Tag Archives: hands 2 help charity quilt challenge

Coin Quilt Finish

Today I want to share the finish of this pretty coin quilt. This quilt started out on a whim one day a couple of months ago. I was cleaning my sewing room and attacked a pile of scraps, cutting them into rectangles measuring 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″. I decided to concentrate on specific colors and then use the rectangles at a later date for a coin quilt. Green, yellow, pink and blue were the colors I selected.

Yes, the quilt has a bit of an Easter egg vibe but who doesn’t love Easter eggs? I chose a mottled blue fabric from the shop as the background and a pretty green wide back (also from the shop) to finish it up. The binding is the same as the background. I might note I find myself really drawn to using a binding that matches the outer border when possible. I like the look of it. Maybe because it feels less busy to me.

With my trusty quilt holder, Julia, I was able to take a few photos of this pretty quilt in our yard. When I quilted it, I outlined the coin columns and then stippled the blue background. I have been using Glide thread and finding my machine loves it. I had very few hiccups and those I did have were due to bobbin winding issues. Glide is slippery thread and (for me anyway) it can be a challenge to wind the bobbin with it.

My husband always leaves a patch of California poppies go in the field, not mowing them down until they finish blooming. The poppies are such a pretty pop of color for us. Anyway, this quilt is destined to be a Mercyful quilt and is also my contribution to the 2021 Hands 2 Help event run each year by Sarah Craig, Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I also have a quilt in the works for her Hometown Hero idea but it won’t be finished by the deadline. I will post the story behind that quilt soon as it is finished.

Yesterday my husband and I took a day and hiked at the Gray Lodge Wildlife area. It is gorgeous out there. Usually it is a haven for waterfowl but this late in the season, there isn’t a whole lot of water so the number of birds out there is far less. We were lucky to be out there and enjoying ourselves before it gets too much hotter. This is in a fairly toasty area an hour or so from our house. We plan to go back during the winter months to see the birds.

There are tons of rice fields out in this area too. At this time of year the fields are heavily irrigated and bright, bright green. So gorgeous. Because the fields are so wet, there are lots of white heron out there. Try as I might, I didn’t get any pictures of these pretty birds.

At home we are busy picking, cooking and eating artichokes. This year is a bumper year for our artichoke plants. However, it is supposed to really heat up over the next week which should slow the plants down quite a bit. I haven’t counted how many are out there but I bet we have about twenty left to pick, after eating several and sharing some with my neighbor.

Ok – that is it for now. I have lots in the works! I am joining in with Sew Preeti Quilts Positivity Quilt Along which begins this coming week. I love the pattern for this quilt and look forward to sewing along with Preeti and many others. At the same time, I am making a quilt to celebrate the upcoming publication of Cheryl Brickey, of Meadow Mist Designs, new book, Just One Charm Pack. The book comes out toward the end of June and there will be a blog hop later in the summer to share the quilts several of us are making. I have the pieces cut and hope to start sewing tomorrow. Hope all of you enjoy the weekend!

Psst: Be sure to come back and read my next post. I have some big news to share!!

Linking up with Cheryl’s Favorite Finish as well as other favorites – check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Bloom with Grace

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A while back, when the Bloom With Grace fabric first arrived in my shop, I knew I wanted to use some to make a Mercyful Quilt. It seemed so perfect for bringing comfort to a grieving family. The colors are gorgeous and the sentiment is very sweet. I took a panel and cut the four main blocks apart. Then it sat. This seems to happen quite often in my sewing room!

After a bit, I cut borders from some of the coordinates in this line. I added these to the four blocks and alternated the colors when I placed the bocks together. After stitching those up, I added a narrow pink border with tiny green cornerstones. Thinking it cute but a bit small, I cut up some scraps and added a patchwork border to the top and bottom. There. Now it felt finished!

Using a vintage sheet seemed like the perfect backing. A soft floral was the right complement to the colors and vibe of the quilt top. Each square block is quilted with a crosshatch and the borders have basic straight line quilting. The patchwork at top and bottom are stitched in the ditch to hold it all in place.

I am really pleased with the finished quilt. It isn’t huge, finishing at 44″ x 46″. With some additional pieced blocks between or around the four main panel pieces, one could make it quite a bit bigger if desired.

After taking some pictures I put it in the wash and now it is all soft and crinkly, ready for Mercy Hospital. Most of you are familiar with the Mercyful Quilt program but just in case you aren’t, I organize a program where quilts are made and donated to Mercy Hospital in Sacramento. Their palliative care team offers a quilt to families who are comforting a loved one who is dying. The family often chooses a quilt and uses it to cover their family member. After the person has died, the family takes the quilt home in remembrance of this special person. It brings great comfort to the person and to the family. I have received (and shared here) many thank you notes from both families who have received quilts as well as the team at Mercy who distributes them. I would love to have more donations for them. If you feel called to make one, there are just a few requirements. Your donation must be lap size, made with adult fabrics (because this hospital doesn’t treat children) and must be a new, unused quilt without any fragrance, especially not cigarette smoke. Other than that, the quilt can be as simple of complicated as you like. All quilts are hugely appreciated!!

This is the completion of my February OMG and I will be linking up to Elm Street Quilts. This is also to be a donation used for the 2021 Hands2Help hosted by Sarah Craig. I will link it up when that event opens up. For other link-ups that I enjoy, take a look at the top of the page and click on the Link Ups tab.

Mercyful Quilts on Parade

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I have been looking forward to the mail delivery and the UPS guy daily. Most days they bring me a wonderful package to open. It’s like Christmas around here!! Sarah’s amazing Hands2Help event is finishing up at the end of the month so quilts are being mailed to various organizations all over the map. Mercy Hospital in Sacramento is one of the (incredibly grateful) recipients.I have opened quilts from throughout the US – Florida, Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina among others!

I thought it was time to share the bounty with you. I took pictures of some of the quilts but not all. This was not done with any rhyme or reason. I wanted to share some of these and it just isn’t feasible to photograph all of them. Not enough hours in the day, right? But I will say this – ALL of the quilts are amazing. Each one is uniquely beautiful and all of them are clearly made with love and compassion.

Let’s take a look at these beauties!

These were both made by Emily of Darling Dogwood. Both have gorgeous batiks in similar colors but the light and dark backgrounds sure make for a different vibe.

I have to say I don’t know Ann but isn’t she a talented quilter? Her choice of colors and patterns are just wonderful! I love both of the patterns she used for her quilts.

Ok – three quilts from three wonderful women. Top left came from Kim C. in Florida, top right was made by Erica in Arizona and bottom center by the wonderful Linda R. in Texas. Thank you ladies!!!

These two are so much fun. Top left is from Anny who lives about 2 hours from me and I have had the pleasure of meeting in ‘real life’. She made this with a group from the Sacramento MQG – so cool that they chose to donate to a hospital local to them! The other came from Selina who lives in Florida. Thank you so much!!

Two more lovelies – Trudie sent her quilt all the way from Texas and Kathryn sent hers over from Pennsylvania. These beauties will bring great comfort to their recipients.

This quilt came from Cyndy in Oregon – she blogs at Quilting is More Fun than Housework. (I got lazy and used a picture from her blog post!!). Anyway, the thing I love about this quilt is it is made up of orphan blocks! Her orphan blocks look like they were planned and made to go together. I was pretty surprised when I read this. It is really beautiful and she did a great job of laying these out and making them work!

As I said before, there are more and I am so very thankful for each of the quilts donated. It never ceases to amaze me how generous the quilting community is. Quilts of this caliber take so much time! Not to mention the expense of fabric and batting. And then, beyond all that, spending $20 to mail the quilt somewhere! I am grateful to know all of you and thankful you thought of Mercyful quilts when you wanted to give someone such a lovely gift.

Hands 2 Help 2020

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Oh how I love this event! Each year Sarah from Confessions of a Fabric Addict hosts an event, Hands 2 Help, to encourage quilters to donate some of their work to various organizations. I have participated numerous times over the years. I have donated quilts to various places and have marveled at the number of quilts made and gifted each May. Last year and this year I am going to donate as well as coordinate the receiving of many beautiful quilts for Mercyful Quilts.

Over the past several weeks, the quilts have started to arrive. It is so fun to open the packages and see the color schemes, block patterns and quilting styles on each one. From simple to ornate, each one is beautiful and very much appreciated. I promise to share them with you – I still need to take pictures though.

As I thought about the event from the donor perspective this year, I knew I would donate one to Mercy Hospital – you all know how strongly I feel about their program. I will be giving them the blue and yellow star quilt I wrote about in my post two weeks ago. I also wanted to donate to our local Project Linus group. As I started to look at fabric, I decided it was silly to make a new quilt for them. I have a small stack of baby quilts in the closet that I made for the fun of it but never used or gave away. It seemed more practical to give one of those away than to make another one.

I chose to give them the Fireburst Quilt I made a while ago during a quilt along hosted by Tish’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is such a sweet quilt and should be used. Yesterday I washed and dried it since it had been in the closet for some time. It is all soft and crinkly now – ready for a child in need.

I love the colors used for this quilt – they are bright and cheerful. I remember when I started to spiral quilt this I worried it would be stiff so I decided to gradually widen the space between the spirals. It worked out well and I like how soft and puffy it is.

The fabric on the backing is Folk Fleur from the Meriwether line by Amy Gibson. It is sweet with tiny flowers floating across the fabric. (There is just a bit left in the sale section of the shop.) I used a zig zag stitch to quilt the border which added a bit of whimsy.

I am really happy to give this quilt to Project Linus. I love making them but it doesn’t make any sense to leave them unused in the closet. I know many people have stacks of their quilts throughout the house and that is what works for them. I feel like quilts are to be used. This one needs to belong to a child.

I am excited to see the numbers for this year. It seems with each year more and more quilts are donated as part of Hands 2 Help. With the quarantine in place this year, and many people unemployed, it might be a lesser number? This would be totally understandable too. Are you participating? If so, thank you for your generosity!! Thank you also to Sarah for spending so much time organizing this inspirational event each spring.

Quilts, Quarantines, Babies and More

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Oh my gosh, where to start! This is such a crazy world these days. The news is all-consuming as we constantly check for updates on the spread of Covid-19, within the US and internationally as well. Our philosophy is to take it seriously and try to remain calm and rational at the same time. The Governor of California spoke yesterday. He has ordered all pubs, bars, nightclubs and wineries in California to shut down for the duration. All restaurants are to cut their capacity for seating in half and move tables much further apart. People age 65 and over are to quarantine in place at their homes. No visitors at convalescent or senior homes unless it is a terminal situation and people need to be there to say goodbye. So, things are serious here in CA. I believe if people respect the rules and stay home for a bit, the contagion will be limited and hopefully the situation can be controlled. I hope you are in a safe situation and able to stay healthy.

Moving on to better and more enjoyable topics, my new grand daughter arrived on March 12th!!! Such an exciting event to break up the negative vibe we have all been experiencing. When I look at the photo above, I just love how big sister has her hands up to her face, looking at her new sister with awe. Isn’t this heart-warming? The baby is healthy and mommy is healing well. She was very chunky at birth, weighing 8 pounds and 14.5 ounces. She has dropped to 8 pounds, one ounce but is feeding well and doing fine.

Two sisters just hanging around together.

Big sister surely loves little sister but is a tad disappointed in the baby’s lack of abilities. On the first day, she asked her father to bring the baby into her room so “she could crawl around a little”. Once she realized this wouldn’t happen for a while, she got a little bored of baby sister. Today I got to FaceTime with them and she was “playing” doctor with dad and little sister. I could hear my son quietly say, ‘gentle, gentle’. I think it is going well though. So all is as it should be. My husband and I were supposed to travel out to Vermont on March 31st and we are soooo sad to postpone the trip. We will go just as soon as the Covid crises calms down. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

I finished up a quilt for Mercy Hospital! I am really pleased with this finish. You may remember I started this back when the blog hop was running for the Modern Plus Quilts book. I took it to quilt it on a friend’s long arm and had a horrible time with it. In frustration, I took it off the long arm and brought it home. After ripping out so many stitches I came to be extremely annoyed with the whole thing. It was folded and placed in a basket where it sat for two years!!

I decided it was time to finish it up and really had fun with it. I used my walking foot and quilted it in a grid fashion. I outlined the patchwork plus in the center. With the wide brown stripes there is quilting running in both directions. The horizontal lines are stitched in brown and the vertical lines in green. It looks wonderful!

Backing is a pale yellow batik heart fabric.

For the backing, I used a piece I had thrifted years ago. It is a buttery yellow batik with hearts all over it.

When I pieced the plus in the center of the quilt, I used a jelly roll. It didn’t take but 1/2 of the strips so I decided to use some of the leftover strips for binding. It looks really pretty since, naturally, the prints and colors work perfectly.

I am so happy to have this done and ready for Mercy Hospital. I am already working on the next one for them. Their supplies are down so I am trying to boost the stack for them just a bit. Mercyful Quilts is once again thrilled to be a recipient for quilts made through the 2020 Hands2Help event that is hosted annually by Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I am so grateful to have our organization included. Last year so many gorgeous quilts were donated and it was hugely helpful. Thank you in advance to all the quilters who participate in this year’s event!

I have been thinking quite a bit about being home for the duration of the Covid-19 saga. Many of us are turning to our craft and sewing rooms. I read a great article about how soothing it is to involve oneself in a craft, such as sewing, art, woodworking or other project during stressful times such as these. Ray and Julia have been talking about working out in his woodshed while she is home. All three of us have been baking. Of course, I plan to sew. My shop has been quite busy the last couple of days so I think many quilters are planning the same thing.

To this end, I want to help out a bit. Lots of quilters are turning to on-line shopping if Covid is prevalent in their area. For instance, I have noticed a substantial increase in orders from the Bay Area in California where so many people are home and quarantined. To make things a bit better for those shopping on-line, I have a Free (standard) Shipping promotion going in the shop. It started today and will run through Wednesday. All orders will ship for free during that time! You won’t need to enter a promo code – it is all set up for you. I hope this is helpful to you! Click here and browse a bit.

I am going to sew this afternoon. I haven’t made any of my scrappy projects for March yet. So I need to make my orange block for the Monthly Color Challenge and then something with the teal scraps for RSC20. After that, I will pick up another quilt top to finish up for Mercy Hospital. What is your plan? Is Covid affecting you and your daily routine? I worry about people who live alone and are quarantined. Can we all support each other? Let me know how you are doing and let’s all keep each other busy and engaged.

Linking up with several sites, including Brag About Your Beauties and Elm Street Quilts.

Guest Posting at Confessions Of a Fabric Addict Today

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Good morning! Just popping in to let you know I am guest posting over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict today. I am thrilled to tell you that Mercyful Quilts is one of the recipients of the quilts made for the 2019 Hands2Help event hosted each year by Sarah!!

Each day this week on Sarah’s blog, a representative for the charitable organizations receiving quilts this year is posting about their group or charity. I have a post about Mercyful Quilts on her blog today. I hope you will hop over to read more about the event and if you choose to, it would be great to sign up and participate! Check back each day this week and learn more about the other wonderful groups you might want to make a quilt for.

Thanks to Sarah for hosting this amazing annual event. This is the ninth year of Hands2Help!! Amazing, right? Thus far, over 1,450 quilts have been made and donated to a variety of groups. I have participated a couple of times and it is very rewarding!

Have a great day everyone!

Square Dance

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This week I finished up Square Dance. It was well over a year ago that I started this quilt. For some reason, it was put aside and ignored for a long while. Now that it is done, I am really pleased with the cheerful colors. The pattern is a simple one based on squares of two different sizes and simple borders on each, bringing the blocks to 9″ when finished.

Putting the quilt together was a breeze. Quilting it, on the other hand, was not. Back in March, I was reading Cynthia’s posts over at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework. She showed some quilts that she had finished up using some oversized daisy flowers. I loved it and thought it would be great for this quilt. I planned to put a flower in the center of each block. Additionally, I placed one on the intersection of each set of blocks.

My machine was most uncooperative and I stitched about 1/4 of the quilt before I realized that my bobbin tension was way off and I had to unpick all of that quilting. Ugh. Not my favorite task. There really wasn’t a choice though. On the bright side, the tension was so far off that the stitches were totally loose on the back side and came out easily. These frustrations were resolved when I found the Magic Bobbin Genies that I recently posted about. The small washers helped a great deal. I have had these issues sporadically and I am hoping this resolution works out over the long haul.

I requilted (is that a word?) the first section and finished up the rest. I think it is very cute – though it looks much better on the front than the back. I pieced the backing as I was determined to used some stash up. I love the way the backing came together but backing a quilt in solids means that every FMQ wiggle is accentuated. That’s ok. I am making progress with each project. For now, I am just going to look at the front side!

The colors are great, as is the motif I chose for quilting Square Dance. Finally, look at the binding. It is adorable. I found this red and yellow print on a sale table at Ben Franklin and it was a steal.

Tomorrow I will wash it and enjoy that cozy crinkle that the quilt will have once it is out of the dryer. Earlier this year, I signed up to participate in Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Challenge organized by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. When I signed up, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would donate but I think this quilt will bring comfort to it’s recipient.

Update: I shipped this quilt off to Kat for her Covered in Love program and she let me know it had arrived. I hope it will be used by someone in the near future.

The timing of this finish is good as I am now in the process of piecing my black and white Stepping Stones quilt. There is black and white flying all over in my sewing room these days. The blocks are looking really good though. I am pretty excited about this one!

Linking to all sorts of sites. Check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups!