Pink Blocks, Stay at Home RR, and Some Finishes

I’ve been continuing to finish up some of my “well-aged” quilt tops into quilts. When I say that they’re mine, what I really mean is that they were sent to me as tops to add backing and batting, and then to quilt and bind. I then get to donate them to my favorite charity, Quilts for Kids. The tops were actually made by a group of ladies in Cresco, Iowa and sent to me by Jo Kramer of Jo’s Country Junction blog. This week, I finished up three more. 

This first one is a “gorilla superhero” themed little number. It really is rather cute in person. 

The backing is bits of an old wide backing and a red strip  to add width. It was quilted with a basic stipple. 

Next up was another Happy Block top that was quilted in loops (stipple and loops, my two go-to motifs for quilting charity quilts because they’re easy and fast). 

The backing was cobbled together from semi-harmonious chunks in my stash. I’m trying hard to make do and destash at the same time. 

The third finish was this bright little number. Again, it was quilted in a stipple. The thread I was using on this kept breaking, and I tried everything to fix it - clean the machine, re-thread the machine, switch threads,. Nothing worked until I put in a fresh new needle, and then everything was fine. I’m going to have to remember to change needles more frequently!! 

The backing was a single piece gifted to me by my friend Wanda. 

There is just one more quilt from this pile (already basted) for me to quilt. Following that, there are three quilt tops from a Susan L that I’ll baste and quilt - fully one year behind when I originally intended to do them, in January of 2024. But 2024 was a doozy of a year for us, with packing and moving and remodeling, and Bruce being diagnosed with CLL (leukemia). It wasn’t really until November that I finally felt I could get my head above water, so to speak. 

And then, after all my outside quilting commitments are complete, I can finally resume work on my backlog of RSC quilt tops, about 6 or 7 of them.

I also worked on some Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks. I did two flying geese blocks with pink and scrappy black backgrounds. The blocks are 6.5”, unfinished.

The second set of blocks are Switchplates, made with 1.5” strips. These are just way too much fun to sew!! I found it hard to stop! 

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The annual Stay at Home Round Robin is coming!! The first post, where everyone will share their beginning block, will go live on Monday. 

In searching my orphan blocks, I found this 12.5” Card Trick block that was given to me several years ago in some scrap haul (probably from Quilts for Kids). I don’t mind the wild colors, but I thought they would be hard to work cooperatively with in a smallish quilt - because the finished quilt will eventually go back to QFK, and therefore it will be a kid-sized quilt.

So I hunted my stash for ideas, and found this 1-yard piece of fabric (below) that had the purple, orange and yellow, but contained red as a fourth color instead of green. So, I did what any good quilter would do and unpicked enough of the original block to allow me to substitute red for the green. Much better! 

So now, I’m ready to get sewing. I’ll be linking up once the introductory post goes live on Monday. But if you’d like to find out more about the SAHRR and even possibly join us, check it out HERE. 

That’s it for now. My friend Ruby is picking me up in a little while and we’re going over to her sister’s house (her name is also Cathy). Ruby and Cathy bought a Grace Q’nique long-arm machine. It’s been set up for awhile and today we will be getting a private class from The Grace Company on how to load quilts, select, scale and program the quilting patterns, etc. We’re so excited!