Quilt Therapy In the Time of Covid-19: March - June

While doing a lot of cave dwelling and a bit of quilt making, I finally decided it was time to post the photos of quilts we have been sharing via email.  Maybe one way of having a bit of the past available now.  I hadn't realized how brain challenged I was, so it has taken more time than expected.  Instead of everything, I am breaking it into segments with this being the first.

The information on the quilts is by person from several months, and descriptions are from your emails.  Let me know if I've missed something.

Marty

June

I have not posted anything to share with the group but since my daughter-in-law took a picture of my granddaughter Lily with her graduation present I decided to send it to you all.

 

I have made about 30+- masks for donation and the family, two different purses, a flannel shirt for Christmas (it was the only fabric that JoAnn's had!), two quilts and I have more items underway so I am staying busy along with home projects, landscaping, etc.  I don't mind staying home but I do miss seeing my quilting pals.

Deanna 

March

I did made a quilt (finished 10 days ago) using African fabrics I had accumulated over many years.  The top is a Disappearing 4-patch and the back uses scraps of the same fabric.  I took the photos in the early evening so the bottom of the quilt looks washed out--in person the fabric on the bottom is brighter.

 

May

I finished my One Block Wonder but gave it to Melissa Quilter before the lock-down, and didn't photograph it.  

In the meantime, I am cleaning up my quilting space--I really have to use more of my fabric! 

I have pinned the quilt top I made in Joe Cunningham's class and will photograph it after quilting.

Right now I am making masks for health care providers, using elastic I found in the bottom drawer of my sewing cabinet.  I have ordered more elastic and hope it gets delivered soon.

  

 

I just finished these two quilts, each made from one-half of a layer cake.  Both of them are quilted with free-motion waves.  I didn't use the wave stitch built into my Baby Lock, because it is too slow! They are 37' wide x 46 1/2" long and I am going to give them to EBHQ for children's quilts.  Tomorrow I start on 2 more children's quilts from kits that I picked up from Carolyn Weil.

Right now I am making masks for health care providers, using elastic I found in the bottom drawer of my sewing cabinet.  I have ordered more elastic and hope it gets delivered soon.  In the meantime, I am cleaning up my quilting space--I really have to use more of my fabric!  I have pinned the quilt top I made in Joe Cunningham's class and will photograph it after quilting

May

I just finished this quilt that I started in Joe Cunningham's class.  It took me a while to quilt because I didn't want to do an all-over quilting design.  Each fabric has a different quilting pattern.  This isn't my usual style of quilt! 

I just finished these 30 masks for a hospital in Iowa where the Tyson pork plant had an outbreak of coronavirus.  The nurses were having to make their N95 masks last 5 days.  

 

It's sort of a long story as to how I got involved.  I had been contacted on Sunday by a woman whose sister-in-law is an ER nurse in the hospital there. There is a Tyson chicken processing plant in town, and they are being overwhelmed by coronavirus cases and have to make their N95 masks last for 5 days!  My contact in Oakland had tried unsuccessfully to find people in Iowa to make masks, so I first found her a quilt guild in the nearest big town, then decided I would make 30 masks myself.  I also mentioned it to Diane Bray, with whom I have been exchanging emails and phone calls about making masks and isolation gowns, and Carolyn Weil, and among us we are sending 100 masks to them. 

 

I have to get back to my sewing machine because mine still need fabric ties!

June

I just finished these children's masks for the Regional Center of the East Bay and two children's quilts

 

 

Joan

May

Don't hold your breaths, but I'm winding down on my second corona virus millefiore.   Both of them have been made from Provencale fabrics from the free table at drop in as well as a collection from Marcia Stein's offcasts, with which I had made several tablecloths in the past.  No new fabric will have been used!  

Both sets of papers came from Paper Pieces in Paducah.  They have kits for any of the patterns found in the 4Millefiore books.  However, this time, there were not enough paper pieces to complete it.  Since I glue baste, it's really hard to reuse the pieces and besides, they should have had extra pieces included in case of unforeseen events.  

Jean Smith put me onto the HD Metropolitan Opera free broadcasts, so I've been in hog heaven.

This quilt had 934 pieces.

 June

This quilt has well over 1000 pieces.

 

Bobbie

I need suggestions for the borders for both quilts.  

And from the suggestions given Bobbie says:  I like the idea of some dots and perhaps a strip.  Bordering the black/white/red quilt, I will use the black border inside and will have to see about the red fabric.

Actually, I will have to wait until the store opens to see what's available and what looks good with the quilts.  The suggestions are right on.   The hard part will be to choose a design using the fabrics for the borders.

 

Mindy 

May

George, Sarah and John have been working making a new normal routine of cleaning .. we finally Saw Sarah last weekend. As of this morning Sammie still has not delivered but sees her doctor this morning and they are going to break her membrane with hopes that baby Vawnnie takes the eviction notice seriously. If she has not delivered by Monday they will endure Sammie on Tuesday. The house has a boxes of Honest brand diapers.. wipes.. high chair and stroller car seat combo at the ready. We had to cancel the baby shower which had each day ending in delivered box’s of baby gifts.. which leaves us enough boxes to make a swing set and play house for the baby... with plenty to spare... as well as a cleaning process to each box before we open it.

 
But I have managed to have time to quilt, crochet, and make masks.

 

 

Vawnnie arrived at 2:30am this morning.. she was a small baby 6lb 13oz and 21” long  May 27

 

Mary

March

It’s a wonder what you can do with time on your hands!  When I spent the whole time I was at the Bishop’s Ranch cutting and assembling half hexagons, I was sure I’d never find time to finish this. I still look at it and marvel that this came out of my head - it so does not feel like my usual (whatever that might be!) work. Can’t quite imagine living with it as it’s sort of intense. But I think it works.

 

May

After 6 isolation gowns and 35 masks I went back to baby quilts.  The stripes are attached to become the binding, just waiting for me to start.  Betsy helped me size the various hands I used for much of the quilting patterns.

 Quilting detail of hands on the Hands quilt

Next up is masks for my neighbors and then a kite quilt for my grandson.

June

I have made several donation quilts and a few more masks.  Here are photos of the back and front of the kite quilt for my 2 1/2 year old grandson when he moves out of his crib. He thinks all quilts are made by Grammy and spotted one on the wall the other day when we were Skyping!

 

Betsy 

March

I found the black and white HST I have been making over the last couple of years and am finally putting blocks together.   Will decide whether to sash or not later.

 

And I am trying to decide how to finish the sides on my hand pieced hexi quilt.  Although someone who saw it said it reminded them of the corona virus, so I am a bit put off of working with it now!

 

And to practice my machine quilting, I used muslin scraps from my Cathedral Window quilting various print scraps to make this quilt to practice on.

May 

I picked up my purple and green strip diamonds quilt from Hello Stitch that they quilted for me and did the binding on it.  I have submitted a request for them to do another quilt and am just waiting to hear when they are ready.  

 
Quilting detail

I have been English Paper Piecing on two projects.  One has very tiny pieces and after one test block, I put it aside.  But after a telephone conversation with Joan I decided not to be a wimp and have picked it up again, and happily loving it.  It is called Les Fruits de Mer and is tiny with the smallest piece the size of my thumbnail.  I love the stars and it is great for using up scraps.  If I move toward wimping out again, I will call Joan for a pep talk.  

The second is called Dogwood and the finished block will be 16 inches.  I have the center done and am trying to figure out the border for each block.

 

January, 2020

January, 2020

We started off this new year meeting at Joan's house and we were all in attendance.  Many had just returned from a retreat at The Bishop's Ranch.

Next meeting is at Marty's house on February 21.

Joan's daughter had been choosing from quilts already made to go to her home, but wanted a gray one in a modified Chinese Coin pattern.  Joan, of course, made the quilt for her.  The coins will center on the mattress, with the borders hanging over the sides.

And the back is interesting too.

While looking for some Stonehenge fabric, Joan found a quilt top that just needed to be finished.  Just in time for spring.

And there were enough blocks to use some on the back as well.

Deanna has been quilting some Community Quilts on her still relatively new machine. 

This Kaffe beauty has a floral motif quilted in the border.

 She also quilted this Laurel Burch cats theme quilt.

Deanna pieced a fun baby quilt with an airplane theme to give to a soon-to-be mom who is a pilot.

And the back is just as much fun.

Mary was at The Bishop's Ranch working on a one block wonder.  She got it all cut out and started piecing it.  The reveal will be later, but here is the fabric she was using.

Bobbie has been dealing with some health issues that Roger has, but still found time to make this Sue Benner style art quilt.  She still has to add the yellow accent strips.

Mindy has been crocheting and is getting ready to put the small rounds all together.

And she continues to work on her embroidery project, ready to add new colors and a fabric border.

Arleen has been a busy bee working on guild projects.  She made several name tag pouches and was kind enough to bring full instructions to share on how to make them.

She also has made a pillowcase for Edy Brady's project.

And has finally decided to cut up and sew some of the many Japanese fabrics she has been collecting over the years.  Both quilts will be given away as gifts.

Betsy got here owl mandala quilt back from Sue Fox who was quilting it.  The shapes of the mandala are carried out in quilting in the gray border.

The French Braid is a scrap quilt that was going to be donated, but Betsy's son saw it, liked it, and claimed it.  It is quilted and bound, ready to go to his house.

Betsy also got back here Postcards from Sweden quilt from the quilter.  Made with 36 different Kona solids!

Sandy showed us some pot holders she made in December, and was piecing fabrics to make another set or two.  At The Bishop's Ranch she got comments from others that putting them together would make an interesting quilt top.  Decisions, decisions!

Marty made a jelly roll race quilt using the triangle method. (And doesn't her longer hair style look wonderful!)

Marty also shared a book that she used as inspiration to make her blocks for the Bee Sewcial challenge we are doing.

Marty was also busy making postcards for EBHQ.

December, 2019

December Pot Luck

We met at Mindy's for our traditional pot luck lunch and white elephant gift exchange.  We also showed the Kona colors each had picked to use in our Bee Sewcial challenge blocks.

Food was great, gifts were fun, friendship was warm.

Next meeting is at Joan's house.

 

November 2019

It was a smaller group than usual this Friday at Deanna's house, with Mary, Betsy, Sandy, and Bobbie joining Deanna for the meeting.  Christmas decorations were being put up in the driveway and along the fence for a festive entrance to the house.

Next meeting is at Mindy's, on December 20, at noon, for our usual potluck luncheon, and for our gift exchange, with a limit of no more than $15 per gift.

We discussed our next challenge again over Deanna's fig bars and ice cream.  We all agreed to the rules that were discussed and Sandy has kindly offered to assemble the blocks we make into a quilt, with someone else doing the quilting.  Sandy will send out detailed information on the challenge.

Betsy had made a tshirt quilt at the request of a friend of her son's.  Initially, she thought it would be lap quilt size, but instead it is a queen size quilt.  Melissa Quilter did the honors of quilting  it, and given it was the only tshirt quilt Betsy has made, it turned out pretty well.

 

 With the power board giving out on Betsy's Bernina just at the end of piecing this quilt, she is now the proud owner of a new Bernina.  She made a quilt from leftovers to learn how the machine works for piecing, and for quilting.  

 

And a quilt that had been made years ago was used as another learning tool in quilting.

Deanna showed us a lovely new one block wonder and on the back you can see the fabric she used for the front.  She quilted this herself on her new machine too!

 Sandy brought oven mitts she had made, lined with InsulBright and a layer of batting.  Getting ready for the gift giving season, she could have had several takers at the meeting.  

Mary, too, has a new sewing machine, this time a Bernina.  She has been practicing on it learning how to quilt with the stitch regulator.

 

And Bobbie has finally gotten to the finish line with her triptych.  She is in the process of doing the binding and then the hanging sleeve will get attached.

She has the start of another piece or two, as well.