And they wore them...

A Sweet Sixteen birthday party to remember.

Our April Fools Day Darling.

Happy Birthday, Cepeda Rose!

Sarah is sewing a lot!

Sarah has been making a lot of face masks. 

She is collecting a gallery of masked face photos 

to make into a poster for her office door.

As you can see, she has managed to put her 

ever-loving tractor on a pink bandana face mask.

She made this pair of masks for a lesbian anniversary. 

I suppose my "Pie Hole Cover" face mask 

will go onto the poster. 

How embarrassing! Hahaha.

Then, as you know, Sarah just can't stop making quilts!!! 

Here are a few that have been finished lately:

Sarah calls this using up her uglies. 

Pretty nice uglies if you ask me.

She really loves the back of this one; 

it's an old Indian cloth that some hippie dripped wax onto so they could stick it to the wall. 

She's trying to figure out from whom she got this. 

Anyone?

Wow, this looks fantastic on her office lawn! 

Bet it will look even better on a bed. Yay.

 This stunner was made 

using all three sizes of her scrap system.

And these are the leftovers. 

And one more thing. 

Somehow Sarah thought these were her "Uglies" as well.

I guess they fooled her!!! 

Nancy Birger quilted it with Swirly Twirly thingies.

Another stunner.

Wanda has been sewing .... a lot!

The stack of quilts in the rocking chair have now been bound 
and are ready to be donated

 - if quilt guilds are ever allowed to meet again. 

#1

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#4

  All of the tops were sewn some time ago; we won't worry about how long ago that was. Some of the scrap fabrics were from my quilts, and some were donations from other quilters, and I have also purchased scraps. 

I don't remember where I got the scraps for quilts 5 and 6, but they were already cut into small trapezoids so all I had to do was sew them into rectangles and then into blocks. 

Quilt 7 has small four-patches the same size as the white squares. 

Most of the scraps in quilt 8 were from my friend LaVaughn.

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8

Most of the scraps in Quilt 9 are from our own Carol P. 

What a happy combination. 

Quilt 10 is a mix of scraps, many from LaVaugh including the yellow bird piece near the middle of the quilt. 

For Quilt 11 Maple Grove Quilters made a bunch of pink quilts for breast cancer awareness several years ago, and these were scraps I had left from that project. 

Quilt 12 has the same fabric as the center of each offset log cabin. 

However, it's a large floral print so it looks different in many of the squares - no idea how I got so many precut squares of that floral.

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  I remember piecing Quilt 13 at an MCQ retreat some years ago. The centers of the blocks are silk screened designs. 

For Quilt 14 Maple Grove Quilters made heart quilts for girls years ago - pinks, reds and purples is what we decided girls really liked. It was an exchange of blocks so some were not made by me, but I made enough to finish a quilt top. 

Quilts 15 and 16 are small pieces, probably doll quilts made from two-inch squares that were cut for watercolor quilts some years ago. 

Everything is 'some years ago' - did you catch that?

For scrap quilts with borders, all the border fabrics were from my stash even though most of the scraps could have come from others. 

Many of these have pieced bindings from my stash of leftover binding strips. 

The tops were made 'some years ago,' but the quilting was done in 2020.

 My goal for the year is to finish more of the unquilted tops.

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After I had bound all those charity quilts, I still had lots of leftover binding pieces. 

I have always saved extra bits of binding, and they are various widths with some older ones cut on the bias. 

I decided to piece them into long strips, ready to use for the next quilts. 

The biggest roll is 5-3/4 inches in diameter. 

Makes you want to start your own roll, doesn't it? 

Each roll has an empty wooden spool as the starter.  

There were some lengths of binding that I thought were long enough to leave as they were in flat bundles. 

Looks like I can bind several more scrap quilts.

Gave 'em to the fam.

Once a mother, always a mother. 

Made these face masks for  our kids and our grands.

They are happily wearing them.

And when one of the family turns "Sweet Sixteen", ya gotta celebrate...safely.

And we sent the requested every time chocolate cake - "Thee Cake". 

Edith's Cute Child's Face Mask

Edith made an adorable child's face mask.

Looks like about 6" across and 4" high.

Some child is going to love this Snoopy face mask.

If the finished size is 4" X 6" then the cut size would be about 1/2" to 1" bigger depending on the seam size.

Home Made Face Mask Information

Vivien S writes:]

I offer some thoughts on masks.

Home-made masks do not typically protect the wearer (could be some help in case of splashes).  They typically help protect others because if you sneeze, cough etc the spray probably does not reach as far.

Professional masks/respirators are designed to protect the wearer.

When health care workers are using a home-made mask over a “professional mask” it is helping keep the surface of “real” mask clean longer so it is serving a very useful purpose when they do not have a supply to change out.

Vivien L. Smith Ph.D | R&D EHS
Environment, Health, Safety & Medical

And from Sarah G:
Yes Vivienne that's it exactly!   A better than nothing attempt....  I figure if they are asking for them, I will help, even if it's not enough.  Also it shows the grassroots support to hospitals and staff.  Love and hope are sewn in too💚
and...
I'm about halfway through my second 50. If they extend the date past 5th of April then I will take some more
and delivery info:
I'm not sure why they have the deadline [April 5]. I would guess they may extend it, if needed. At Abbott I drive up to the door by Sister Kenny Institute and wait for someone to come out. Sometimes they're not very attentive but they get there within a few minutes.

...and just in case:
I just saw this on the Bonnie Hunter website. It said please stay home, because if you die your husband will sell all your sewing stuff for what you said you paid for it!

Retreat-less sewing

From Wanda S:

Hello, quilters,

  Wasn't retreat fun? A bit quiet though. As Carol said the beds have improved a lot. I missed every meal and had to do my own cooking and eat my own snacks. There was no snoring in our room, even when I was the last one to bed or the first one to get up. Next fall let's do the retreat the usual way, but this was okay for a one-time experience.

  I worked on quilting some of my stash of unquilted tops. I have lots of those. The photo shows eleven that I've done since mid-March. Only the top two have binding. One I bound by hand and the other by machine. I am not pleased with the machine-bound one, but maybe by the time I get more practice my technique will have improved. All of these are charity quilts for Maple Grove Quilters or Minnesota Quilters. Three are baby quilts, and the rest could be larger baby quilts or lap quilts.

  I have lots of help from the cats when I am downstairs sewing. They know that when I get tired or get tired of being pestered, I will stop and play ropes with them.

Best wishes to you all, stay well and keep quilting,

Wanda

And a little something I did with a panel from Gruber's in Waite Park, MN. This will go to Rob's bro and mate, Steve and Cyndi because they have sweet and rascally Jasper the cocker. It was fun to use up some found blocks not used from a previous project that brought out the red in the panel. Still needs one more frame - maybe black, maybe red, maybe beige. Maybe two or three frames. 
Then it will go to the quilter.

Here's the finished top with the edging. 

Nancy has it now for quilting.