My quilty guilt - quilt blocks for charity quilts

 OK, I have to get something off of my chest.  Back in November 2012, I was inspired to make quilts for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  I asked if folks who read my blog wanted to help, and boy oh boy, what a response! Hundreds and hundreds of quilt blocks poured in from around the globe for months and we ended up donating more than 50 quilts.  And then I ran out of steam.  I eventually forgave myself for giving up - we all have our limits - but the problem was that I still had donated quilt blocks left.  What to do with those?  People donated them with the understanding that they would be made into quilts to give to those in need.  I tucked them away while I pondered what to do with them...

And then I came across them again while looking for the Block Lotto blocks that I gave away in the Quilty Orphan Adoption event last week.  I feel so guilty that they never became quilts to comfort those who were going through rough times.

But then I thought of all of you who threw your name in the hat for the Block Lotto blocks and all the charity sewing you do, and thought, hey, maybe I should offer the blocks to some of you doing charity work so that YOU can sew them into quilts to give to those in need.  That way, they'll be used in the spirit in which they were given.  Are you game?  

If you want a set or two (or three, or more) of blocks to make quilts for charity in the US, let me know below.  I'm trying to do some clearing out this week before school starts back again on Monday, so let me know in a comment 1) which set(s) of blocks you are interested in - don't be shy, if you are interested in all of them, just say so, I want them to go to someone! and 2) which charity you would be sewing for.  (if you are a no-reply blogger, please include an email address so I can contact you).  If more than one person is interested in a set, I'll let Random Number Generator decide who gets each set on Friday morning with the goal of all sets hopefully being mailed out by Saturday at the latest.  I am happy to mail multiple sets to each interested person.  Maybe then I can absolve myself of the lingering guilt over these unused blocks!

(Please know that with very few exceptions, I did not make these blocks so I cannot attest to their workmanship or fiber content.  I can tell you that they have been in a smoke-free, dog-friendly home these past nine years.  Please also know that I am not going to press the blocks before mailing - that is A LOT of pressing!  And I'm only willing to mail to the US as this will add up to quite a bit of postage as it is.)

Set A: Eighteen 12.5" solid sampler blocks

Set B: Thirteen 12.5" Black and White Sampler Blocks

Set C: Ten 12.5" Autumn Sampler Blocks

Set D: Thirteen 10" x 11.5" Pastel Stack & Whack Style Star Blocks

Set E: Six 13" Scrappy Orange, Blue and White Blocks (actually found these in a box of scraps I received this year)

Set F: Six 12.5" Green & White (& Pink) Star Sampler Blocks (not donated, but made by me as I was playing with ideas for a class I taught at my shop years ago)

Set G: Eight 12.5" Sampler Blocks that all include the same multicolor leafy print (not donated, but blocks I won as part of a challenge my guild had many years ago)

Set H: Nineteen 6.5" x 8" Green, Yellow & Beige Delectable Mountains Blocks

Set I: Sixteen Identical 8" Two-Fabric 16-Patch Blocks

Set J: Ten 9.5" Scrappy Nine-Patches

Set K: Forty 4.5" Scrappy Blocks (22 of the Green & Cream, 18 of the ones with black corners)

Set L: Fourteen 12.5" Scrappy Nine-Patches

Set M: The Motherlode!!  One Hundred & Two 12.5" Disappearing Nine-Patches (NOT all the same size or cut the same - this was the block I chose for the Hurricane Sandy Quilts I made and these are the leftover blocks after making dozens of quilts from these blocks)

Let's cover some folks with some quilty love, shall we?

It's been five years...quilt blocks up for adoption

 Edited 3/23: The Random Number Generator chose #1, so I have emailed the first commenter for a mailing address.

I used to participate in the now-defunct Block Lotto, and loved making new blocks every month.  I even won once or twice!  Five years ago I won some blue and purple Birds In The Air blocks, but never got around to putting them together.  Probably because blues and purples just don't inspire me (I'm an autumn).  Anyway, it is time to let them go.  

These are just up on my design wall, not sewn together

These are the nine blocks I made - the rest came from other quilters

Leave a comment if you are interested in adopting these 50 6-inch blocks.  If more than one person expresses an interest by noon EST on Monday, March 22, then I will choose a winner by Random Number Generator.  I will ship to US and Canada.  Please include your email address if you are a no-reply blogger.  

I am linking up with Cynthia's Quilty Orphan Adoption Event.

Yours for the taking - Quilty Adoption Event

I've been participating in this event for years now.  What a great feeling to free up some of my creative space while giving someone else a head start on a new project!  Thanks, Cynthia, for hosting!

My offerings this time around are pretty small - plentiful, but small.  As in, if you don't like tiny piecing, these probably won't appeal to you.  And while they won't free up a whole lot of physical space for me, I will feel so much better if they get put to use somewhere.  The only restriction on who can win is that I will only ship to the US and Canada (sorry, friends across the pond and elsewhere!).  Leave a comment letting me know which entry(ies) you want and I will pull the names of winners on Sunday, March 22 with a random number generator if more than one person is interested in any given offering.

A. First off, we have the 52 extra 2.5" scrappy yellow and neutral 4 patches left over from my Good Fortune (2018 Bonnie Hunter Mystery) Quilt.  Eight of them have been sewn into 16-patches, but they can be disassembled...

B.  And then there are the 115 1.5" gray and scrappy bonus triangles that I cut off (and sewed) from a baby quilt I made in 2013.

C. You're going to see a theme here...more bonus triangles!  I really hate throwing anything away, and I love tiny piecing!  I just never seem to get around to using my bonus triangles!  Here are 42 1.5" patriotic HST in a blue with white stars and a flag fabric left over from a quilt that I had my students make in a summer camp quilting class sometime between 2013 and 2016 (hmmm...can't find a photo).

D. Surprise!  More bonus triangles!  These 118 scrappy red, white and blue HST trim down to 1.5", and come from a RWB star quilt that I never finished.  (which reminds me, I should pull that out and work on it!  I started it in 2015.)

E. In 2016 I had customers who came into my shop sew blocks for a community quilt, Arkansas Crossroads, which then was raffled off to raise money for a local charity.  These 146 white (Kona) and scrappy 1.5" HST are left over from that project.

F. And finally, some more bonus triangles, but these trim to a whopping 2"!  These 52 white and solids HST are left over from some Block Lotto blocks I made in 2012.  Time to let them go, right?

Won't you please give these little fellas a home?  Maybe there is a mini quilt or a doll quilt in your future.  Or maybe these can make a pieced border for something.  Or perhaps they can make pinwheels to form the center of other blocks.  Lots of possibilities here!

Check out other adoptees at Cynthia's blog.

UFOs: FREE to a good home!!

Edited 9/18: Drawing is now closed - winners listed below and contacted via email.  Winners chosen with Random Number Generator.  Thanks for playing along!

I've participated in Cynthia's Quilty Adoption Event twice a year for a couple years now, so you'd think I'd have cleared out all of my UFOs.  WRONG!  Even though I moved this summer AND last summer, I STILL came across UFOs that I didn't even remember having!

The following 7 (seven!!) UFOs are up for grabs.  Let me know in a comment any and all projects that you'd be interested in winning, and if there is more than one taker out there by Tuesday evening (9/18), and I will randomly choose recipients.  My goal is to get these all out of the sewing room by the end of next week.  There are no restrictions on how you use the blocks - make something for yourself, for a family member, for a charity, to sell - it doesn't matter to me.  I will ship at my expense anywhere in the US and CANADA.

Ready?

A.  WESTERING WOMEN Congratulations, Rebecca! Please send me your address so I can mail your package.  There is no email address attached to your profile.  If I don't hear from you by Saturday, I will draw a new winner.

In 2016, I participated in Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM.  I loved making the blocks and reading her posts, but I'm not really a fan of sampler quilts, so I doubt I'll ever make the last three blocks and put it together.  Will you?  I tried to use repro fabrics, and in addition to the nine 12.5" (unfinished size) blocks I made, I will send what I have left of the fabrics I used in the blocks, in case you want to go ahead and make the last three blocks.  Some are just scraps, others are as big as a quarter yard or more.

B. DOTTY Congratulations, Patricia!  Package mailed!

I love polka dots, and I love black as a contrast color.  But I can't for the life of me figure out where I was going with this project.  Half the 9" (unfinished size) blocks are a square in a square, while the other half are a type of sunburst.  The polka dot fabric is all Love by Amy Butler.  The black is likely a Kona solid, but I can't guarantee that.  There are still three uncut fat quarters of polka dot and two 10"xWOF pieces of black along with the leftover bits of the fabrics I already cut (basically 7.5"x21" each).

C.  JASON Congratulations, Louise! Package mailed!

Do you know a Jason?  I began a quilt for my son, Jason, back when we were taking karate.  The quilt was going to feature the colors of the belt up to black belt.  However, after receiving our black belts, we stopped taking karate, so this project screeched to a halt.  There is a 56"xWOF piece of the black solid, nine 8" (unfinished size) wonky stars in a rainbow of colors, and some various sized scraps of the rainbow solids (but no white or blue).  There are two pieced border strips and a free-pieced wonky JASON.  I can't even remember what this quilt was supposed to look like.

D. I SPY Congratulations, Crystal! Package mailed!

This was one of my first UFOs from before my second son (who is now 13) was even born, I think.  Which means my piecing is probably of questionable quality.  There are twenty-eight 6" (unfinished size) snowball blocks, twenty-two additional 6" squares of novelty fabric, and an 8"x72" piece of WOW background fabric.  The novelty fabric is everything from vehicles to frogs to aliens to ice cream, etc.

E.  STARS Congratulations, Linda! Package mailed!

I taught a class on these star blocks, but I doubt I'm going to make more.  They are 12.5" (unfinished size), and there are just 4 of them.

F. QUILT SAYINGS Congratulations, Cheryl! Package mailed!

I had completely forgotten about the block lotto in my guild over a decade ago when I won these blocks.  I don't even know which block I made!!  (although I think I made the wonky star - very much my style)  Each block is 12.5" (unfinished size) and includes a quilty saying.  I've included a couple close ups of the sayings for you.

G.  MEDALLION Congratulations, Sharon!  Please send me your address so I can mail your package.  There is no email address attached to your profile.  If I don't hear from you by Saturday, I will draw a new winner.

This was the beginnings of my first attempt to make a quilt for my mom, well over a decade ago.  I liked the idea of a medallion, but I just couldn't pull it together.  The center piece is about 42" square, and there is an extra 4.5" (unfinished size) flower block and an aborted pieced corner piece.  There are two 25"xWOF pieces of the background fabric.

Thanks for helping me out.  I've been on a major de-stash kick lately, and this, along with the fabric and yarn I've been steadily adding to my ETSY shop, is helping me to stay organized, focus and FINISH!

I'm linking up with Cynthia's Quilty Adoption Event.  Check it out to see if there are other items out there that you'd like.

Orphan 9-patches

Well, basketball season is officially over for my family.

My youngest and me at the game, wearing our pom poms on our heads.

My husband's team lost in the semifinals yesterday (by TWO HEARTBREAKING POINTS!!!), so all of a sudden, I have a little more free time.   Time to visit my sewing room that I haven't set foot in for quite some time.  I did a little tidying up, and then unpacked a bag of scraps that someone had recently given me.

Lo and behold!  What's this?

There were nine 9-patch orphan blocks in the bag, too!  I could have thrown them into my orphan block drawer, but chose instead to throw them up on the design wall and play around with them a bit.  Add some snowball blocks and some setting triangles from other fabrics that I found in the bag, and I may have the beginnings of little quilt here.  It's busy, but it reminds me of the old-timey scrap quilts that I love.  Hopefully some big, dark borders will calm it down some.

It isn't sewn together yet.  Gotta let this marinate, not sure I'm committed to this.

As a leader and ender while making the snowball blocks, I sewed together a couple more Charming Plus Blocks.  Still not sure what I'm going to do with these, but I love seeing each one come together.

Play time is over, though.  Work calls; I have many college admissions files to read before March 1.  Meanwhile, I'm linking up with Oh, Scrap and Monday Making.

I DID IT!!! (and I'll be happy to never do it again)

I've enjoyed participating in Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM.  Well mostly, anyway.  There have been two months so far where the block included set-in seams, so I've skipped those months.  I'm a wimp, I know.

But in light of my recent victory over my fear of machine quilting, I decided to suck it up yet again and give those Y seams a try.  First stop, March's block, Sweet Gum Leaf.  Lord have mercy, that block nearly killed me!  I labored over it all day long! (well, in between helping customers and restocking yarns and paying bills and all the rest that goes on during the course of a day in my shop)  But still, just one block to show for my day!

It isn't perfect, but it is done.  I can safely say I'll never make an entire quilt out of that block.  At least not without redrafting it to include all HSTs instead of those blasted parallelograms!  And even though I typically do needle turn appliqué, I sewed that stem on by machine just to be done with it!  Tomorrow, I'll give the other block I skipped a try, August's Chimney Rock.  You can bet the farm that I'll be doing the version WITHOUT set-in seams!

In other news, I shipped out 4 of the projects that I adopted out for the Quilty Adoption Event last weekend.  Congratulations to:

• "Miaismine" for winning the Tropical Fish project
• Christina P for winning the Snails Trails project
• Kelly O for winning the Christmas Stars project
• Jackie for winning the Flannel 9 Patches project

I've emailed Anonymous at valekort at yahoo dot com as the winner of the Scrappy Spools project, but haven't heard back.  If I don't hear back by the beginning of next week, I'll choose a new winner.  Thank you to all of you who volunteered to take some of these projects off my hands.

Since I've divested myself of 10 projects in the last 6 months, I couldn't help but throw my name in the hat to adopt someone else's orphans.  I scored these pieced setting triangles.

Photo credit: http://quiltyfolk.blogspot.com/2016/09/quilty-orphans-up-for-grabs.html

Woo hoo!  I love the idea of pieced setting triangles, but doubt I'd ever take the time to make them.  Now I don't have to!  I do have to come up with a project to set them with, though, and the prospect of that just excites me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!  Tomorrow is my 45th birthday, so I'm having a 45% off sale at my shop, you know, to ensure that I won't be sitting there sad and lonely at work on my special day.  Last year it was a blast, people there all day long.  Hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

New Life For Old Blocks

Participating in the Quilty Orphan Adoption Event made me dig around in my orphan block drawer.  It's a big drawer, and there are A LOT of blocks in there.  I found a set of twelve 6.5" string blocks.  Alone, they weren't enough to make a quilt, but if I made them into HST blocks, I'd have 24 blocks, which, with a border or two, IS enough to make a small quilt.  That was my mission for today - to turn those sad little string orphans into a quilt.

Piecing went quite quickly, and I added a white inner border,

but then spent a ridiculous amount of time auditioning outer border fabrics.

No one fabric seemed right to me, and then it hit me - a pieced border!  I have all those precut scraps, so I pulled out the 3.5" bin and set about piecing a border.  I love it!  The chevrons remind me of Charlie Brown, so that's what I'm calling this one, the Charlie Brown Quilt.  It measures 34" x 45".

While working on the Charlie Brown Quilt, I pulled out more orphan blocks and set about sewing them together as my Leader & Enders project.  One of my goals this year was to make an orphan block quilt to replace the one I made years ago and used to keep in the car for road trips and sleepovers and visits to the drive-in theater.  Somehow, that quilt disappeared and I miss it, so today I started on its replacement.  What fun to sew orphans and scraps into chunks!  I've made 8 so far, all somewhere between 9.5" and 16.5" square.  This will be one riot of a quilt!

My favorite.  These dresden plate blades are left over from a quilt I made for my sister nearly a decade ago!

I really like this chunk, too!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap! and Monday Making.

Quilty Adoption Event - 5 projects up for adoption

Edited 9/21/16 - this event is now closed.

Honestly, getting these projects out of my sewing room isn't going to free up a lot of physical space in my room, but it will free up some mental space - I'll feel better knowing that someone else is will work on these projects rather than just let them linger in a cabinet like I have.

I have no requirements for adoption - make it for yourself, as a gift, for charity, whatever.  I will ask that you send a photo of your finished project if you think of it; it does my heart good to see what has become of my orphans.  In fact, here is a  link for one my orphans from the spring that was beautifully transformed into a charity quilt by Lisa.

For this event, I have 5 projects, A thru E.  Let me know in the comments which orphan you would like to adopt.  If you'd like more than one, that's fine, list all that you'd like.  I'll keep this open until Wednesday, September 21, 6 PM EST.  I'll do a drawing if more than one person is interested in an orphan, and I'll ship them out to the winners at my expense, hopefully no later than September 24.  I am located in the US, and will only ship within the US - so sorry, international friends!

Be sure to check out the other items up for adoption at the link up on Cynthia's blog.  Ready?  OK, here goes:

A. TROPICAL FISH by Cindi Edgerton paper pieced mini
I was visiting my mother-in-law many years ago and didn't have any stitching with me, so I walked over to her local quilt shop and picked up this pattern.  I made those first 4 fish by hand, and decided, not only do I not enjoy paper piecing, I also don't enjoy hand piecing.  Back into the tiny package it went.  Whoever adopts this project will get 4.25 pieced fish, and unused foundations for 25 more tiny fish.

B. SCRAP HAPPY SPOOLS by Cindi Edgerton paper pieced mini
If you read my comments about the fish project, you know I have no patience for this spools project.  I inherited this from somebody, complete with precut batik scraps.  It looks like only 2 of the tiny blocks have been attempted, but I didn't really inventory the whole thing.  I know there are more than enough unused paper foundations to make the pattern and there seems to be enough fabric, too.  Any batik loving paper piecing mini makers out there?

C. SNAILS TRAILS PLACEMATS muslin foundation pieces and pattern
Uh, how did I end up with so many foundation piecing patterns?  Not my cup of tea.  This orphan consists of 24 stamped muslin foundations for Snails Trails blocks that finish at 5.75".  The accompanying pattern tells you how to make 4 placemats with the blocks, but you could just as easily make a small quilt.

D. CHRISTMAS STARS mini quilt
Here's another one for you mini makers out there.  I'm not sure how this made it into my possession, but this was started as a hand pieced mini quilt.  3 stars are already pieced, another one is partially pieced.  The seam allowances are already marked for any of you who do hand piecing, but you could just as easily finish this one on a machine.  There is an accompanying photo, but there is also a note on the photo saying "not exactly like photo."  I'm guessing she was planning on using setting squares between the stars, rather than the sashing in the photo.  Any takers?

E. FLANNEL 9-PATCH
OK, this one was mine, but I'll be honest, I have NO IDEA where I was going with this.  There are four 9.5" double 9-patches, eight 3.5" 4-patches, ten 3.5" colorful squares, seven 3.5" white squares, twelve 3.5" x 9.5" white rectangles and eight 3.5" x 12.5" rectangles.

Please don't let these orphans languish in my cabinet.  Won't you take one home with you?