I’ve been working away at several projects during the last month, in between trips to Southern Illinois. My mother has been battling pneumonia since February and has been in and out of hospitals and a nursing home. She is getting good care, but she smoked for years and has chronic pulmonary disease, so her prognosis is not good. In between trips to see her, I made her this appliqued and quilted pillow:
My sister Joan and I told her that the pillow just “pulls the whole room together,” and we had a good laugh over that one. Not much you can do to make a hospital room more cheerful, but I tried with this pillow. She really liked it, almost as much as the stuffed dachshund Joan gave her! Mom loves dogs, in particular the three doxies owned by my sister Maribeth, and she misses them.
I also finished the Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild Winter Challenge: Women and Peace. The challenge was to use a bright orange batik fabric and the peace symbol in a quilt 40-inches square or smaller. I started with the border, a rainbow of 2½-inch strips I had sewn together for another (failed) project:
I cross-cut the strips to make squares, arranging them in a stair-step pattern. Then I appliqued a 20-inch block for the center. I wanted a sort-of hippie look—peace and love and all that. Patterns for the tree, birds, sun, and peace sign came from www.weefolkart.com (free). I was going to draw all this, but I knew I would run out of time. I searched for a peace sign pattern, and up popped Wee Folk Art. Their art has just the right whimsical look I was looking for, so why reinvent the wheel? Here is the finished quilt:
I call it “Peace, Love, and Sunshine.” I am happy with the result, and I won 2nd place in the challenge. The quilt has been on display at a local shop this past month.
I also made a quilted computer case for my daughter by strip piecing various upholstery fabrics. I started with a pattern, but soon abandoned it and did my own thing:
Finally, I finished Part 2 of American Quilter Magazine’s latest Mystery Quilt, called Rainbow Rotini. Below are the 12 blocks from Part 2. Now I put it away and wait for the final installment in the July issue of the magazine.
Cindy, our hospice has a 6-bed inpatient unit called Bruns House: 24-hour palliative care for people who are actively dying, in a warm, home-like environment. I am the chaplain for Bruns House, and I love it there. There are volunteers in the community who piece together quilts to top the beds of each and every patient. The rooms are very homey to begin with, and with the colorful quilts on the beds, it really makes our patients and their families feel welcomed and cared for. After the patient dies, the quilts are given to their family as a keepsake. So we have a very busy group of quilting volunteers, and it is a beautiful thing. Not trying to recruit you -- just wanting you to know. Your peace quilt reminded me of our volunteers' important work.
ReplyDeleteIf I send the finished tops only, would the quilting volunteer group be able to quilt them? The quilting process itself is always a bottleneck for me because I quilt on my home machine, not a long-arm, and it takes quite a lot of time.
ReplyDeleteMy quilt guild makes baby quilts for layettes given out by our county health department to pregnant women who use their health clinic. We've also been making quilts for a Veteran's Home. I currently have at least 2 baby/child quilts waiting to be quilted, but I also have a stash of blocks that didn't make it into completed quilts that might be more appropriate for Bruns House rather than the layette project. So let me know the dimensions of the Bruns House quilts. If your group can quilt them, I should have some tops for you.