes later, once I had put away all the other things I dragged home that day.  He was still in there.

Then Freddie got curious.

He wasn't so sure about having his photo taken, so he tried to evade me.  Also, the photo is grainy because it was getting dark.

And then, a short while later, as I was sitting across the room reading, Gabby hopped in.

My first attempt to get closer and get a photo resulted in her running away.  So this one is SUPER grainy because I zoomed way in to keep her from detecting my trickery.  (And, as I stated in my last post, she will photo bomb anything, but does not want it to be MY choice that she is in a photo.)

My coworker got a good laugh out of this.  Maybe I am starting to convince him cats are not as awful as he thought?  (He also chuckled pretty good about a video I took of the Christmas tree being used as a cat pounce blind - after they had knocked it over and dragged into the middle of the room, of course - it is a small tree and we don't plug it in or decorate it for just this reason, so all is well.  But my mom can no longer complain that we "don't put up a tree"...)

Oh, one last thing.  I made some green things today:

I have a lot of colors of green, so these are quite varied.  But that's okay.  It's a scrap quilt.

Oh.  One more last thing.

I've heard a few folks make snide remarks about fabrics that are not from quilt shops being of inferior quality and how they shrink wonky when you wash them.

Well.

This came from a quilt shop.  It is "quilt shop quality" brand name fabric.

I washed it, pressed it and refolded it.

See how uneven that edge is?  (The white.)  I lost about an inch.  The other side is also wonky.  And this was cut straight - using a rotary cutter, straight off the bolt.

Now I'm not saying some stuff from non-quilt shops can't be bad.  But I'm asking that the shaming for purchasing elsewhere based on how it shrinks stop.  (Actually, I'd like us all to live in fabric harmony and not worry about where someone else buys their fabric.  I've seen some pretty flimsy stuff at actual quilt shops and some very nice stuff at Wal-Mart.)

And with that, I'm off to find something to eat for dinner and work up a good excuse for the hubby about why I did not clean the house today while he went fishing.

Happy quilting!

Katie

hands 2 help - the september quilt

Yeah, yeah, yeah...these are out of order.  Part of it has to do with the quilting order.  Part of it is my excitement to share them...

This quilt all started about a year ago when a former coworker contacted me about having a baby shower for another former coworker.  Sort of a last-minute deal as far as quilting is concerned, but those of you who know me, know I like a challenge!  Thus, Chelsie's baby quilt was born.

In the process of making the quilt, there were some "lost corners"...

.

...the lower block parts had grey corners sewn in and I was left with some pieces that I just couldn't justify tossing.

They sat on my cutting table for a while, trying to give me the stink eye from under the other things I piled on top of them.

Then one day, I sewed them together like this and just kept going.

But I was sewing so furiously, I managed to take no photos until I got to this point!

I made the setting triangles too large on purpose.  And good thing because I got over-ambitious and trimmed some things before I should have.  It all worked out in the end and I had a top!

I also pieced a back and made up binding and then it went to the Rack of Shame.  For quite a while.  Though it was small and would go fast, there it sat.

Until a few weeks ago.  I was using up batting and had mostly small pieces left (except the one king-size batt still smooshed in a bag in the closet) and decided it was time to do this one.

I have a 26" longarm, so you can judge for yourself how small this actually is.  It may end up a dolly quilt for the donation site, but that would be okay, too.  Dolls need comfort too, right?!

I struggled to decide what to quilt and a friend suggested some motifs that, while doable, seemed like they might require a little more finesse and control than I possess on something this small.  To elaborate my dilemma, I sent her this photo:

But she did suggest a dot-to-dot style of quilting in the blocks.  I'm not sure I did what she had in mind, but I rather like how it turned out.  (And am fairly proud of myself at how good I am becoming at hitting the points I aim for!)

All free-hand, thankyouverymuch.  Nothing marked.  At all.

The loops in the setting triangles?  Let's not talk about those okay?  Let's just say those were a learning experience...

And then it was done!  The binding took very little time, as it is small, so there you have one more quilt from the stack to be donated.  One more to go - blog-wise.

In other quilty news, this week Sasquatch got his turn on the longarm...

Squatchin' - quilty style!

This took forever.  I changed threads for each color, each pass.  It was easier for me than going back.  I prefer to do it that way and I had to break thread anyways.  Some may prefer another method, but this worked for me.

After I trimmed it, Finn started testing it right away.

From the look on his face, he is either VERY pleased with himself, or this is passing the test well.

He also helped earlier in the process...

This was NOT a good idea, so I made sure he was cleared out of there before resuming quilting.  He doesn't stay in one place for long (unless sleeping), so it was just a matter of waiting him out.

The binding has been sewn down - the machine side - and awaits me to sit down and sew the other half.  This is for my dad and when I bought the pattern in January, I thought it would be for Christmas.  But it is so close to done and his birthday is in early July...hmmm...

Before the binding on this one gets a turn, I worked on the macaroon quilt binding.  Gabby helped.

And then pretended to sleep.

She was not sleeping.  I have a hole in my thumb from her claws proving that.

I did get the binding finished.  This quilt still needs a label, but I am hoping that this one will begin the journey to its new home later this week.  I just have to get that darn label made.  (Why is that the hardest part always?!)

In addition to hand-sewing, I've been working on more paws.  This last batch I divided "blue" into actual blue and turquoise.  Both have their challenges in terms of my stash, so it seemed a good choice to split them.

Blues were first:

And finally today, I did the turquoise:

Gabby, queen of the photobomb, rushed in, flopped, rolled over and then, as soon as the camera was put away, took off again.  She does not want you to take her photo on purpose.  But she is ALL about making sure she is in there.  Or maybe she is censoring some of my fabrics?  Whatever the case, as soon as I put my phone up, she left, but made sure to stay close enough that if I tried to take another photo without her, she would be there to fix that.

And also last week, since things are opening up again, I was able to visit my local quilt shop and pick up some fabric.  The black and white will be sashing for the Christmas blocks I started in March.  And the funky grey with olive-looking-things will be a back for the Bird Seeds quilt I've been slowly plugging away at for eons.

I think I am out of batting right now, so the next quilt on the longarm will have to wait until I find time to get some.  But the quilts with deadlines are all done, so I am happy with that.  I do want to move on to some fun quilts for me, but I can wait a bit until the rush to shop in-person dies down a little.  I'm not afraid of the virus (a degree in microbiology keeps me sane there!), just not interested in dealing with the rush of people and the paranoia of said people.  (I see enough of it at work...)

I hope you are all healthy and safe.  This past week I have been thinking a lot about recent events and am saddened at the actions of some and worried about others, but mostly am hopeful that we all will come away from this with a heightened awareness about those around us and a desire to be better people.

Happy quilting!

Katie

hands 2 help donation summary

While some of these quilts have not had their own blog post (they all will eventually), the call for donations is drawing near.  Which also means the call to report what we've made has been announced.

I contacted the organization I plan to donate to this year just yesterday.  And while the gal in charge of Hands 2 Help has identified and vetted a few charities, I have a local one I decided I would quilt for over the past year.  Guardian Angels Suitcases 4 Kids is a group here in my town that collects donated items, everything from clothing to mattresses, that are given exclusively to foster children and their families.  It started out with the knowledge that children are taken from homes often with just the clothes on their backs.  The gal who started this wants to see each child have something to call their own as they are removed from whatever their situation is.  And it has grown from there.

She came to our quilt guild a few years ago and talked passionately about what she has created and the group has donated some quilts since then.  I decided to set a goal for myself of one per month since the donation date in May last year for my donation this year.  For those of you following along, you've seen my progress and may have guessed I made it.  And then some.

I made a collage of the 17 quilt - yes 17 - I will be donating soon.

They range in size from small baby quilt to probably close to 70" square.  Those that have been blogged should have the tag "h2h2020" at the bottom of the post (as this one will), so you can click on that to bring up all the posts.

When I contacted the gal in charge yesterday, I knew they were in the process of moving to a new, permanent, donated home.  (The charity, not their family!)  And with the virus panic still very present in the minds of many, I wasn't sure when she might be able to take them.  She assured me that in a week or so, when the move is finished, the quilts are welcome!  I'm so glad, but was also willing to hold onto these for a bit until the time was right.

But when I counted, I realized I had about four more than I thought!  I'm pretty excited to see these go to new homes, even if I will probably never know who got them.  (And a couple I'm sad to see go - I love them a lot - but I know I can't keep them all, so instead I can brighten the day of a child that needs it far more than me.)

What else have I been up to?

Well, a squirrel visited.  And my friend Colette and I decided we needed to chase the squirrel together.  It started out small...

And then a few more...

And then there were 15!  (I mathed and decided I wanted 100 blocks.  These will assemble into a Bear's Paw configuration of 25 blocks.  And if I make 15 of each color, I will have a few extras, but it will be okay because I can scatter them a little better maybe...or just have a few extras for something else.)

And then purple happened!

Gabby helped.  She then took a nap.  Right there.

(But last night, as she was demanding pets and snuggles and I was trying to read, it hit me that pretty much no one has actually seen her.  Like, as in visitors to my house.  She hides from everyone but the hubby and I (and even us sometimes), but has such a big presence on my blog and Instagram.  It's sad she has such a big personality, but hides it from almost everyone.)

But apparently last night, I wasn't paying enough attention and sewed the lost corner to the wrong corner.  And trimmed it before I realized what I had done.  Oh well.

I also put the macaroon quilt on the longarm and got it quilted last week.

I did a simple ribbon meander, but haven't taken a photo yet.  The binding awaits me hand-sewing it down, but I have had a few other things happening (chasing squirrels, work...) lately.  I will get to it soon and send it on its way as soon as I can.  I thought her birthday was the middle of June, so that was my target.  Turns out her birthday was the middle of May.  Oh well.

And now it's time to go run a few errands and then get the afternoon chores done.  (They could be morning chores, but the hubby claims he is allergic to the vacuum and no matter how hard I try, he always needs the bathroom 15 seconds after I put the toilet cleaner in the bowl...just easier to do it after he leaves for his second shift job!)

And THEN maybe I can work on the blue/turquoise parts for my squirrel?  After I bake some cookies to take to work, of course!

Happy quilting!

Katie

hands 2 help - february quilt

Another week has passed (really? sheesh, they're going by fast!), so that means it is time for another quilt reveal!  This one is the Hands 2 Help quilt I made in February...and quilted a few weeks ago...

It started out as a random idea that popped into my head.  I had seen single-color versions of this block, but thought it might be fun to do with my stash of 2.5" squares.  I had a lot.

I blogged about the early parts of the process in early February, but since this is a final post, I'll recap some of that here...

I placed squares on my 12.5" ruler for easy transport between my cutting table and sewing machine...

...and the white square will be a star center, so I knew which squares to make into star points.

Of course I had help.

(She looks about ready to roll her eyes at me, doesn't she?!)

The first block came together nicely, though I did have to make an effort to make sure I knew which row I was adding squares to so they came from the right location.  It took a little more focus than some quilt blocks, but it wasn't all that hard.

I decided to move the star around in each block.  Rotating the blocks would put the star in the same position in some blocks, but I wanted to be sure I had a good variety at least.  So each block I made, I moved the star one spot.

Slowly blocks came together.  I put them on the floor individually to help me remember where the next star should go.  Of course, this attracted attention.

It was a sunny day, but for February, I am not going to complain about that.  Freddie, obviously, was also pleased.

Keep sewing!

Gabby also wanted in on the design floor action.  She seems much more pleased with this situation than the cutting table arrangement.  Probably because I wasn't making her move and was working around her instead?

And keep sewing!

I feel like there was a bit of maniacal sewing going on, as these were finished in a rather short period of time, but sometimes you just get the flow going and it happens quickly.

My stash of squares did well.  This represents 600 squares and only at the very end did I have to raid another stash of odds and ends to get a few pink squares to keep the blocks from having any duplicates within them.  And that stash is much depleted.  Yay!

Next up was a decision about a layout.  I wanted to make sure the stars were fairly evenly spaced and there were no glaring fabrics next to each other.  Sashing and cornerstones were planned, but I still felt I had a large enough variety of fabrics in here, I could make some effort.

Okay, this looks good.

This also served as help to make sure I did want sashing.  I went back and forth a bit, but decided it looked better with it.  There is a lot going on here!

But at this point, I wondered about that decision.  Maybe it was too broken up?  But I was NOT going to undo all that sewing.

The red cornerstones were all the same fabric - I had quite a few of those and they did get used in quite a few blocks, but since I still had a lot, I trimmed a few down for inner cornerstones and used full-size ones for the outer variety.

And this is where it sat for a few months.  I knew I needed to get it done, but it just sat there.

I even went so far as to find something for binding and get that made!

The quilt doesn't have much purple, so why not add a pop in the binding!

Finally, I stopped dragging my feet and this one got its turn on the longarm a few weeks back.  (Remember, I'm catching up!)

After some talk back and forth with a friend, I ended up deciding to do swirls over the whole thing.  The top is busy enough, whatever I did was going to get lost.  And swirls go fast for me.  They take a fair amount of thread, but that's okay.  My thread collection isn't getting any younger and I know it becomes more brittle as it ages, so I might as well use a little extra and get this done, too.

I took no photos in-progress.  It went well and I was in a zone.  The binding went on and then I hand-sewed it down in the following days.  (And since summer just arrived yesterday - all of a sudden - it wasn't all bad to sit under this and work on the binding!)

And then it was done!

What's on the back?  One of the purchases from my local quilt shop trip!

(Blowing in the wind a bit - it was a windy day on photo day, but this is okay as an action shot.  Not so much for the front if you really want to see it!)

The quilt measures about 60"x60".

In other quilty news, I promised photos of the front porch quilt show.  Since the hubby was helping set it up and is not one to stop and take progress photos, I have the before-we-hung-quilts-from-trees shot and after-we-hung-quilts-from-trees shot.  Since they are much the same, I'll share the after.

You can click on it to enlarge it some.  All the quilts hanging have been blogged about and all are quilts I really love.  They are mine.  They are not going anywhere.  What are they?

Left to right (including trees):

Supernova

Cats (rainbow scrap challenge 2017 - never actually blogged about this one individually...oops!)

Twirly (pantone challenge 2019 - living coral)

Sheeps

Blue Squirrel

Heart Stars (project quilting challenge bigger than a breadbox)

Modern Mini (Wisconsin quilt show mini challenge)

the Book Quilt (summer book club pattern quilt along 2019)

X and Plus

Most of them are fairly recent finishes.  Some are entirely from scraps.  Others are entirely from something I purchased just for them.  Some are a mix of the two.

I had about a half dozen quilty friends stop by.  They all stayed and visited a bit, but of course we kept our distance.  My parents came down, too, and we had a picnic lunch on the porch for a while as well.

Each of the two mornings, we started off cool and calm.  As the day wore on, the wind picked up.  Sunday the quilts were blowing down earlier than today (Monday), but both days we had to pick up a few.  And only the two quilts to the very right took off without permission off the porch.  They only made it to the ground next to the porch, so it wasn't anything too terrible.  And since the books quilt and mini are the only two that haven't actually been washed (and the books quilt only because it never made it to the top of the pile to get used since it was completed!), I wasn't worried.  The cats quilt took a dive and knocked over a drink and then must have felt bad because it fell into the puddle it made and sopped it right up.  No problem.  It will wash.  (But I think there was a collective holding of breath from everyone but me when they saw what happened!)

So it wasn't a complete bust.  The weather has been beautiful.  Wonderful to sit on the porch and read or bind that last charity quilt between friend visits.  (I'll blog about that one another day.)  And even the hubby wasn't too grumbly about the whole thing.  (Perhaps the beer I picked up for him was key?!)

But there is a lack of new kitty photos.  So here is one of Finn.  Watching birds.  Obviously.

Gabby walks the rails.  Freddie uses the table as a launchpad to higher things (that he should not be on).  Finn is just a big goonie with absolutely no finesse.  This is absolutely right for him.  (And yes, there is a curtain missing on the end.  I should probably just take them all down, for all the good they do.)

Time to go make the hubby some dinner.  We're both enjoying the last two days off together, but tomorrow the work week starts again.  His is shorter for having taken a few days off.  Mine is the usual - 3 shifts - but he will be happy to fill that time without me on one of his two boats, I'm sure.

Happy quilting!

Wash your hands!

Katie