Two Finishes and a Purchase

Yesterday, I finished 2 more quilts for the church youth group to take to Jamaica.  The blocks for this one on the right were made by someone else and I put the top together with the sashing and border and quilted it. all of the fabrics, including the backing came from our donated fabric in our
quilting closet at church.

The red, white and blue quilt is one I made completely from donated fabrics as well.
 

 Here is a close-up of the folded quilt with the corner turned back to show the back; you can see the orange binding.

Close-up of the folded quilt with the corner turned back to show one of the backing fabrics.















This shows the center panel fabric on the back; it is the same as the sashing and border fabric.
I had to use two fabrics for the backing on this one.

This is my latest purchase. An adhesive strip of LED lights fort he arm of my sewing machine.
I love it! I had a very nice LED light on my machine but it was damaged when we moved 3 years ago. The movers put the machine on a dolly and bounced it down the stairs and  I discovered the light shattered too late to claim it as damaged. I didn't replace the light at the time but struggled along with other lighting. I got this from Amazon and I think it is even better that my original light and it cost $22 instead of $100 plus from Bernina.

I can even see black on black with my old eyes.

It's Been A While

It's been a while since my last post but I haven't been sitting around doing nothing. I didn't have any photos to post and now I am having issues with Picasa. I have been happy with Picasa up ill now but
not so much anymore.

I have been working on some quilts that will be going to Jamaica in July with the youth group mission team  from our church. Our church quilt group has committed to 68 quilts and everyone has been working on them. They are all made from the same pattern 16 inch nine patch blocks set in 3 rows of 3 blocks with 2 inch sashing between and 2 inch borders. Most of the fabric is from donated fabric in our quilt group closet. We are fortunate to have been the recipient of a large amount of quilt shop quality fabric.

This photo shows 2 rows of one of two quilts I have been working on. Someone else made the blocks and I picked out the sashing fabric and finished the quilt. I  have another almost finished that is almost the same. I just need to finish the binding.











These are blocks I made from fabric I picked out at our last meeting.  I chose the fabric in the center squares first and then the other fabric to go with it.









I didn't consciously decide to make a red, white and blue quilt but that is how it turned out. There are orange, green, turquoise,  and purple in the fabric but that doesn't really show up as the overall color scheme.

This is the sashing and border fabric; it is directional and I will be cutting it accordingly.
There will be enough for the backing as well.

Here are the nine blocks that are up on my design wall.
It can be challenging to work with fabrics that has been purchased by someone else but I am pretty happy with how things turned out.

When I was almost finished pairing the two fabrics to go with the center squares, I realized that all the reds and blues were monochromatic. That eliminated some of the other fabrics I brought home to use. I had already given those other fabrics to someone else to use, hence, there is one block with 2 different red fabrics. I also replaced the red in the center block: it was a dense red and black pattern and didn't look right with everything else. I made the upper right and lower left blocks to have the stripes in different directions and now I am not so sure that was best but I will probably leave it.

We'll see!