MY CORONAVIRUS QUILT 😷

I am calling this quilt my Coronavirus Quilt 😷  This is the third Brush Stokes Quilt that I have made and this one is for me.

  
I made this quilt while sheltering in place at home during the Coronavirus - Covid 19 pandemic.  We started to #ShelterInPlace on March 13'th since my husband is at risk.  Happily, we already had a good supply of toilet paper since my husband buys it in bulk when it goes on sale.  Him always doing that went from a thing I've always teased him about into a really good thing since toilet paper had already flown off the shelves by then.  I went shopping and brought home three weeks of groceries which lasted maybe two weeks in our #NoCarbsLeftBehind diet.  Then my son pulled up in our driveway and dropped off a trunk load of food.  He stayed six feet away but all I really wanted to do was hug him❣️

I found out fairly soon that if you get up at 2:30 in the morning you could sometimes get a delivery window with Amazon Whole Foods, otherwise you were out of luck.  So, after a few of those deliveries we had a freezer full of healthy!  What we didn't have was chocolate ... or soda (pop) ... sigh. By Easter I was desperately hoping that the Easter Bunny would be declared "essential" and able to drop off his goodies. Apparently, he was sheltering at home too.  I did, however,  score a Peach Coke one day! Yay! 

As the days slipped by one into another it became difficult to tell them apart.  

Then one day there was a box outside our front door.  It had a note that said, "Meow. From Teek, Tribble, and Gin."  It was filled with Ghirardelli Brownies in a Cup packages. Also, that day there was a package in our mailbox with a Dachshund Calendar in it.  The note with that said, "To keep track of the time while you stay at home! From, Tesla, Ti, and Odin." ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Those are all of my son and his wife's pets ... three rescue kitties and three dachshund puppies. 

Chocolate at last!!!

Since we could no longer go to the gym we walked each morning around 7:30 for an hour.  We have a beautiful lake to walk around so it's an enjoyable time.  It's not always an easy walk for my husband who has had upwards of twenty-two surgeries?  I can't even remember the total now.  For the most part he is a Bionic Man with rebuilt knees and hips etc.  It's not always easy for him to take long walks but he's doing really well with this routine.  

Sheltering at home, I'm doing what I normally do ... quilt.  Well, except for all those face masks that I made.  I think I made about sixty masks for my family.  I have a niece and nephew out delivering groceries in public and another one standing in the Chic Filet drive up window all day.  They got the first masks.  Then I heard how a lot of states and even stores around us here in N.C. were making it mandatory to wear them in public so I made some more for my family.  I even made one for Cocoa Bear 🐻  'Cause ya just gotta protect the ones you love❣️

I don't know how long this will last.  The thing that I miss the most is seeing my son and his wife.  And the dachshunds and kitties too, of course.  Otherwise, I'm pretty good about being alone and sitting in my soul.  

I did have a weird thing happen, though.  Unlike most people during this pandemic who wear pajamas every day I just put on my regular clothes.  But one day after our walk I decided after my shower to have a pajama day.  I tossed on my pjs, curled up on the couch with a good book and about twenty minutes later I looked up to see six men on my back patio looking at me through the glass doors.  Really? My one and only pajama day and THIS happens?  Turns out they were there to clean the gutter.  Oh well.  I didn't know that was considered essential during the pandemic.  Anyway, they climbed the ladder and were promptly swarmed by hornets.  Ha, come stare at me in my pajamas and fate is gonna bite you back, boys.

My second weird thing was in the form of a dream.  I dreamt that all these people were sitting on the floor with little sticks with wash rags wrapped around the ends. They were using these to clean out the holes in all the bowling balls to keep us safe.  No idea where that came from.  These are definitely strange times though.

During this time I've been watching the confirmed cases of the virus rise.  As of today, May 9 2020 there are 1,734 confirmed cases in my county with 50 deaths.  There are 13,397.00 confirmed cases in NC with 507 deaths. And 1.32M confirmed cases in the US with 80,061 deaths.  Since this is my journal of sorts I thought I would document those figures.

Enough about the virus, let's move on to the quilt.  This quilt was a dream to do.  I had just done this very same quilt for my niece for her graduation so this one went quicker and easier.  All my settings on the longarm were the same.  You can read about that in my last blog.

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some ❤️ into your world.  Our world could use an extra dose of love right now.

THE BRUSH STROKES QUILT 🔷 🔷 🔷

This Brush Strokes quilt is for my niece, Molly 💙 This is for her college graduation.  

I have made this Brush Strokes Quilt before.  You can read about it in an earlier blog.  Molly actually saw the first one as an unfinished quilt top laying across my guest bed when she came to visit once.  What she didn't know was that I had all the fabric to make another one tucked away in a drawer for when she graduated.  At the time both Molly and my son were learning how to speak and read Japanese.  Although these brush strokes look nothing like Japanese scripts they still kinda gave me that vibe, which is why I chose it for Molly.

This quilt came together quickly, having already made one.  I stopped part way through, however, to join the Giucy Giuce/Alison Glass Mini Series SAL (Sew Along) on Instagram.  I actually won the very first prize in the challenge.  Here is the announcement from Alison Glass that I won ...

                         

And here is my thank you post on Instagram ...

                  

And here is my Instagram post for my practice square.  I should mention that Alison Glass is the fabric and pattern designer for the Spectrum quilt that I made for my son and his wife and that Giucy Giuce is the designer of the aLiEn fabric that I used in my brother's quilt.  This is why the aLiEns are pictured in the above post and referenced in the post below.  

                           

This was a ten week challenge.  You had eight patterns to make and you made one a week and then the last two weeks you picked a project to sew them into. I chose to make a matching drawstring bag for Molly's quilt.  

Here are some of the squares as I made them.  These are four inch squares.  They're very tiny.  Some of them have over a hundred pieces of fabric in them.  They are all paper pieced. 

During this time the Coronavirus made its appearance in the United States.  The severity of this pandemic was brought home very quickly to us when our son's coworker came back sick from a business trip to the West coast and tried to get tested and there weren't any available testing kits.  Then my son, whose desk is next to his,  got a cough and fever but was also unable to get tested, although he was soon fine. My husband and I had bought enough food and supplies to self quarantine and my son brought us more when we ran out. We watched as so many people didn't listen and just kept going out to places that they didn't need to go to. As I sat home sewing I was reminded of my Mom who made baby quilts for all of us.  She would put a letter in each one that journaled what was going on in the world around her as she sat there cross-stitching.  I remember reading the letter that she had put in with one of the quilts that told of the events of 911. That letter is now a piece of history. And now here I sit making a quilt and writing about the Coronavirus that's affecting the entire world.  I hope we can come out of this stronger and kinder.  

As the pandemic grew, I made Molly's quilt.  I made it differently than the first one that I made.  I covered the entire quilt in orange peels using a small circle ruler.  There are approximately 720 orange peels in the twenty squares that make up the quilt.The hard part is that I tucked them behind the brush strokes. The harder part was that I ran out of my quilter's marking pen which I couldn't replace.  That meant I couldn't mark it properly and had to eyeball most of it which led to some wonky orange peels.  I guess that's just part of the quilts' history though.  As I finished the quilt I finally got replacement markers from England, the only place online that I could find them.

The small circle ruler used to make the orange peels with.

For this quilt I used Aurfil Monofilament thread and Glide White thread for the borders.  For the Monofilament my top tension was dropped to 1.25 and the bobbin tension was set at TOWA 200.  I used Quilter's Dream Polyester Batting in white because the quilt top is mostly white.  

I made the border larger than the pattern calls for and free motion quilted leaves around it.  I also put the material for the drawstring bag on the longarm and quilted matching leaves and flowers onto it.  

For the drawstring bag I used up the leftover batting and backing from longarming the quilt.  There were very few colorful scraps left from piecing together the quilt top.  That's why I thought to use the paper piecing challenge to use up the tiny scraps.  For the challenge I made eight four inch paper pieced squares.  There are five on the front of the bag, one flanged onto the back and two inside for pockets.  I put a cedar block in the pocket.  

I started this quilt a month ago when the statistics for coronavirus in our county of Mecklenberg, NC were 0.  Now the confirmed cases are 665 with 6 deaths.  There are presently 337,309 cases in the US and 1,289,380 in the world.  We've been told that these next two weeks will show a peak of cases here. I hope and pray that this moment in history leaves my family and friends untouched as we shelter in place at home ... and as I pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into my world❣️

 

THE FAIRY FROST TWILIGHT SKY QUILT 🧚‍♂️ 🧚‍♂️ 🧚‍♂️

The Fairy Frost Twilight Sky Quilt is a quilt pattern designed by Michael Miller Fabrics to feature their Fairy Frost fabric line. The fabrics actually sparkle like a fairy dusted them with a wee bit of fairy frost.  

I made this quilt for my great-niece, Gianna's, high school graduation present. She doesn't graduate until May but the fabrics are just so pretty I decided to make it early and tuck it away in the drawer till May or probably just send it off to her early.  

The pattern looks complicated but it's actually just two different blocks. Twenty-five of one block and one hundred and fifty-two of the other.  

Twenty Five of the first block done. 

One block down, one hundred and fifty one to go.

First you sew all the blocks together on point into a large diamond shape.

Then you just twist that diamond around into a square and trim off all the sticking out bits. 

You'll end up with little rectangles along the sides after you trim. 

Then it's time to put it on the longarm.  That's my favOrite part of quilting ❣️

Waiting for my backing.

I wanted to make this quilt soft so I used Quilter's Dream Orient Batting and didn't over quilt it.  

I used a stitch length of 9 and set my tension to 1.75 and the bobbin TOWA tension to 200.  I used Aurifil Monofilament on the top to stitch in the ditch and MicroQuilter #7017 in the bobbin.  I used a 90-14 Jeans needle to stitch with.  

Binding all set to go on the Binding Baby

While I was making this quilt my husband gifted me with a painting of a feather for my quilting room.  Isn't it gorgeous❣️

Then I used my fabric scraps to make a quilted drawstring bag to gift the quilt in.  

I loved making this quilt.  The sparkling colors are almost hypnotic.  I hope Gianna enjoys it.  It reminds me of her because she sparkles too!

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and sew some love into your world❣️

  

THE ORANGE BLOSSOM QUILT 🍊🍊🍊

This is my second Orange Blossom Quilt.  I made the first one a couple of years ago and it was used as a napping quilt by one of the little boys that I watched.  I made that one on my 45 year old ELNA SU sewing machine, which has no throat space and the feed dogs don't lift, making it impossible to quilt, but quilt it I did. This time around I made this quilt for my sister-in-law, LOU LOU❣️ 

This quilt is fun and easy to make, especially since it comes with a stencil by Plum Easy Stencils and you use freezer paper to make it.  It's actually more like an art project and less like a quilt. I wanted to make a throw size quilt but the kit was short on material (tsk, tsk) and so my throw turned into a lap quilt.

This quilt took much longer to make than normal because I suffered from the dreaded ... QUILTUS INTERUPTUS.  Yep, first I got involved with the Quilter's Planner Challenges that started January 1'st and had to stop and make a quilt and do 31 photo challenges.  And guess what?  I WON!  I've posted snapshots below of 25 of the 31 challenge posts. I blogged about the Sampler Quilt in my last blog.

The Quilter's Planner Sampler Quilt Challenge

Then my son's dachshund puppy, Tesla Firefly, ate something that she shouldn't have (because dachshunds do that) and had to have emergency surgery to remove it along with 75% of her intestines.  So, for a week we went over to watch her during her recovery.  The good news is, that against the odds, she is doing amazing!

Tesla Firefly

Then I got a cold which makes me mad because I had survived two 12 hour trips in a car with my son and his wife who were sick and did not catch their flu, (which I think is a huge testament to the cabin filter/air system in a Mercedes) only to come home to two little boys with colds and not catch that.  Then my hubbie out of the blue came down with a cold two weeks later and, again, I did not catch it.  I was absolutely sure that I had safely come through the season without a sniffle! Right? BUT then, THEN I was in line at the grocery store, happily minding my own business and reading the National Enquirer's headlines, when the totally wretched man behind me sneezed all over me AND my groceries.  Sure enough, I came down with a cold.  This, THIS is why I advocate staying home and this, THIS is why I would happily be a hermit for the rest of my days in my little forest on the lake if only M&M's grew on trees and I never had to leave home to buy them.  

Then on the third day of my cold, and everyone knows the third day is the WORST ... I had JURY DUTY. I will spare you the miserable details. Yes, you're welcome.

Finally, FINALLY I got back to quilting, with only one row left to go! And my QUILTUS INTERRUPTUS was over!

The Orange Blossom Quilt is fun to make.  First you use the stencil and cut out templates from a roll of freezer paper.  You can buy expensive quilting paper for this or just drop into Walmart and buy the freezer paper that's right next to the tin foil and save oodles.    

In the above picture you can see the cut out templates.  I took those and ironed them onto my fabric and then trimmed around them.  Then I took a glue stick and glued the upper edges of both of the curved templates and folded them over.  Next, I glued one edge of the petal template.

Then I placed the smaller template of the two over the glued edge of the petal.  I carefully tore away the fabric from the freezer paper until it laid flat and then placed a pin at the bottom to hold it in place.  Then I sewed along the edge of the freezer paper, tore it off and pressed it open.  Then I glued the opposite edge of the petal template.

Next, I glued the larger of the two templates onto the petal and sewed it in the same manner as I did the smaller one.  Then I pulled off the paper from the petal.  Then you take your stencil and square up your fabric and draw around it to create your perfectly squared block.  Like I said, it's more like an art project than a quilt and it's fun and easy to do!


Then it was off to the longarm!  My favorite part of quilting!  I did very little quilting on this quilt.  It has a cotton/wool fluffy batting and I wanted it to be fluffy throughout.  I used rulers and went around the curves and squares.  

I used Glide in White for the top and Glide in Sky for the bobbin.  My tension was set at 3.5 and my stitch length was set at 10.  I used a 90/14 Topstitch needle.  

The binding all wrapped up on the binding baby.

Then I made the binding and bound the quilt while streaming "James May - Our Man In Japan" on Amazon.  I love his dry humor and it was very interesting to learn more about Japan's culture.  Then it was time to wake up my "Master Quilt Holder" from his nap and let him hold the quilt in the backyard for me to take a picture of it.

I journaled all about this quilt in my Quilter's Planner.  If you quilt, I highly recommend looking into this planner.  Just go to quilters planner.com

I also made a lined and quilted bag to gift the quilt in.  As, I didn't have enough fabric to even make the throw size of the quilt, I used some fabric that I had in my stash that was left over from the pillows and table runner that I had made using this same Orange Blossom pattern. I also used these as entries in the Quilter's Planner's Photo Challenges under Small Projects.

After my bout with Quiltis Interruptus I finally finished the quilt and sent it on it's merry way to Lou Lou!

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and sew some love into your world❣️