Tag Archives: quilt along

Positivity Quilt Along 2023

Somehow another year has come and gone!! It is time to start planning for the 3rd annual Positivity Quilt Along. The Positivity Quilt Along was created by Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts to give the quilting community a fun, social way to make a new quilt for Mercyful Quilts. Each year Preeti designs a fun, easy to make, lap quilt. She shares the pattern for free and guides quilters through the process of making it. These QAL’s have been a huge help to Mercy Hospital’s palliative care program.

Just in case you are new to the Mercyful Quilts program, it all started back in November of 2018. A friend of mine is a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, CA. She explained that they gave quilts to the family of patients who were dying. The family chose a quilt to snuggle their family member under and after the person’s death, kept the quilt as a memory of this time in their life. Patty, my friend, explained how comforted the patient and family were by these quilts and I started to organize lap quilt donations for the hospital. There is much more information available if you click here.

Preeti became a loyal donor and would send me quilts whenever she could. Then during Covid, when we all desperately needed more positivity in our lives, she hosted the first QAL. I am so grateful to Preeti for her commitment to Mercyful Quilts. Because of her we have received so many stunning quilts for our families.

Positivity Quilt 2021; finished July 2022

This is the first Positivity quilt I made. It took me a long time to finish it because we moved in the midst of everything. This event garnered well over twenty Mercyful quilts!!

2022 Positivity Quilt for Mercy Hospital; August 2022

This was the quilt I made for the second QAL. I loved the pattern and the ease with which it all came together. This QAL resulted in over a dozed quilts for Mercy’s palliative care program.

Here is a sneak peak at the block the next QAL is based on. I see lots of leafy vines coming my way! The block looks super easy to make which is a good thing for me. I am not one for fussy quilts with millions of pieces!! Also, Preeti mentioned it is jelly roll friendly and I happen to have two rolls of strips sitting on the shelf!! Of course cutting your own scrappy strips is a great idea as well.

As before, the Positivity QAL will have a super relaxed schedule allowing plenty of time to make the quilt. The kick off is at the end of May and the event concludes over Labor Day weekend in September which means you’ll have all summer to work on it. We have a selection of lovely prizes that might be won by those quilters who finish and share their quilt in September! There will be link parties along the way to share progress and cheer each other on.

You are all invited to join us as we make a lap quilt for Mercy Hospital. Let’s work together to fill their shelves with quilts for patients and families who are struggling with grief and loss. We all know how comforting it can be to know someone out there is thinking of you and trying to provide a bit of solace. I hope you will sew a quilt with us! If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

(Also, if you are interested in Mercyful Quilts and want to donate a quilt but cannot commit to the QAL, that is fine too. We ALWAYS need lap size quilts. They can be scrappy, simple, complex, patriotic, or whatever you like. This particular hospital does not treat children so no juvenile themes or fabrics please.)

Sewcial Bee Sampler Round Up

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One of my favorite projects from this year has to be the quilt I made with the Sewcial Bee Sampler Quilt Along. Remember this? Hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell, there was one block released each Wednesday for twenty five weeks. There were several reasons for this being my favorite. One was the block design. The blocks were based on common piecing methods but Sharon and Maureen gave them a really modern look, probably because they included solids in their fabric selections. It gave the blocks such a fresh look. Also, the blocks were doable. I have been quilting for a while but I am definitely still in the advanced beginner stage and fussy, intricate blocks tend to frustrate me. Finally, the community developed by Sharon and Maureen. This was actually the main draw for me. So many quilters joined in – I would have to say there are hundreds of SBS quilts either finished or in progress.

The use of social media greatly enhanced the development of a friendly group participating in this QAL. Also, Sharon and Maureen were really dedicated to staying involved in the conversations on Instagram and put out a strong, positive vibe by giving great feedback and praise as we all shared the blocks we were working on. While this is not my first QAL, it is the first time I really paid attention to the quilts others were making as I made mine. With previous projects, I wasn’t as involved with the other quilters so I didn’t see as many projects made from the same quilt pattern.

The Sewcial Bee Sampler quilts that were made are gorgeous. I have had such a fun time perusing the #sewcialbeesampler hashtag and looking at the color schemes, fabric choices, and the ways quilters chose to set or arrange their blocks. I thought it might be fun to share some with you today. When you look at the quilts one after the other, it is so cool to see the varied interpretations of the patterns Sharon and Maureen developed.

Let’s start with the queens of the quilt along, Sharon and Maureen! Believe it or not, Sharon made two quilts (I had enough trouble keeping up with just one!) The quilt above was made with the same fabric for the block borders and sashing which gives a cohesive look to the quilt. It makes the blocks float on the surface.

In the second version of the SBS quilt, Sharon used uniform frames for the blocks and chose to set them with a blue sashing. Notice how distinctly the blocks stand out when sashed like this. She used a palette focusing on blues, pinks and white which is really sharp.

This quilt is Maureen’s project. It looks like she sashed hers with a denim color chambray fabric. I like that she has some really vivid pops of color – the three bursts of yellow that stand out to me.

Also, because Maureen often designs fabrics with a large focal point, she was able to use those and do some great fussy cutting for block centers. Look at the shot above and you’ll see an owl, dragonfly and her gorgeous orange peony.

Cynthia of Quilting is More Fun than Housework, also used Maureen’s Garden Dreamer fabric for her quilt. You will find the owl and the peony in her quilt as well. Same fabrics building many of the blocks, yet it looks different. Maybe partially due to the white sashing and varied fabrics used to frame the blocks?

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My friend Mari of Academic Quilter also made a quilt. She chose bright, colorful fabrics which gave her quilt a definite summery vibe. It makes a person happy just to look at it and I think it is the colorful palette she used. She also framed her blocks in a variety of colors.

Let’s take a look at an international version of the SBS. I watched this quilt grow on Instagram. Mariana (@cosertejercrear on Instagram) is a quilter who lives in a town just north of Valencia, in Spain. She began quilting six years ago. Because there are no quilt shops or guilds in her part of the world, Mariana has made friends with lots of quilters over the internet. She orders her fabric on-line and says most of her quilty friends are American. Participating in a QAL that has such a strong presence on-line makes the world feel much smaller as we are always communicating with quilters from every corner of the world. Looking at Mariana’s quilt, she used really bright colors and lots of prints. This could be overwhelming but it isn’t — she used white frames on the blocks and a calm, blue sashing to set the blocks. It ties everything together neatly.

This one will surprise you. Lisa made the SBS quilt as her first quilt project ever. I know…. that is crazy, right?? When I saw her posts on Instagram (@knitluxe) and realized she was a newbie quilter, I wanted to know more. She has been a crafter for a long while who has done a lot of knitting and has made clothing but this quilt is her first attempt at quilting. She lives in New Mexico and clearly has a talent for sewing! Like Sharon, Lisa framed her blocks in white and also sashed them with white. Again, the blocks are floating. The crisp blue tones look great with the white setting. Kudos to Lisa for taking on something like this as her first project!

Last but not least is my friend Sarah’s quilt. Sarah of Cedar Fork Stitches lives in cold, cold Montana in a really rural area. I think she told me she is 40 minutes from town. Kind of remote, I’d say! She and I have been friends on Instagram for a while now. (She is @cedarforksarah) I love Sarah’s quilt for the personal twist she put on it. She chose to skip the frames on the blocks, added a few of her own blocks and put a great border on the quilt. The chambray she used for the sashing and borders is really rich and sets her blocks off well.

Clearly this post could go on and on because there are hundreds more quilts to see. If you want to take a look, hop over to Instagram and search on #sewcialbeesampler. As I write this, there are 7,280 photos in the hashtag. Really amazing and far more than I think Maureen or Sharon anticipated!!

I am looking around at the quilt alongs and block of the month events that are starting to line up for 2018. I’ll be back with a round up of some fun events in a few weeks. If you know of a good one, leave it in the comments and I will check it out. I am definitely going to do at least one. Just need to decide which one!

Sewcial Bee Sampler Quilt Finish

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I am so happy with the finish of my Sewcial Bee Sampler quilt. I loved making the blocks along with the billions of other quilters that followed along with this QAL hosted earlier this year by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell. I posted progress shots along the way as I made the blocks, but just in case you didn’t know, the QAL included 25 blocks but I stopped after making 20. This quilt is a comfortable size for a lap quilt and I felt like if I went for the full twenty-five blocks, this would just be set aside and not finished. The colors of the quilt are so pretty and I was anxious to finish it and use it.

After sashing the blocks and rows with Mesh Joy, a gorgeous low volume print from Sharon’s Gossamer line, I took the quilt over to the long arm shop where I rent a machine. For the backing, I used a piece of soft vintage gingham that I purchased at a thrift store over the summer. The light brown color is lovely and works well with the quilt top.

When I picked the binding, I was trying to choose between two fabrics, Terra Firma in deep yellow and Twinklestar Berry from the Garden Dreamer line by Maureen Cracknell. I couldn’t make up my mind so I asked Julia to choose between them and she immediately went to the Twinklestar fabric. It works well with the front and back.

I took it to the long arm shop a few weeks back and quilted it with a loose meander pattern. Because each block is different and the quilt is fairly busy, it made sense to keep the quilting simple. More importantly, I wanted to use this quilting time to practice my control on the long arm and by using such a basic quilt motif, I could focus on the speed and evenness of the stitches on the long arm. It was really helpful to practice like that. It amazed me how little time it took to quilt it!

I really like the loft the quilt has with the loose quilting. This quilt is so cozy.

The rich colors – cheddar yellow, the deep blues and the raspberry colors are my favorites. This was such a fun quilt to make. I know there are a lot of QAL’s popping up for the new year. I think I will look through them and choose one. I have two more quilts in process and I hope I can finish those up before starting another one. Tomorrow I plan to take my nephew’s jersey quilt to the long arm shop and quilt it. Hurray for finishing up some projects!!

Have a wonderful weekend all! Linking to some of my favorites. Please feel free to check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.