9-Patch Blocks & Lap Quilts

Sorry I've been away so long. I've been busy [well, lazy, more likely].

Here are 3 more of the quitls that are being made for our Assisted Living folks. The quilt at the bottom [bright block with black and bright border] has been bordered and needs to be quilted - I'll get that one when it's finished.

The blocks below total 54. There are 5 of the blocks that you can't see well that are made with 2 prints - for a funny 9-patch quilt

The 2nd photo is blocks that are brights cut 3" with a white background - there are 21 of those,

and the 3rd photo has 28 6" blocks.

I am trying to keep up with CrazyMom at http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/ She is working on 1 9-patch block per day. I tried that for a while, but then found that if I cut my blocks one day, I could get a weeks worth done at once. I'm also working on 3 different 9-patch quilts at once, 2 brights and one that will be just a little more subdued.

June 2nd was the 37th day of the challenge, but I think most of us are keeping up.

I drove to Morro Bay the first full weekend of June, both to see my son and dil, and to go to 11 quilt shops in the Central Coast California Shop Hop. I did well with purchases. I picked a quilt to work on [in some future year] and bought fabrics for that quilt - only slipped up once and picked up 1 yard each of a dog and a cat fabric [and a pattern to work on another year].

Weather was great for driving - it was overcast with sprinkles - and the drivers were acting nicely [you know, nobody had to be anywhere 10 seconds before anyone else].

I also gave a quilt to my grandson [in his 30's] with lots of motorcycle stuff on it. I had shown it at the retirement facility where I live, and several folks were either horrified or loved it [depended on whether they knew a bike rider or not].

The dogs stayed with the vet over the weekend and Chico came home healthy [he's on lots of med's for congestive heart failure] so will continue to leave him there when I travel. Little Bit will go to the kennel where they let him out to play in a grassy area every day.

I'm also knitting when I'm not sewing or quilting - still working on caps and scarves for the merchant seamen in New York [that is where several of our residents worked either before or after they were overseas].

Auction quilt done!

Here are photos of a quilt that Gail M. made [well, she did all the hard work and made the top]. She offered it to me for the Cinco de Mayo auction/celebration. The border is a Frida Kahlo print [self portrait] that will be perfect for our auction.

The quilt came out to 70" x 70" and was more fun to work on than I imagined. I had a tough time starting it because I didn't want to ruin it, but once I got started, it was fun to get help with figuring out what should be quilted in the different areas.

I was going to make a twin size quilt top to put on e-bay, but this one turned out so busy that I made two lap quilts instead. The patriotic one above is one of two small quilts [one will go on e-bay and one will go to our assisted living group]

Here is another quilt - this one for e-bay.

The quilting group on the grounds has been busy helping me make tops for assisted living. We have 9 lap quilts finished and 3 more ready to put the binding down. Since my goal was 3 quilts a month, we are doing really well.

Two of the women have made tops and I will get those quilted soon.

I'm also making a motorcycle quilt for my grandson. The top is finished and I started putting the backing together [it will be "back art" with all the leftover parts of the front].

Lap Quilts

Here are the 2 quilts I described on my last blog. I am making them for our Assisted Living Unit, and plan to have at least 25 made by October/November so they can choose which quilt they want.













This quilt is the Wickedly Easy Quilt. You can type that into your search engine and find the free pattern for this one



The"Wickedly" quilt was fun to play with. I found a batch of pink, green and purple [and threw in a yellow] and cut up fat quarters for that one.

All of the fabrics for the quilts in this blog were out of my stash [scary thought! - but at least I'm using it up].










The Magic Tile is made of cat fabrics - I even threw in a single dog fq to liven things up. It's one of my favorite quilts - It's not intricate to do, but takes time to cut and sew each step.








And here are the next 2 in the saga of lap quilts



















This quilt was made from a whole batch of exchange 9-patches. I used the green 9 patches with the yellow print squares [those are the X blocks] on this one and really liked the way it looks.










And this quilt is made from Log Cabin blocks that were left over from a guild raffle quilt quite a number of years ago. As one of my friends said, it's nice to see them in the light of day instead of in one of my WIP bins [that's Works in Progress]





The dogs are still very happy here. My oldest, Chico, has been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and at this point is on meds. His liver has started to enlarge, which means the heart is affecting it. I don't think that's a good sign, but the vet doesn't think the end is imminent. Chico is having his teeth cleaned this week and the vet has given me the talk about not living thru the anesthetic. I think that's mandatory for his condition, but I'm hoping all goes well.



As Vice President of our Residents Association I have been busy finding programs for our Wednesday afternoons. I have a max of 2 per month and once I got over the fear of calling total strangers, I have been finding some fun ones.





Other than quilting like a fiend [I'm finishing a quilt for our Cinco de Mayo auction] I have stayed well this winter. No colds or flu.




I do want to say, though, that I HATE THE TIME CHANGE!!! Getting up early is not my cup of tea or anything else.

OK, I've finally decided to get back to blogging.

first up is Rachel's quilt. I made what felt like hundreds of Hole in the Barn Door blocks from 3" to 16" in size. Rachel picked the fabrics - pink and turquoise. I picked up fabrics on one of the quilt shop hops and had her pick out what she wanted. The blocks finally went together into a long twin size quilt - longer than the 93" batting [I put extra blocks on the back]. Rachel loved it.



This next quilt is Laura's quilt [also a twin size - but not quite as long as Rachel's]. While Rachel was going thru the fabrics to see what she wanted, Laura said that she liked them all - so I used all but one [which I didn't like]. I found this pattern in one of the magazines [but it's already back in the pile, so I don't know which magazine it was]. Laura also loved her quilt. Of course, the girls liking the quilts made the work worthwhile.

One of the things I plan on doing this year is making a batch of lap quilts for our Assisted Living unit. The director said there are about 25 folks there at any time - so I am aiming for 25 - 30 quilts so there can be some choices.

I figured that if I finished 3 a month [of course, along with one I'm making for my 30 something grandson and another one for our Cinco de Mayo [Gail made the top for that one], I really do plan to finish the group of lap quilts for November.

So far I have finished 3 [that means quilted, bound and washed] - Magic Tile [mostly cat fabrics] , a Nine Patch and X block [green 9-patches with yellow blocks with green X], and a Wickedly Easy Quilt in pinks/lavender/green [you can Google that one]. I figure these are my January set. Photos later.

For February - I pinned another Nine Patch and X block [yellow 9-patches with green blocks with yellow X], I have a 9-patch and snowball [light green and off white - still quilting that one], and have another Wickedly Easy quilt ready to pin [as soon as I find the batting that I cut for it].

In November I was elected vice President of our Resident's Association at Westminster Gardens. That means PROGRAMS!!! The budget is small, and finding programs is something totally new for me. So, in addition to making way to many quilts this year [I have to empty my storage unit somehow], I'll be busy with phone calls and several meetings a month. And this is retirement?