Quilts = Love and Comfort - H2H

Even if you don't know me, the title of my blog should tell you how I feel about quilts. 

I truly do believe that 

Everyone Deserves a Quilt!

I love to make quilts and I love to give them away. My goal is that the recipient of the quilts I make can feel the love and comfort that I try to sew into each and every quilt. 

I often quilt "secret" messages into my quilts when I'm free motion quilting. Actually, there's really nothing secret about it. Sometimes I just "write" the words LOVE, COMFORT, HUGS, or whatever is appropriate for that particular quilt. Even when I quilt following a pattern or panto, I often FMQ a message close to the edge, near the binding. If the quilt is to commemorate a special event, I quilt names, dates, etc. 

Sure, sometimes it's challenging and I know I'll never win any awards for my "quiltmanship" (that's quilt speak for penmanship), but I like doing it. It's especially fun for me when the recipients finds the message - sometimes a year or more later.  :-)     

No matter when the message is found (if ever), I love doing it. It's just my way to saying, "You matter!" and I hope it brings a smile or laugh. 

I participated in this year's Hands2Help Challenge 

that Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict organized and was even honored to be a guest blogger. I made four quilts this year and they are on their way to the charities. And yes, they all include a special message! 

Here are pictures of three of the quilts. It was raining when I was packing the quilts and packed the fourth one without taking a picture. Darn it! It's green, pink and white and I used the Stretched Star pattern. It was a pretty old UFO and I'm very happy that it's finally done and going to a new home where I hope it will be used and loved. 

The message on that one says "Reach for the Stars!"

Here's a Yellow Brick Road quilt that I made while teaching a class. These blocks were my "work in progress" so students could see each step more easily. When they put their quilt together, I put mine together - with a different border and I used a flange binding. :-) 

The message included here is "Live, Laugh and Love!   

This is the pattern I posted a tutorial for when I was the guest blogger back in April. I call it All Boxed In and it's a simple and quick pattern to use. 

The message here is "Sparkle Like a Firecracker!" 

And finally, this is a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt, set on point. (I love this layout for a D9P because it is a great way to showcase special fabrics, especially from charm pack.) 

The message here is "You Bring Color to Life!"

Thanks for sharing your day with me and remember,

Everyone Deserves a Quilt!

Design Wall Monday and Time for One More Quilt

It's Monday and that means it's 

Design Wall time!

I sort of have two things up today. One on which I'm deciding borders and one that is ready for binding. 

Here's the one that is ready for binding. It's a simple quilt using 5" squares. I'm still playing with quilt options for when I host Charm School Sew-Ins. I want the quilts to be quick and easy, especially since there are a fair number of new quilters/sewers who join us for these days. This quilt will fit right in. I quilted this with a 1" grid in all the white areas and then stitched in 1" increments around the big dark squares. I like the quilting a lot, even though it took me longer to do that than actually piece the quilt.

Just to try it out, I made a small version (6 blocks) but think I will make a larger, 12 block version during the sew-in. This one isn't a bad size, about 41" x 59" but I like making most donation quilts larger - closer to 60" x 80". 

I like the black and white blocks here and am glad I pulled them out to use. The backing is a print fabric with lots of pretty pastel birds, flowers, leaves, etc. (I forgot to take a picture of the back - sorry!), and I am going to bind this with black and include a robin egg blue flange. Maybe I'll have a picture of that tomorrow. :-)

Here's the quilt on which I'm trying to decide borders. It's the Yellow Brick Road baby  quilt that I used as "in progress" samples during a recent class. I wrote about it HERE. 

I've added a small red border that you can see here.

I'm considering leaving this as is and bind in red with the blue/red fabric as a flange. My original plan was to have this small border and then a larger border of the blue/red fabric but I'm having second thoughts.

I think I'll leave it up for a little while before I make the decision. What are your thoughts?

I plan to finish this and use it as another Hands2Help donation. I know I can get this done before the deadline. :-)

What's on your design wall today?

Check out what others have up 

today by going to 

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times

Design Wall Monday

I've got another version of the Yellow Brick Road quilt on the design wall right now. This is a baby version and it's being made because I needed to have demo blocks to use while teaching a class.

All of the blocks are made and I'll sew two rows together before the next class. During the class, I'll demonstrate how to sew the blocks into rows and then how to sew the rows together. And finally, at the last class, I'll demonstrate adding borders and discuss quilting options. 

 Click HERE to see the red, black and white version I recently made.

I really like using this quilt for a beginners' class and I'm thinking that this quilt will be one of my donation quilts for Hands2Help.

What are you working on today?

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times

Design Wall Monday

 I have a number of "in progress" works that are sharing time on the design wall, but this is what's up there right now.

 This is being made using the Yellow Brick Road pattern by Terry Atkinson Designs. I'll be using this pattern for a beginners' class and since I haven't made one in quite a while, I decided to pull some fabrics and whip one up real fast. (It really is easy and a wonderful project for new sewers!)

I wanted to make this larger than a baby quilt which takes 6 fat quarters; and I didn't have a border fabric I liked to make a lap size, which takes 12 fat quarters. So, I found 15 fat quarters that I like together and adjusted the numbers a bit to end up with a 6x8 layout, rather than the 5x7 layout with a border. So far, I'm happy with that decision. We'll see if I still feel that way when the blocks are all sewn together. I may have to go shopping.  

Anyway, a sample is already made for the class, so this will be nice to show the students how adjustments can easily be made to patterns - a good teaching moment, right?

I said I have a number of other "in progress" works and I'll take some pictures of those to post here soon. But, just to pique your interest...

I'm almost done making a large bag and a 46" x 58" quilt using just one Jelly Roll and 2.25 yards of an accent/lining fabric. That 2.25 yards includes binding. I'm loving the fact that I am making two projects with just these fabrics!

There is a another strip quilt in the works, (almost ready for binding), a special order quilt for a local school baseball team to raffle off as a fundraiser, and a couple of donation quilts. 

Whew! I've been a bit busy.

What are you working on today?

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times