My Hands Hurt...

...my wrists are sore, and the fingertips on my left hand are raw, but by golly my nephew, Karl, is going to have this quilt for his 21st birthday on April 11!





The pattern is called "Star Struck" by Bonnie Hunter. Bonnie's patterns really help you use up scraps. I kept the gold and ivory fabrics consistent in all of the small quarter square triangles, but the quilt could be done completely scrappy. I was inspired to use this pattern when I saw Val's version on our quilting forum. She used Christmas reds and greens, and I'm sure it'll become an heirloom in her family.

Karl is a great young man. He's a junior in college right now in Fulton, Missouri. He and his parents moved up here from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and it is really great to see more of him now. I pumped him for color preferences at Christmas!

From now until April 11 I will be hand quilting this quilt! I haven't made a queen-sized quilt for a long time, so it's quite a change for me.

And now an invitation...

A very sweet friend of mine, Kimberly, has started a new quilting forum on Delphi, The Quilting Bee. I already know a lot of the quilters there and have even met some of them in person. They are good people! However, we welcome new members with open arms and look forward to what we can share with them and learn from them. Click on the logo at the right to join us!

Four Guys Went to the Hospital and...

...made someone happy! At least, that was the goal of making this quilt, "Sesame Street Quartet". He went to the hospital as a Project Linus donation last week.

This is my second quilt with these applique patterns. The first was ready to donate when my first granddaughter went into that very hospital with RSV two years ago. Of course, I took it to her since she was crazy about "Mo-mo" (Elmo). She still sleeps with it.

I didn't have to buy these patterns. I found them as coloring pages on free internet sites. The pages take some time to search, but they are great pattern sources.

Mitten Match

On Friday I finally delivered this quilt to the hospital for Project Linus. It had been hanging in my closet for three years, and I couldn't let go of it! For some reason I just really liked it and thought I would have some special use for it. I finally decided that three years was enough--that it was aged to perfection! Hopefully, it is doing good work on a hospital bed today. It's not just a quilt--it's a game, too! Each mitten has a mate on the quilt, and it could take someone a while to match them up.