Prayer quilts . . .

I'm a member of Christ Church Cathedral (Anglican/Episcopal) . . . I lector and sing in the choir.

I'm also associated with the Prayer Quilt ministry. We make small lap quilts for folks who've been in the hospital, or otherwise suffering in body, mind, or spirit.  The quilts are made prayerfully, and yarns are passed through the quilts for tying.  At a presentation ceremony, the congregation assembles and says a prayer as they tie a knot in the yarns.  Then, the quilt is present to the recipient, along with the wishes and prayers of many.

We've received a quilt request, and I volunteered to make it (since I now have a "stash" to dispose of) . . .

Then, I found out who it's for . . . it's a good friend.  Years ago, this friend talked about a quilt with a Celtic knot cross on it.  I'm gonna design one . . .

Experimenting with a different technique . . .

Many of you know I love foundation piecing, with a twist . . .

Instead of sewing fabric to paper, which gets torn out when the block is completed, I used slightly-starched muslin that I've stamped my design on.  Call me lazy, but what's the point of going to all the trouble of teaing out all that paper??

I love foundation piecing because of the accuracy and consistency of the blocks.  I sometime enlist my dad's help in constructing quilt blocks.  With foundation piecing, it doesn't matter who constructs the blocks; they'll all come out the same.

Of course, I have a fair bit of prep work upfront to make up for the paper tearing at the end:  I must pre-shrink the muslin; cut the muslin into strips; soak the strips in a starch/water solution; press the strips before cutting them into squares; and then print my design with a rubber stamp.  WHEW!!

I found a product that I blogged about previously that let me run foundation sheets through my printer:  June Tailor's "Perfect Piecing."  It is non-woven, and feels like a slightly stiff paper; it can be either left in the project or torn out.  Well, I left it in the project, but it leaves the projected sorta stiff and it has the sound of paper crinkling . . . ERK!!

Back to the muslin . . . If I could just find a method that didn't have so many steps . . .

Years ago, I tried something I mentioned on my "Simply Quilts" appearance.  Instead of pinning fabric to the right side of the muslin foundation and sewing along the printed lines on the back, I tried sewing the fabric from the front.  It should be possible to use the sewing foot as guide.  I decided to give this another try.

Unfortunately, I have half-inch seam allowances built into my templates.  To remedy this, I attached a quilting guide at the half-inch mark, as shown below.

Then, I pinned my fabric to the muslin foundation and sewed it, using the quilting guide as guide for my half-inch seam allowance.

The jury is still out on the results:  the fabric pieces go together well enough, but the trimming of the finished square leaves something to be desired. The squares are exactly seven inches square, and I'm using a half-inch seam allowance to assemble them, but the accuracy is off; my points just don't seem to meet as perfectly as before.

I may go back to rubber-stamping my muslin, and sewing from the back . . .

Baby Quilts all around . . .

My office manager recently had a baby . . . hers is the third baby born to the office, as it were, in the past 18 months!!

Have I made any baby quilts??

No, but that's about to change . . .

How to grow a fabric stash . . .

For years, I prided myself for being a "quilter without a stash."  I just didn't get the concept of collecting fabric that wasn't put to use.  When I had a project in mind, I'd buy fabric for it, and whatever I didn't use was put to use in the NEXT project, or I passed the remaining fabric to my dad, who also quilts.

Well, last year, I joined several fabric swaps sponsored by the Yahoo! group, QuiltGuy.  One theme was Fall, and the other theme was Winter Blues.

Earlier this year, I joined not one but THREE different fabric swaps:  Solids, Neutrals, and Tone-on-Tone.  There were about twenty guys in on each, so that meant I had to buy about five yards of each, with the promise of getting about five yards each, cut into fat quarters.

Here they are . . . what do you think of 'em??

Granted, I did have a little fabric of my own to add to the stack (the rest I'd given to my dad as a Christmas present), so there's maybe twenty yards of fabric here.

Whatever shall I do with it??  It's for darn sure it won't sit around gathering dust!!