Community Quilts from Karin

I told you last week that Karin had been busy and that I had another installment of quilts from her to share with you. Today’s the day you get to see all the fun finishes.

Karin writes:

“First in line today we have a darling little log cabin heart, I believe it came from Cresco ladies.

There must be at least 100 different fabrics in here, all cut into itty bitty 1 inch strips and sewn back together, log cabin fashion. The log cabin squares were twisted and turned until they formed this adorable heart.

The backing was generously donated by Cheryl B, of Berea Kentucky. She had purchased quite a bit of this yardage, thinking it was a printed patchwork with lots of hearts on it.

She went to use it and found out that it actually was a cancer survivor honorary fabric as it had lots of pink cancer ribbons mixed in with the hearts. It was not appropriate for what she had planned, so she sent it along to me. I was thrilled to get it, and I think it was perfect for this heart-themed top. The finished quilt measures 30 by 30 and was quilted with lime green  (yes, really!) on the top and pink in the bobbin. I quilted feathers and scrolls in the background, connecting hearts in the heart and wishbones in the narrow, ombre purple border.

Second in line today, we have Tee Off!  This golf-themed baby blanket has been lovingly created by Patty K, of West Palm Beach, FL and she sent the backing along with it, for me to finish up and donate.  The top is made with ever-so-soft flannel, bordered by cotton. 

I purposely quilted it densely, hoping to minimize shrinkage.  I used a dark green thread on top and matched it in the bobbin. I quilted connecting hearts in all the golf bag patches with wishbones in the surrounding sashings. The large scroll in the outside border is a much looser motif because the cotton will shrink less than the flannel. At least, that was my reasoning at the time. It has yet to be washed, but once it is, I guess I’ll find out if my reasoning was correct or not.

This quilt finished up at 37×44 and is sure to bring comfort to a little one, and smiles to a golfing-oriented parent or grandparents.

Next to last, we have a lovely garden patch, courtesy of the prolific and amazing Cresco ladies. I wanted to see if I could work with the diagonal colorway of these patches since I have a customer with a log cabin set on the diagonal, and I’m not sure how to go about managing that. I thought I would figure it out on this pretty little top.

I started by quilting continuous arcs in the flower patches, but the patches were bigger than I thought so I had to go back and add an echo arc on each side, to make sure there were enough stitches to stabilize the batting. That did the trick. The next thing I did was a continuous scroll in the blue patches and that worked well, even though I did have to advance the quilt to complete it properly and break thread to move over to the next color diagonal. I wanted to do something that would show up nicely in the yellow, so I thought, why not put a square feather in there? It took me a couple of tries and it is not the feather I had originally planned, but eventually, I figured it out. Thank goodness for seam rippers!

The ecru thread I used on top stood out nicely and the burgundy thread I used in the bobbin blended right into the coordinated backing, just as I had hoped, leaving only the texture and the appearance of a whole cloth quilt.

This quilt finished up at 30 by 37.

And last but not least, we have dinosaurs on parade, also brought to us by the Cresco ladies.  They never cease to amaze me with their colorful creations. Here we have 2 totally different dinosaur prints, brought together with rust and turquoise solids.

Who would have thought that combination would work? But it totally does. I was really at a loss for what motif to quilt in these patches as some of the borders were narrow, somewhere wide, some patches were short rectangles, and others were longer. I ended up pulling out a new ruler and doing my version of matchsticks in some of the sashing, arches in other sections, and wishbones across the middle and all around the outside. The large, dark dino rectangles got treated with a very flat, horizontal meander. The outer border got overlapping and intersecting arches and my version of sun’s rays in the corners. The 36 x 37 top was backed by a Navy blue print that had been thrifted and generously donated by Polly B, of Pensacola Florida. I used a lime green thread on top and gold in the bobbin.

These 4 finishes will take their turn in the washer and dryer as soon as the thunderstorm has passed. After that, they will be taken down to our local fire station for distribution throughout the county. I am going to guess that there may even be some, or maybe all, that get packaged up and sent to the victims of the Maui fires. Our fire department is very service-oriented and they stay on top of other areas’ needs and disasters, often coordinating local resources and providing assistance whenever and wherever they can.

A hearty thank you goes out to all the generous blog readers who have contributed fabric, time, and/or money, and to you, Jo, for all your coordination and energy to get all this sorted and done. Without the likes of you all, none of this would be possible.

These were all great. What a fun bunch of quilts!!

I love that Karin has so many people supporting her along the way to help make these quilts happen. Many thanks to you all and the biggest shout out, of course, goes out to Karin.