BAM is collecting wheelchair quilts for the veteran’s hospital in Palo Alto. We had planned a sew Day, but our Sew Day had to be cancelled, so I made one top at Super Sew Day and am working on another one.
We are all working to the same pattern from Sunshine Linus.
Both quilts use some Moda fabrics I won as part of the UFO challenge. As per the pattern, I cut the fabric up into 9.5 inch squares and sewed them together.
2026 Wheelchair quilt top #2 in process
I had enough squares for at least one other, which I am working on now.
I didn’t include a back for the first one, but will sew a back for the second one. I have to sew this together first.
Someone else will quilt it. I didn’t cut off the corners as I thought the longarming would be easier if that step was done after quilting.
I have been collecting various blocks using 2.5 inch squares for forthcoming donation quilts. I finally had enough of the green half 16 patch blocks to make another Sidewalk quilt.
I started putting the blocks together in chunks on my small design wall, but couldn’t look at the whole thing until Cool Four Patch Fun was off the large design wall. I did a fair job spreading dark and light greens across the quilt. I don’t think this will take me very long to put together. I might have it done for the next meeting.
There is a lot of white in this quilt design. I think I need to try one where the large center blocks are a different color. White isn’t great for a donation quilt and I am sure I can find enough of whatever color to make a good looking quilt.
We had a fun Super Sew Day over the July Fourth holiday. We held it on Friday and Saturday so it was double the fun.
I went with a bag of small pieces of Soft and Stable that had been annoying me. My goal was to make them into larger usable pieces, Frankenfoam. I used Frankenfoam in the Palomino Pouch project and didn’t get any reports of problems. I cover the outside with some SF101/ProFuse to smooth out the bumps a little. I think for small projects, or those with a lot of seams, Frankenfoam works well.
Frankenfoam 1/2
I started out sewing like sized pieces together. By the end of Friday, I was less careful about ‘wasting’ foam. I ended up with two pieces about 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. I estimate I got the approximate size of one package of ByAnnie Soft & Stable. It was a good project to do when people were asking me a million questions. It was easy to stop and start without losing my place or having to figure out the directions again.
I really could have done more, but I decided I didn’t need an absolutely square piece to use it.
Mindalin Tool Roll exterior
As a result, on Saturday, I cut up one of those pieces and make the exterior of the Mindalin tool roll. This pattern can be found in Make Modern issue 70. The pattern calls for foundation pieced blocks to make the outside, but I decided to use selvedges to make the exterior. It looks really cool, IMO.
The last thing I made with selvedges was the Sleeping Bag pouch. I want to make another one, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I seem to have a never ending supply of selvedges, so I wasn’t worried about using up the ones I had collected.
Christine’s EBTMT
A lot of people were making the Everything But the Machine Tote. The guild may have a sew-a-long for this bag as it is very useful. It has drawers inside to hold your travel sewing supplies.
The front provides a great way to showcase a special patch, embroidery or fussy cutting.
People brought both Creative Play packets to the guild meeting on Saturday. It was so great to see them! People have done great work to them.
I was also very excited that they were in different states. One has turned into a round robin with people mostly adding borders. Not everyone is adding a complete, four sided border, but, as you can see, there are a lot of borders.
February Creative Play
The other is not sewn together completely. Chunks are sewn together which provides a lot of opportunity for creativity. There is also plenty of fabric left.
I finished the second of the May/June blocks the night before they were due. I try to make them before or as soon as we announce them, but I didn’t this time. As a result, I almost didn’t make the deadline.
In addition, I ended up remaking the X Plus/Lozenge block. Now I have two of them. I’ll use the first one on the back. I don’t want to make it into something else, because the piecing is less than stellar, but it will look fine on the back of the quilt.
BAM BOM Drunkard’s Path
I made the Drunkard’s Path/ Quarter Squares right away. I was in the frame of mind with Chaos with a Twist, so took the opportunity to make a few more in my BAM BOM fabrics.
May/June BAM BOM Participants
A lot of people are participating, which made me really happy! There were some fantastic blocks shown.
It is a little large, so my quilt holder had a tough time. I hope to remember to get some guild members to help me get a better photo.
Lupine back – finished
The poor quilt has been languishing between travel and other more urgent projects. In the middle of all the chaos I finally was able to sew the binding down.
I finished Ends n.25 a few weeks ago. I just handed it in and made time to post about it.
The background doesn’t provide the required contrast to make the oranges and yellows stand out. They don’t, however, blend together either.
This is a great example of what is fun about making donation quilts. I can play around with fabric combinations that I wouldn’t otherwise consider for my own work. I guess making backing is a little of the same.
Ends n.25 Back
The back, like the back for Ends n.24, uses some old solids that have been around since the dark ages.
In record time, Lupine is back and ready to bind. I took the quilt to her in mid-March. Colleen did a great job quilting it. I am pleased.
I’ll be glad to get this off my list. I have enough time to enter it in the Fair, but I am limited to two quilts quilted by another, so I’ll have to wait until next year. 🙁
The only thing I have left to do is bind it. I started the other day, but have to actually sit down to bind and I haven’t had a chance. I also need to get DH to hold it up so I can take a photo.
After I did some Pre-Sew Day work, we were able to put together a total of two quilt tops in addition to the larger top that the rest of the group put together. I am much better at working on my own. I was pleased that Sue and Lee Ann joined me without me having to say anything.
Lee Ann was kind enough to take the blocks for this one home and put the quilt together.
Sew Day donation top
The blocks I made also became a quilt top very quickly, thanks to Lee Ann. The blocks are 8 inches by 8 inches, so the quilt ended up being about 40 in. x 40 inches, which is about the size I like to hand in.
I finished the Pacifica Quilter’s Club Lucky Blocks last week. It took me longer than I thought, but I am pleased to be contributing to another good cause.
I finished the Patchwork Palooza top in January and now the whole quilt is complete: top, back, quilting, binding, sleeve. Done.
I am pleased with how I finished the edges. I think completing the diagonals looks nice.
There are blocks that I wish I had moved, but that will probably always be the case.
DH actually commented that he really liked this quilt. Maybe it will be a gift for him?
I will be entering this quilt into the Fair.
It must be some kind of record! I started this quilt on about September 6, 2025. Here it is, 6 months later finished. I am really happy and kind of stunned as well.
I found a tutorial for hourglass blocks. The Quilting Daily site also has a 3 color quarter square triangle (hourglass) block tutorial. I found these while reading the Love of Quilting magazine. They have a lot of basic tutorials. I decided to try it for my Bay Area Modern Block of the Month for March blocks.
The tutorial includes a 1.5 minute video with jaunty music.
I made two first just to see what I thought of the technique. I thought it was fine and something different, so I cut some squares and went to work. I went a little crazy and made quite a few QSTs!
BAM BOM March QSTs
As I was laying them out I realized that I could make pinwheels since I used the lime green in all of the blocks. I don’t know that I’ll do that in the final layout of the quilt, but it was kind of fun to see what such a layout would look like.
I just got a Technique Sheet from Studio 180 Designs for the Split Recs Ruler**. I love that ruler and may make some Elongated Hourglass units. Stay tuned.
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Joelle brought the January Creative Play packet to Saturday’s workshop to exchange with someone else.
Some interesting Flying Geese and Sawtooth border have been added since the last time I saw it. The orange has really taken off as a color. It is so fun to see what people do with a little piecing.
This piece is a little different from #1 and #2, because of the red. I have been feeling like I have a lot of red fabric I am not using. I decided just to put some red sashing on this quilt and see what happened. It is not a favorite of the series, but it isn’t ugly either. Next time, I’ll stick with the monochromatic look.
I like making these strip quilts, as I have said, as they use up scrap and make great leaders and enders. The problem with the white is that I have A LOT of white scraps and I can’t seem to use them up quickly enough. I am pleased that I didn’t use any white background fabric in Lupine. It loaded up my black scrap drawer, but stayed away from the white.
A week ago was the Community Sew Day at the Guild. After doing some pre-sewing, I also sewed another quilt using the same pattern at Sew Day. SueG sat next to me and followed my lead on sewing blocks my way.
Sue used her own materials, which was a lot better for precision. We sewed quite a few blocks, but Lee Ann took them all to sew together before I could take a picture.
I tried to keep the packs I chose in the same color family as Sue’s blocks, but I was really distracted and am not sure I succeeded. when I get a photo from Lee Ann, I’ll share it.
