Homes for snuggle quilts

We went down to a cat shelter today, and I brought two of the small kitty quilts I'd made a few months ago in honor of Finnegan. (I posted these earlier, as backdrops to a photo of a very expressive Echo, but if you missed them then, you can view them here, now.)

I gave the quilts to the shelter manager, and she was quite enthusiastic about them. (In fact, she encouraged me to think about selling my quilts, and even started brainstorming about places to do so locally. How nice of her! :))

The positive reaction made me feel good (unlike the lukewarm reaction of the other shelter), so I think if I end up making more of these small quilts, I'll be donating them here.

Don't take my picture, mama!

Regarding snuggle quilts

To the relatives who have recently visited and admired the photos: Hi, and thanks for the kind words!

Regarding the supposed silliness of spending time on fancy quilts for animals, I don't know if it is a silly thing to do at all. I think the animals who have these in their cages just may end up getting a little more attention from human visitors. If you saw a colorful quilt in a kitty or puppy cage, wouldn't you want to pause and look? That would give the animal a little more time to charm you. Might you not then be a little more likely to bond with this pet and take him or her home? :)

I do have a few more snuggle quilts to photograph, but these will have to wait til the camera battery is up and running again. I may try giving these to the emergency vet clinic that took care of Finny. They were so nice to him, and I'd really wanted to do a little something for them too. We'll see!

Appreciation

Went down to drop off the four Snuggle mini-quilts today. None of the people there had any idea what we were talking about. I showed them some information, and recognition still did not dawn. (We ended up waiting 30 minutes for the shelter manager to show up, and she, at least, knew what they were for without the explanation.)

It got me to thinking about how the way that people or organizations receive your gifts (be they material items or gifts of your time) makes a big difference.

Our Project Linus coordinator does a wonderful job with this. She sends her volunteers photocopies of the thank you letters that the hospitals, shelters, etc., send to PL so we can see that what we do is making a difference. This keeps us feeling positive and enthusiastic about the organization and about our roles in it. It makes us feel appreciated.

I think there is probably a lesson in here for me about trying to show more appreciation when people spend time and effort on me as well.

So, for starters: it means a lot to me when people respond to my posts here. It makes me feel that you are listening, and that you care. It also inspires me to keep going here, so if you enjoy my updates, know that your responses help to make them happen! Thank you all, very much!

You are what you quilt

Here's the first round of tops for the Snuggle quilt(let)s:



You'll notice that I did end up doing a bunch of Crazy Quilt blocks in the end. They may be slower to sew, but to me, their spontaneity and randomness makes them more fun to make than Disappearing 9 Patch blocks. Plus I get to use all the tiny pieces that have been sitting in my scrap bag forever!

Blocks and socks

The people from the no-kill shelter called me back today. I am glad I spoke with them before I got started, because I wouldn't have made the snuggle blankets big enough otherwise. (The website says the small size snuggle blankets are about 14" square and the medium 20", but the woman said that 24" would be ideal for them.)

I think I will try making a big nine patch made out of crazy quilt blocks alternating with plain blocks. Maybe I can make some progress on using up some of those random scraps in my scrap bag. I am sure my enthusiasm for this will wane once I see how many hours it actually takes to make crazy quilt blocks, so I have a plan B in mind - to make some Disappearing 9 Patch blocks.

Anyway, this is all for the future. Tonight's plan is to get the sock monkey quilt layered and pinned.

Makindu raffle is live

The Makindu raffle is now live, but... so far, no photo of the quilt, no dimensions, no vital stats of any sort, so I imagine they're probably still getting things organized over there.

However, I have a photo I can share, in case anyone is trying to decide whether they might want to buy a ticket. (Sorry, the humans aren't part of the package.)

Star quilt top

I've never done a .5" border like the orange one before, and was worried that it would look all wavery, but it actually turned out fine! Finished size will be around 60" square (thus, lap quilt or quite a generous baby quilt).

Now I have to deal with the quilting machine to finish up.

Click for a larger view:

Makindu inspiration

There is a reference at the bottom of this article to the quilt my mother and her friends made for Makindu. This is the story behind their inspiration, it seems.

It looks like the Makindu auction goes live on July 1, and I'll be linking to that page when it is available.

Friendship star progress

I haven't been in the studio to work on quilts recently, but I do have this on the floor waiting for me when I'm ready.



It's what I have so far for the National Stillbirth Society quilt, and yes, it looks pretty different from the way it looked in the mockup. Playing around with it on my Electric Quilt program, I found that the logs and squares construction for the alternating blocks conflicted with what I wanted to do with the colors. So I ended up alternating stars and ninepatch blocks instead.

Becca also has a group of the stars we made and is working on one for another group using the logs and squares as alternating blocks. She also ended up with the gold star that you saw in the previous post. I put a different orange in my star, to play off the purple fabrics I was using.

Where now?

What next? Now that Becca and I are done with the quilt and scrapbook for Jessica (and I can name names now because she's received them), we'll be returning to our star quilt - or, quilts, actually. We made enough extra stars that we'll be able to make two quilts - one for the Stillbirth Society, and one for another charity.

Becca's sending me her stars in the mail, and the plan is to mix them up with my stars and find the combinations that look best together. Then I'll send one group of them back to her, keep the other half here, and we can work on our two quilts simultaneously.

Doesn't it all sound refreshingly simple?

The quilting machine

No, I'm not stalled out on the project quilt. I am learning a new skill so that I can move forward with confidence.

We picked up a Pfaff Grand Quilter and Inspira quilting frame (You may have seen the metal legs of the frame in some of the other pictures taken in my studio) and I've been learning how to use it.

What is it? It's a sewing machine that's been altered to be optimized for the process of quilting (stitching through the three layers of top, batting, and backing). Instead of trying to smush a quilt under the arm of your regular machine, you roll out the layers of your quilt and you steer the sewing machine (sitting on a rolling bed) so it glides over it while stitching.

The machine was a real nightmare to set up (we were at it for multiple hours, puzzling our way through some completely inadequate instructions). And there was very little in the way of information on how actually to use it once it was set up, although the internet helped with that. But all of that is behind us now.

Here is the machine loaded with a test quilt top, batting, and backing, all ready to go. The black frame you see in front of the machine is part of the steering mechanism:



The top, batting, and backing are all on their own separate rolls, and getting them on correctly so they roll evenly is key. The inherently stretchy quality of batting does not help!

Here you can see these rolls:



I made about 13 passes over this small quilt top, and ended up with a pretty good result! Here is a close-up of the quilting (the white thread designs over top of the fabric). Please click to see the details.



My wrists are aching today but I know if I were wrestling a quilt under the regular machine, it would be much worse, and the results wouldn't be as satisfactory either.

This little charity quilt for Project Linus is about 43" square, and the project quilt is about 54" x 72" (before it's trimmed), so it'll be more of an undertaking, but I am feeling a lot more confident about embarking on the endeavor now.

(Oops, just measured and I think we may have to extend the quilting frame out to full width before we can do this, as the half-width frame can't handle the larger quilt. Grr!)

My mother's African-style quilt

Here it is, prior to acquiring its border(s). Click to see a larger view:



In other news, there are star blocks scattered all over my studio! I am finished with all the small, 6" blocks; once I finish up two more of the 9" blocks, I'm going to put this project on the back burner for a bit so I can focus on finishing up one of my other quilt tops.

Updated stars

Here is our updated quilt diagram:



And a photo of some stars lying on fabric that will be incorporated into the non-star squares:

Star quilt, Makindu, consulting

Progress continues on the star quilt. I have 6 of the large stars completed, and have procured additional white-on-white fabric to make more. (We want to have some stars spinning clockwise and others spinning counterclockwise, so I thought I would make four of each: this guarantees we'll have enough for each direction, no matter whether Becca makes "lefties" or "righties".)

I should give credit where credit is due. Part of what inspired us to make a raffle quilt for an organization that is personally meaningful to us is the fact that my mother and several of her friends are nearing the homestretch on a raffle quilt for Makindu Children's Program. (This is an organization that provides healthcare, education, and support to children orphaned in Africa.) I have seen photos of their quilt in progress, and it's pretty impressive. I hope to be able to show you pictures when they have the top finished, and will also share a link to the raffle if Makindu puts it up online.

In other quilt-related news, I am helping another online friend plan out her first quilt. (I imagine she may in part be referring back to the instructions I wrote up for Becca last year, which I will be modifying for inclusion in this blog once we get started working on the Good Wishes quilt.) She will probably post about her quilt project on our bulletin board when she gets started (this summer). It sounds like it will be very like one of the Good Wishes quilts in certain respects - but since this is her project and not mine, I'll leave it to her to talk about the specifics.

Friendship stars

What, me, only work on one project at a time? Never!

Last year I taught my friend Rebecca how to quilt over the computer (using lots of words and lots of pictures). We didn’t know how well it would work, but she did a great job - she was very focused and stuck with the task all the way through, and her quilt looked really great when she was finished.

Well, last night we were talking on the computer and we decided that it would be fun to try to make another quilt together - but this time, we'd be working on the same quilt instead of on parallel ones.

I usually make my charity quilts for Project Linus, but this time we thought we would contact a charity near and dear to Becca's heart, the National Stillbirth Society, to see if they would be interested in doing a raffle. Becca says that some of the parents like to imagine their babies as being stars (like in Greek mythology) so she thought we could make a quilt with stars on it. She picked white-on-white stars on a scrappy blue background.

These are two sample stars I made:


And here is the layout we are working on. (She's put together a neat idea for the last two rows, using 6" stars instead of 9" stars, but I haven't diagrammed that part yet):



We haven't talked about what happens after we put the stars together... but I guess we'll see when we get there :)