Plane Ride

Sixteen comfort quilts for the children's home in Kathmandu, Nepal flew out early this morning with a team of seven, including my husband and my son. Thank you Susan, Lisa, Sue, Janette, and Patty for helping me achieve my goal of one quilt for each child! And special thank you to Sharon Brandli's family for the beautiful blocks that were given to me after her death. I was able to use them to create the three quilts in the center of this photo above. More about that later.

 I found some quilt labels among my stash and used them to identify a recipient for each quilt. The labels were machine stitched on, as was the binding, for sturdiness.

 On a sunny day I attached many of the quilts along my deck fence for some beauty shots. I'll be posting about each one in the days to come.

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One evening, at my modern quilt guild meeting, Lisa surprised me by handing me these three beauties!  Their additions became the final pieces of the puzzle of securing quilts for everyone! The star quilt on the right is made with hand-dyed fabrics. I am humbled.

Bright Checkerboard

Here's another scrappy quilt made entirely of two and a half inch squares from the basket of squares that I always have on hand. It is definitely a favorite of mine. 

The quilts going to Nepal are all around 60" x 80". Big enough to fit atop the cots that the children sleep on. An eleven year old little girl named Nisha will get to cuddle with this colorful checkerboard soon.

This is actually the second Bright Checkerboard quilt I have made in the last year. In April, I made one for my granddaughter, Pearl, to celebrate turning five! 

Both of these quilts, as well as the previous two going to the Nepali children, were made as leader/ender projects while I created other quilts. If you are wondering what leader/enders are, check the tutorials on the sidebar of this blog for instructions. You will be glad you did!

Dotty Squares

 Sometimes, simple patchwork is my favorite kind of quilt.

 This one went together so quickly! Three and a half inch squares were picked from my scrap basket of squares. I pre-cut them from leftovers as I create other projects. The grey dot is even leftover from another quilt as is the red binding.

 If you are wanting to create a quilt quickly, like I did, consider a simple patchwork design from your scrap basket.  It's so satisfying to see it come together almost effortlessly!

Raj will be receiving his quilt before the week is over. I'm hoping to see a photo of him holding the quilt. Are you reading this, Mr. Lollyquiltz?!

Comfort Quilts

 You may recall that my son, Drew, and his family were in Nepal in April 2015 when a devastating category 7.8 earthquake rocked that region of our world. Nearly 9,000  were killed and almost 22,000 people injured. Over three years later, the effects are still evident and injured children living in remote villages find it difficult to receive medical treatment and care for their handicaps. 

A special home houses fifteen handicapped boys and girls under the age of 18 where they have found refuge and care. Drew and my daugher-in-law, Lauren, are invested in seeing that the The P.G. Home be a successful sanctuary and home for them. Next week, Drew will be traveling with a team of doctors and nurses to Nepal where they will not only visit the Children's Home but also travel into remote areas offering free medical care to those who have none.  

 My husband, Fred, is excited to be accompanying Drew and the medical team, helping out where ever he can. The patchwork quilt that you see here, with the ombre blue sashing, will be packed into a suitcase and given as a gift to a boy named Sanu to brighten his bed. There is a quilt for each child, handpicked by Lauren, from the ones made by loving hands here in Kansas City. I enjoyed seeing Lauren ponder over the quilts as she made choices to match each child's personality and tastes. Lauren has just returned from her own trip to Nepal, accompanied by two of my grandchildren, Ezra and Lois. Here's Lois with the quilt...

There is a lot of love wrapped up in this project and my prayer is that these kiddos feel that love every night when they lay down and tug their quilt up around their shoulders to sleep. I'll be showing you more of the colorful quilts in the days to come.
Thank you for stopping by after my long absence! You guys are the best!
Fondly,
Carla 

Hello! Anybody there?

Yes, it has been awhile. Like three years! But, I've been thinking about brushing off the cobwebs and blogging about my quilting again. It's such a great way to document what I make, so even if no one reads blogs anymore, it might be fun! 
I've been busy, as you can see by this stack of quilts that will soon be flying to Nepal with my husband and son. They will brighten the beds of 15 handicapped children living together in a children's home. I'm pretty excited to have been a part of making it happen!

Gone Astray!

A few have you have noticed my absence. Please don't be worried as I am doing fine. If you've sold a house recently, you will understand when I tell you that I've been super busy getting my house ready to sell and, now, keeping it ready for those invisible buyers that come through every few days!

 I barely let my husband sit on the couch, poor guy. You never know when that next house shopper is going to want to stop by! No, we don't have a house in mind to buy. We have just decided that the time is right to move back to "town". It's an adventure!

 You may remember that I've been sewing in my bedroom for several years. Well, that might seem strange to potential buyers, so I've moved to this cute cubby in the basement. I love the lighting...so much better than the bedroom. It's also very cool during the hot summer days. Now, if I can just find time to sew!

 I did make my three year old granddaughter, Lois, a little dress a while back to welcome her home from Nepal. Do you see those words "easy-to-sew"?

 Well...Miss Simplicity lied. This placket was a killer. It looks simple, doesn't it? That's just what I thought. But, no! Trust me on that. The pattern was only a buck on sale, so no tears were shed when it landed in the circular file, let's just say!

 The result is cute and fits Lois perfectly, although it's hard to tell in this blurry photo! 

 And just to prove to you that I'm still alive and well, here is hubby and me with six of our grandies right before shooting off a bunch of really cool fireworks on the 4th.

We will miss that next year, I know. 

Thanks for sticking with me.

Floating Squares

My sewing time has been limited lately, but this week I carved out a few hours to recharge my batteries and finish up my project for the KCMQG Quilt-Along using Sherri Lynn Wood's new book on liberated piecing.

 Sherri Lynn led a workshop for the KC Modern Guild a few month back and some of us got hooked on her fun methods! We enjoyed ourselves so much so, that we've decided to work through the book, one chapter at a time, and challenge ourselves to make up a project using each of the 10 Scores included in her book. Floating Squares is up first.

Lately, I've been drawn to fabrics by Kaffe Fassett and have managed to accumulate a nice collection. I've decided this QAL was a fine spot to start using the fabrics instead of just collecting them. For the floating squares method, you only need three fabrics. Here are my choices, cut into various square shapes without using a ruler...

Using white as a filler fabric, I began by sewing a couple of squareish shapes together...

...

...until I had formed a section like this. In the beginning, I had planned to join together several sections made of different fabrics.

But, it just wasn't doing anything for me so I continued on with the aqua, pink and white original choices until I had used up most of the Kaffee print and pink Cherrywood solid. 

Once I squared up the edges, the top measures about 24 inches by 26 inches. Since the fabrics are sometimes not joined on the straight grain, I sewed along the edges to keep everyhing from stretching out of shape. At this point, I'm not certain if I will create a small quilt from my effort or join other "scores" to it to make a larger quilt top. 

There were around eight of us that came to the modern guild meeting last night with our first score ready to reveal. Heres' mine hanging out with friends!

We all agree that making our Floating Squares was a very enjoyable experience!