Positivity QAL Link-up 3: Finish on Location

Lots of photos today. After a year and a half of photos only on the garage or in the yard, I went crazy getting some while out and about. What fun (but also always a bit self-conscious)! My Positivity Quilt for Preeti's challenge to benefit Bernie's collection of Mercyful Quilts has been finished for awhile, but this is the final link-up party to celebrate.  

First, let's get the obligatory garage photos out of the way for documentation.

Closer

The back used up a lot of the leftover fabric.

 

Initials and date. (Marker disappears when washed.)

Okay, let's take her on the road. We decided to visit some of our favorite spots on campus after a carillon concert at our local university. 

A bench near the music building:

A lovely old tree branch:

This spot was striking in the evening sun. I took a closeup, but I prefer this one with the arch of the entryway.

My husband had classes in this building in grad school.

On to the garden by the fountain.

Let's look at the back again.

Don't forget we came here to see the fountain.

We weren't done yet. To get back to our car we needed to walk past the art museum. I have to admit I don't care for this building in this old area of the campus. It's a modern piece of folded metal. I like old brick. But it is an art museum. If you'd like to see the whole museum, click on this link. It is a neat place for a quilt shoot.

How about that Dr. Seussian grass? It matches the green in the quilt.

We stopped at Andromeda, dancing in the median. This is not her best side, but I would have had to stand in traffic. (I know there's none there, but the traffic light was about to change.) If you'd like to see a better angle, here's a link to a photo. 

So we went to her friend Cassiopeia, my favorite quilt model.

The tee-shirt store behind her was likely a casualty of the pandemic. I feel sorry for the owners and workers, but I think Cassiopeia's surroundings are much improved without the advertisements plastered on the windows behind her. And now you can see the reflection of the campus building across the street. I wonder what she's contemplating this evening.

Here are the stats:

Pattern: A variation of a Plus quilt suggested by Preeti (Sew Preeti Quilts) for the Positivity Quilt Along.

Fabrics: Blues and yellows are mostly scraps from many years of quilt-making; Also some new yardage, especially for the background and backing. (Sorry, I didn't keep track of what they were, but those pluses in the background were serendipitous.)

Batting: Fairfield 80/20. (My machine loves this.)

Thread: Superior Masterpiece in Granite for piecing; Superior King Tut in Temple for quilting, and I think Superior Treasure in Little Prince (variegated blues) for hand stitching the binding.

Binding: Scrap pieced from leftover navy fabrics. 2 1/2 inches cut, double layer, machine sewn to front and hand stitched on back. 
Size: 80 1/2 by 60 1/2 inches before quilting; about 59 by 78 inches after quilting. I forgot to measure the quilt after washing. Oops. But I'm sure it's a few inches smaller each way. 

Machines: Singer Featherweight for piecing; Singer Treadle 115 for walking foot quilting and  machine work on the binding.

Previous posts about this quilt: Here and here.

Here's the quilt all washed and ready for her trip to California. She didn't want to travel alone, so she took a friend with her. 

I hope this quilt will bring comfort to a hospital patient and loved ones. Thanks to Preeti for inviting us to build this collection of quilts for Mercy Hospital and providing all the design ideas, and to Bernie for always keeping us updated on the needs of this special program. I'm looking forward to seeing all the positively wonderful quilts that everyone has made this summer. By the time you read this, the Quilt Along will be over, but the need for quilts goes on, so if you feel moved to do so, you could still make a quilt and send it along to Bernie. The quilt along was spread out for a long time to give quilters time to work throughout the summer, but the quilt sews up really fast, and there are lots of ideas for making/setting the blocks at Preeti's site Sew Preeti Quilts. Or you can make a quilt of your own design or choosing.

Oh, and I did use my bonus HSTs from the snowballed corners in the quilt to make some placemats. You can read more about them in the middle section of my last post here.

I hope your summer has been positively wonderful. Do continue to take care of yourself and others. You know what I mean.

I'm linking up with Bernie at Needle and Foot for our final party. Come join the celebration!

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.) 

 

The Positivity QAL link-up 1

Recently I made a quilt to use up all my blue fabric. Okay, I'll wait until you finish laughing. Who uses up all their blues? The quilt was intended for donation to Mercyful Quilts, a project near and dear to Bernie's heart at Needle and Foot. The quilts are donated to a hospital hospice program to comfort patients and their loved ones. Well, my quilt ended up instead in my blue-loving husband's hands for his birthday, so I knew I needed to make another for Mercyful. At just the right time, enter Preeti at Sew Preeti Quilts to encourage us to participate this summer in The Positivity QAL to benefit Mercyful quilts by making a plus block quilt. You can read all about it in her post about her original quilt and in the related tab at the top of her blog. There is a lot to read, including block options/instructions, layout ideas, a schedule for making/linking up and tips.

So, of course, another opportunity to use all of my blues. Ha Ha. Again. I chose a bunch of tone-on-tone dark blues that read solid from far but have subtle designs when viewed from a lap. When Preeti posted the possible blocks, I knew the one with snowball corners was the way I wanted to go. 

I used my Quiltography app on my Ipad to plan the color layout, with mostly blues for the pluses and some turquoise and lime green sprinkled in, and the green and lots of assorted yellow scraps for the snowball corners. (For the darkest teals in the plan, I used a dark blue fabric with teal dashes in it.) I made 6 different colorations of blocks, some with 4 yellow corners and some with 2 yellow and 2 green corners on the diagonals. I had a fat quarter of a neutral that I bought recently, and guess what the design was. Pluses!! I ordered four more yards of it, and that became the background and overall inspiration for my colors. 

Preeti generously gave us the whole summer to make this quilt, figuring that quilters would have lots of other activities occupying their time. (Especially this year!!) The early part of my summer was uncertain with Federal jury duty for a month and then possible need for lots of daycare help for my son and DIL due to my son's nasty softball knee injury. Thankfully, I was never called for a jury, and my son did not need surgery, just a long recovery period. But I had started working ahead on the quilt just in case I needed to take a break, and once I got started, I couldn't stop. So this project kind of turned into a squirrel. I threw the schedule out the window. By the time Preeti shared the optional layouts I was well on my way to a quilt. Good thing, too, because if I had followed the schedule I would have been still dithering over all the possibilities Preeti shared with us. 

I put the main pieces of the pluses on the design wall curtain to plan the placement.

Corners in progress:

It was really hot for several days, so I moved my pressing station to the basement. Aaah.

The only thing I don't like about snowball corners is the waste. I sewed the extra seams on this project, so now I have a bunch of HSTs that I'm going to challenge myself to actually use. Maybe in placemats? With more blues? Ha!

Placement was random and easy for putting up the snowballed corners on the design wall, probably because I had so many different yellows.

Arms of the pluses waiting to put it all together:

Because I chain pieced this, it was really easy to make the blocks quickly. And because I get bored--or maybe it's impatient--sewing a whole quilt together after the blocks are all done, I did the joining as I went. As you read this, the binding is made and the quilt is more than half quilted. But in the spirit of a relaxed-pace QAL, I'm going to stay with the schedule for linking up, and I'll just share the top half of the quilt for now. 

How about a few close-ups?

Okay, I'll stop. If you haven't decided whether to participate in this QAL yet, I strongly encourage you to. It's really doable, whether you spread it out summer style or chase that squirrel. (I've seen that even Preeti has thrown out the schedule for her quilt.) And it's for a wonderful purpose. I'm linking up with Bernie on Sunday for the first linky party to share our progress. Thanks to Preeti and Bernie for getting this all together! 

We interrupt this post for a weather statement. I'm sure I'll have lots of time to quilt over the next few days. We are in a non-stop rainy weather pattern, so there really isn't much else to do. I've had to move plants from my deck to my covered front porch to keep them from getting water logged, and I've tented the ones I can't move. 

This afternoon I took the tents off because some storms were predicted, and I didn't want them to blow away. While writing this post (Saturday) we had to go to the basement for awhile for a tornado warning. I did cut some zinnias for our table just before the storm hit. Aren't they cute? Anyway, spending some time in the basement and in rainy weather just reminds me once again: I really need some hand work to pick up at odd times. Any ideas? (Other than EPP)

In my last post, I mentioned that I'm going to use follow.it for people who want to follow my blog by email. So if you have been following me through email notifications with the old service in the past (or want to follow me in the future) please sign up in the box at the top of the right side bar to continue getting emails. (I hope I set it up right.) I'll also put a heads-up on Instagram when I write a new post. I'm still mulling over how I will find you to keep following your blogs if you also are losing the old notification system.

Okay. Bye now.

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.)