Friday, March 30, 2018

Spring in the Woods

I have another finish! Yeah, there's been rather a surfeit of them, hasn't there?! Several deadlines have had me sewing furiously over the past few weeks. This is the March challenge that we, as Island Batik ambassadors, were given, to try a new technique.

I took some time to think of just what I hadn't tried; quilting for the past 20 years has had me trying pretty much everything. In full disclosure, I bought the 10° wedge ruler probably 15 years ago for a class that a guild member was giving on wedges. I went to the class, sewed the strips, cut a few wedges, and the class ended. So did the making of that quilt. Not a stitch since. It lives in a blue plastic bag. I made a wedge of pieced fabric a few years ago by using the degree lines and a folded technique. What happened to that test block? It lives in the orphan block pile. So I decided it was time to bring out the ruler, for which I paid good money, and revisit how to use it. Besides, Christina Cameli's new book had caught my eye when it first came out. Great excuse (like I need one) to buy a new book!
A new book and a glass of wine go hand in hand. Literally!
The fabrics I used in my project were provided by Island Batik, the Thermore batting by Hobbs Batting, and the Aurifil thread by Aurifil. I still go 'pinch me!' when I write sentences like that.

So what did I make?

This stunning (yeah I said that about my own project) table centrepiece, going to a very dear-to-me person! Stunning due to the fabrics which are drool-worthy, stunning because of the threads used to quilt it, stunning because it looks pretty complicated.

But it isn't. Not really. Christina's book is well-written. With quilting books, unlike fiction and non-fiction books, I do not read them from front to back. I leaf through, gazing in rapture at some of the quilts, maybe scanning a pattern here and there. Then I go back to the intro and read it.  I usually start reading, probably more like scanning, some of the 'how-to' chapters, but I need to DO as I read, so I will then pick a project (that could take a few days, as it did in this case). Then, when I'm making the project, I go back and read very carefully, usually several times, as I am constructing, the 'how-to' chapters. Her book is terrific, because it is like she knows how I operate! Within the instructions to this pattern (which btw is for an entire quilt, which I plan to make and Rose knows why) she tells you what page to refer to of the how-to chapters. 😇 I highly recommend her book, and no, I was not given her book, or asked to write a review.

Here are the fabrics I chose to work with from my Island Batik box of goodies:
The forest green is from the Alpine Jingle line, the 6" pieces and the purple lined up are from the roll-up stash builders, and the rich pink/greens piece is part of the extra pieces we received for use in projects. I had to do a little different way of cutting the wedges because of using pre-cut strips, but I did have enough. I mainly wanted this to be greens because the person I'm giving it to loves green. I wouldn't have had enough greens but I thought to added in a couple of blues because a couple of them are a blues/greens blend, and that was when the spring idea came. I had already known I'd make the diamonds in the purple and pink.

Carefully following her method and tips, I cut my wedges and sewed with a precise 1/4" seam on Tillie, my 1951 Featherweight. When I laid the first wedge down to see if it did measure 60°, was I tickled pink to see how very little I had to trim!
I followed the instructions for further trimming to make the triangle blocks that get sewn in pairs to make diamonds. In pretty short order I had my top.
I just had to take a stained glass looking photo!

Here it is on the kitchen floor so you can see the fabrics better:

Don't you think it's kind of cool that the runner is diamond-shaped, and that the wedges form a diamond, thanks to the purple and pink diamonds at their bases? Well, I do!

Because it's destined to be on a table, I figured the Hobbs Thermore batting would be the ticket. This is the third project where I've used it and I am still so impressed with it! It sticks as well as cotton to cotton does. Bella sure likes it. Had designs that this could be another pouffé for her to repose upon.

For quilting inspiration I looked at how Christina had quilted her quilt and used some of her motifs, circles being the main one. To get fairly nicely rounded ones, I used the Sulky spool of thread and a bobbin to trace two or three of the arcs as a general guide, (high tech I know), ensuring I had seven in each wedge. I drew out the first few. Drawing is always a good precursor to FMQ. After the first few wedges, I just winged it, free-motioning the majority of each of the seven circles in each wedge. I did find that I liked to trace that first large one.

Here are the circles in alternating wedges of the purple diamond blocks:

and feathers à la Kathleen of Kathleen Quilts, in alternating wedges of the pink diamond blocks:

I did back and forth lines and elongated figure eights for consistency between the circles and feathers in both pink and purple blocks.


For the diamonds, I did an Angela Walters design using my walking foot:

Hot off the 'press':
YESSS!

Truth tea: I then had to lie down a ruler and square it up. Squaring up means ensuring I still had 60° angles. I was a little nervous but this is what happened:
YESSS! (again)

Very happy.

I used a pretty green Aurifil I received in my Island Batik box of goodies for the olive green wedges, and to sew on the binding, which I sewed to the back and flipped around and top-stitched to the front. I used the olive green for the binding since it was the only green I had yardage of, but the rich green provides a nice frame to the vibrant colours in the quilt. I also used two different Sulky rayon variegated threads in the wedges and a Sulky metallic in the purple diamonds.

A shot of the label, appropriately blanked out name (with a green pice of beach glass!) of the recipient who prefers to remain anonymous in QBL. I always do both a cloth, write-on label and a sew-in mmm! quilts label.
The backing is a stitches-themed fabric, perfect for this sewing wizard of a person. When this goes live, I will have: given this gift which I love so much myself, to her, and met her at a random intersection chosen by both of us as a meeting-up point. My Easter weekend travels take me to within a couple of hours of her home, and she will have come east to meet me, where I will stop for a morning coffee and chat and HUGS! Big hugs! AND I get to meet one of her darling fur kids, "a silvery blue Staffie in the hot pink harness" (ahh like my darling boy who is safe with Dayna but would have loved to meet her Staffie).

This blog has brought me worldwide friends.  And I am honoured by their friendship. Humbled by them taking the time to read my blog, to comment, and to offer pieces of themselves to me. My heart swells with love for this girl, who does not blog, but who has reached out to me, at first mainly through my posts on my beloved Rocco, but then also through our shared love of all things Laurel Burch, and of course, through our love of sewing. I cannot WAIT to give her this runner! I don't know what excites me more: meeting her in person, hugging her, meeting her Staffie, or giving her this. What a blessed day I have to look forward to!

One last outdoor shot on our deck:


Quilt Stats:
Pattern: a quilt from Christina Cameli's Wedge Quilt Workshop made into a table centrepiece
Size: approximately 40" long by 20" wide
Fabric: Island Batik various collections
Batting: Hobbs Thermore
Backing: from stash
Quilted: on my Bernina, walking foot and free-motion
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Aurifil 100% cotton and Sulky rayon variegated and Sulky metallic


Linking up:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Cheeky Cognoscenti
Busy Hands Quilts

Thanks to Tish for linking up my post while I'm away for the long Easter weekend. 😘

SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSaveSaveSave

Thursday, March 29, 2018

I Like/Love #14

This is the second 'I Like' post in March, bu this is because I missed doing one for February. I honestly could write one of these each day, as there as just so many times I smile to myself or to the world, or my heart swells a little with gladness about something. Sorry if I sound like a goober, but it's true.

1. I like beach glass, and I am loving creating stuff with my finds along the shore of Lake Erie, particularly Seacliff Beach which has a great supply of it.
Here's another shaped bowl that I'm working on. It's addictive, much like doing a jigsaw puzzle, where you tell yourself, "I'm just going to fit in a couple more pieces..." and half an hour later you've fit in 10. It's a slow process that needs patience: finding the right shape, working on a small section at a time or risking the pieces sliding around in the glue and not staying where you'd carefully placed them!

2. I love locally-grown produce. Living in Essex County, also known as the Sun Parlour, means we are surrounded by locally grown veggies and fruits. In fact, just this year, several greenhouses are now growing strawberries year round! Here is a recent container I bought of Kingsville Campari tomatoes, labelled in the store as 'candy' tomatoes (love that):
Sunset is owned by the Mastronardi family for four generations (and yes there's a winery owned by another Mastronardi family; lots of Italians in this area).

3. I love pussy willows, and seeing these on March 15 outside my window made my day!

4. I love music. This, like my love of nature, comes back again and again in these posts. I especially love live music. On March 17 we had the pleasure of spending an evening at Caesar's Palace Colosseum to see Carlos Santana. He will be 71 this summer, and wow, the man can still play, his supple fingers strolling and strumming across the strings of his guitar. Whether it was that driving Latin/African drumbeat that gets you in your solar plexus, wild racing across the strings, or the plaintive melodies of a ballad played violin-like, he had me, well, the entire audience in his very capable hands the entire night. I loved his message mid-point: "No walls, no boundaries, less religion, less politicians, good energy, let it move you, bring you together!"

Caesar's Palace, Windsor, lit up in green on my left, taken from inside our SUV, and then looking to the right out my window, a nighttime view of downtown Detroit that never gets old. I didn't notice until I edited the photo that there are two Canada geese on the grass in the Detroit skyline! And yes, for those of you who don't realize it, I took the photos from the SUV in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and literally across that river, the Detroit River, is Detroit, Michigan, USA. And it's north of Windsor, just to mess with your mind! Another music like is that a week after this concert, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's Juno Awards on CBC TV, and I am no fan of awards shows! Makes my heart swell to hear and see all the Canadian talent.

5. I love a fancy latte from time to time. I especially love a Caramel Coretto from Second Cup.
Sadly, there is but one in Essex County, but we stopped to grab one ahead of the concert. I knew I'd need the hit of caffeine as the concert only started at 9 pm! Second Cup is very similar to Starbucks, which we do have in Canada as well, but my personal preference is Second Cup. I do like Tim Horton's too though, but they can't do a latte like these guys or Starbucks for that matter. I also LOVE the fact that I hadn't been for several months, and wasn't sure how much was left on my card...well! Score! There was enough for both coffees and then some, yippee! The third like in that photo is my handmade coffee cozy, a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, made with Henry Glass 'Better at the Lake' fabrics that I was given for the Desire to Inspire Challenge I am so proud to have been chosen for.
That photo also has my mad love: my newly renovated kitchen that has taken the better part of a year. We, no, MacGyver just installed a couple of new lighting and fan fixtures, and I will be giving you the entire lowdown on it very shortly!

6. I love our beautiful planet, I am deeply worried about its welfare, and try hard to make my footprint as light as possible. I did honour Saturday, March 24's Earth Hour, setting aside a project with a looming deadline, and living by candlelight, both real and battery-powered flame.
A nice ambiance no?

I won't be able to respond in a timely manner to comments as we are off on a short trip, but I'll do my best!



Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Postcard from Sweden Step 4

How did this come up so fast? That feeling has nothing to do with the rather full plate of things I have on the go right now, no. It's all good though. Two weeks ago, at the last link-up, I had 20 links! That is stupendous when Helen of Midget Gem Quilts and I first said let's do this together and what if we invited others?

So Step 3 was to sew all those HSTs into a top.

I had a little unsolicited 'help' from one of my sewing loft fur kids this morning as I sewed like a mad woman to get to the half way point of my flimsy. It's like having a 2 or 3-year-old all over again!

She was channeling Maru, Japanese cat of IG fame who LOVES boxes. Try as she might, shuffling my HSTs neatly clipped together with clothespegs, a few in baggies (my system: I know 11 and 12, Mango and Kumquat, are in a baggie toward the back of basket 1; rather alarming that I know several of the colours by number now; in case you needed to know 23 is Cerise, 17 Delft - am I going daft?!) where was I? Oh yeah, try as she might, shuffle as she did, she could not quite get her entire little 6-pound body in a basket!

Here's half of my finished flimsy:

Sorry for the inside shot, but it rained most of the day yesterday and the grass and deck are still wet. Speaking of daft, I've been faithfully saving the trimmings, thinking they might make for a pretty glass jar or beach glass bowl decoration:
My pretties! 
When I start talking to them, and calling them, "My pre-e-e-shussss," you'll know to send the men in white suits to my house.

Step 4, the final step, is to quilt that pretty flimsy into a finished, useable quilt! Now, as CEO of this QAL, LOL, I'm thinking about pushing the date back a week for the final parade. I'd bet most would be totally fine with that; so far I only know of one completely finished quilted and bound quilt!😊 I have seen quite a few flimsies out there, and, I've seen a King-size one!!!🙌  And I've seen a mini with squares that finished at 1.5"!👏  These should show up in the linky below, so be sure to check back. So that means the final parade will be April 18, not the 11th. I'll update the original post with the dates on to reflect this change. Hope that gives you a little breather!

One quick announcement is that I'd asked, on behalf of Preeti, if any of my readers could please help out little Axel, a sweet baby boy with multiple medical issues, belonging to Amy of Amy Scrap Spot by donating to his Go Fund Me page. Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts started this effort, which you can read about here. Well, as of yesterday, his page has gone over the goal, but you can still donate, and there are many wonderful prizes for those who do. The draw is April 1. Please consider donating, as Preeti said when she first announced this, 300 $10 gifts would meet his goal. As per usual, I am blown away by the quilting community's generosity and quick response. Preeti just announced yesterday that she has another quilt in Moda Bakeshop too, if you hadn't seen it!

Link up time!


Friday, March 23, 2018

Sunshine on My Shoulders

Another one to check off my Q1FAL List! Argh; this post was supposed to be written this morning but this day just went off the rails! How does that happen?!
Sunshine On My Shoulders (literally ha!) in the setting sun
I had hoped to take the quilt out to Point Pelee National Park for its final shoot, set against what I'd heard was spectacular ice. However, MacGyver had another idea, which didn't work out because of high waters and no public beach access, so he took me a little further along the lake, by Wheatley, to this beach, Marentette Beach, which actually did say 'closed' but I could fit under the barricade no problem...so did he with just a small eye roll! Which provided the above shot. He did a good job of hiding his feet, didn't he?!

It's a bit washed-out in that photo; the 6:30 pm setting sun was shining on it. There is a pond right behind me, a large one; in front of me you can see a glimpse of Lake Erie's blue waters behind the quilt. A cool promontory.

So here she is right by Lake Erie's edge, better, truer colours.
Same quilt, laid flat on the beach! Doesn't the angle of the light make a huge difference in colours? This one is the truest.

My aunt celebrated her 80th birthday at the end of April 2017. Yep, another late quilt for another aunt with a special birthday. This would make three, four if you count my own mother's 80th birthday quilt?! All a tad late. Auntie Norma is my mum's BFF, and she loves blue, or buh-LOO, as my mum says with derision. My mum detests blue, loves green. I, too, love blue, paired with green, it happens to be my favourite colour combo! These two women, a blue-lover and a green-lover, have been friends since their teens. When you are 81 or nearly 81, that's a long friendship. They even married brothers!

As I mentioned in the flimsy finish post, I bought this as a kit off Craftsy. The quilt pattern included with the kit was similar to this, but I knew the Lintott pattern was a better one, having made it before, would result in less waste, and make a larger quilt. I even have one left over charm pack AND a larger quilt!
I did a relaxing, meditative jigsaw or ghost shapes meander in the background...

swoop-dee-swoops in the stars, using the points as my 'dots', and using my BFF curved quilting ruler. I used the larger size 12 curved one (both are from The Quilted Pineapple) to do the blossom in the star centre. For those readers who don't 'do' Instagram, here's a video of me stitching out a blossom:


In the border I did a favourite flower motif, the same one I did as part of the all-over motif I did on my mum's 80th birthday quilt, echoed it, and then added three leaves between each one and some ribbons. It shows up best on the back:
btw remember I said in a previous post that I was using this wide backing from Connecting Threads for the first time, and that I was a little concerned because it felt a bit glossy of a hand, almost like it was coated with something? Yet it quilted up wonderfully, draped terrifically, and after washing, is so cuddly! Yay! Here is the entire back:

The binding worked so well with both front and back, an oldie, make that vintage, piece from my stash, which actually is called 'The Christmas Collection' by Woodrow Studio, silver stars on royal blue.
These are the two threads I used for quilting, Isacord pale blue polyester and Exquisite pale yellow polyester. Avril loved them both, (shocker😉) no issues. They both have a lovely sheen. Exquisite is about half the price of Isacord, and feels identical. I got it at the Bernina shop in Port Charlotte.


I used Warm 'n Natural batting. The evening sun helped show the beautiful texture! It wasn't washed yet here.

A lovely evening sun and shade pic on Marentette Beach. I could have sat there forever and listened to that gentle water...but it wasn't that warm, ha! Like +3?!

Here is the label...
...both the mmm! quilts and the sewn-on one with the details. Interestingly, that label, along with a few others, was a gift from the first aunt I made a quilt for, Blue Ribbon Stars! She'd had them in her stash for... a while!
I sewed the binding to the front, folded it around the quilt sandwich, pressed it, glued it down and stitched in the ditch from the front to catch it down, using Essential cotton thread in Persian Blue.


Of course, when I spied this willow, I had to take a quilt-in-a-tree photo! I love the yellow branches with the yellow fabrics, the blue sky and lake with the blue fabrics in the quilt. Perfection!

And one last freshly-laundered cuddly crinkly quilt shot on our loveseat for your viewing pleasure:
I spy a cat plus quilt waiting to be mailed away also! It gives me a small thrill of satisfaction and excitement seeing the two stacked here waiting to surprise the recipients!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: "Galaxy Quilt" from the book,  More Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott
Size: Pre-quilting:  54X72"; after quilting and washing: 52X68" (whoa!!)
Fabric: Dutch Garden by Boundless
Batting: Warm 'n Natural 100% cotton
Backing: Connecting Threads wide backing
Quilted: on the Avanté, 105 116 stitches
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Isacord pale blue #3951 and Exquisite pale yellow ES627; binding stitched down with Essential cotton 21144 Persian Blue

Linking up:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Sarah Goer Quilts
Busy Hands Quilts
and with one of the hosts for the Q1FAL
SaveSave

30 Quilt Designs Challenge Second Draw

I did the second draw last night. Each person that had submitted any number of designs from 11-20 got that many numbers and then I did the Random Number Generator on the total. Velda of Freckled Fox Quiltery was the winner! There are 16 participating this year, wow! A few have not quite kept up, and a few have joined in just within the last week or two!  The final draw is April 15 for 30 designs, so if you have fallen a wee bit behind (I, myself only have 19) it's not too late to catch up. All those who complete 30 will be entered. Remember to add colour, and to design a quilt, not just a block, so we see what it would look like as part of a quilt. 😉

Here are four collages of recent designs. I've included the Instagram name of each quilter, in case you want to follow her!




Aren't they all just so very fabulous?!
Thanks so very much to Melody of The Red Hen Shop for being my main sponsor this year. She has donated three prizes, two $15 gift cards for draws 1 and 2, and a $50 one for the final draw!

Darla is my second sponsor for the challenge this year! She contacted me, wanting to offer a prize, and I said, "Sure!" She is offering a $25 gift card to her shop, Clinton Modern Creative, which will also go out to someone in the 30 completed designs category!


And, finally, I have a Craftsy's Dutch Garden charm pack that I am going to send out, with a copy from my Craftsy store (affiliate link--remember to check out their fabulous SALE; I wouldn't steer you wrong) of my Blue Skies & Sunny Days pattern to a third winner in the final draw! One of these days I will get oh, the other four patterns all typed up, just needing EQ diagrams, and into my Craftsy and Etsy shops... A huge thank you to all those who are participating; it means a ton. 😍 Now I'm off to write the post on my done and dusted aunt's quilt! If you want to see what Dutch Garden looks like, check back in a couple of hours for that finish post.


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

UFO Progress

I thought I'd pop in to let you know what's going on in the 'many irons in the fire' world of mmm! quilts these days. This post was mostly written on Tuesday, with a couple of items to finish up Wednesday morning before posting. Unfortunately a rather wicked persistent headache put the kibosh on my plans, which means this is getting posted Wednesday evening!

UFO #1:  Rainbow Scrap Challenge
I've caught up on my blocks for March and made the second one for February. If you recall, I did not have much in the way of purple scraps with me in Florida. March's blocks are the light and lime green ones. Here they are all together for the first time. These are definitely eating up some 2.5" squares! I am cutting 3" squares from bigger scraps  to make two at a time HSTs.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Postcard Swap Finish

Welcome to TGIFF!

A little over a month ago, Patty of Elm Street Quilts decided to host a Postcard Swap. I decided to join in, because, well I wasn't very busy in the month of March....snort.😂 I quite like mini quilts, and wanted to push myself a little in the creativity department. I like challenges. You got one word from your partner, and you gave one word as a clue to what you'd like.

I won't tell you the word I got for my partner, nor who she is, because it just got mailed off today. Was it a fun project to do! I did a little detective work on her blog to get a feel for her personality and quilting style. We are similar in several ways, and although I'm not familiar with her blog, I will be following her from now on.😁

Here is my postcard!


Again, I wish the camera could capture the glint of light on the Sulky Holoshimmer thread I used on the ocean section.

What is amazing to me is that the scene I chose I drove right by in the summer of 2007, and I may have stopped for a photo surprisingly close to this breathtaking spot. These huge rocks rise up out of the Pacific all along the coast, so unusual. It took a little bit of digging, but in about 10 minutes, I located the photo album (pre-iPhone photos and all digital) of that trip! MacGyver's anonymity is preserved with some chunks of beach glass, LOL. (Yeah, I have yet another beach glass bowl in the works.)
August 2007

I used an image off Google as a starting point, and took a little artistic license with it, adding in the shorebirds and the evergreen tree on the side, typical of this region of North America which has stunning ocean scenery in front of you and forest vistas immediately behind. I am no artist, but if I have an image to look at, I can usually produce a fairly reasonable copy.

I used my drawing to make the pieces for the appliqué by tracing what I'd drawn.

I made the base by piecing the sky to the ocean and then doing a gentle improv cut and sewn curved seam to add the sand.

From there it was Crafted Appliqué for the rest, oh how I love this method. You can still get Lara's book on Amazon. I save my appliqué-ready scraps between wax paper and place them in a ziploc bag for future use...and I have actually used pieces in new projects, like this one!

The tree and one of the monoliths came from a scrap from testing blocks for a Canada's 150th birthday quilt for Cindy of Stitchin at Home, and the birds from scraps from the walleye potholder I made for my husband. I prepared some black pieces for the other monoliths.

I layered the piece with one layer of Thermore by Hobbs (great thin batting for mini quilts) stitched around the appliqué shapes and then FMQ-ed the entire piece. Those birds were TINY! Cindy knows I start to twitch when I have to appliqué tiny pieces. But it was worth it. I free-motion embroidered their feet, and, as the fabric was only 2-3 threads thick at the bills, I added free-motion embroidery there too, to stabilize and define them.

Here are the threads I used, lovely beautiful Sulky rayons, all 40 weight but one 30 weight, and one Holoshimmer.

I can't show you the back, because I wrote her a message, but it's a piece of plain white. There's a layer of stiff fusible batting between the Thermore and the white fabric, making a total of four layers. I statin-stitched around all four edges with the beautiful variegated turquoise rayon, once loosely to hold everything together, and then two more rounds at 0.5. My mmm! quilts label is on the postcard back.

So that's my second finish this week! My first was the Cat-eye-doscope Plus quilt for Cheryl and Paige's book release blog hop. This is SUCH a great hop, such a great book, two terrific quilter/authors.

Update Friday March 16:

I spoke with Preeti (by iMessage) yesterday and she asked me to do her a favour in memory of her sweet precious friend, Angel, who, so very sadly, passed away yesterday. In my haste to get the TGIFF post up before I went to bed on Thursday night, I forgot to do her small request, that has the power to become huge, much like Bernie's doll quilts...

First, please read Preeti's post from yesterday. I hope you will also read the link to Angel's quilt, either by clicking there or from Preeti's yesterday post. It is strange how The Universe puts things in our path... Preeti had reached out to Amy of AmyScrapSpot, wondering how her multiple-disabilities 3-month-old baby boy, Axel, was doing, but hadn't heard in some time. Yesterday, yes, yesterday, the very day Angel died, Amy emailed Preeti back about Axel. Are you seeing a triple A-team here?  Preeti's profound sadness over the loss of Angel has now been channelled into doing something good: helping Amy with Axel's medical expenses. Amy's sister started a Go Fund Me page, (I know how DEEPLY appreciated these pages are, where people donate, anonymously or not, whatever they feel appropriate, since one was set up for my own grandson after his too-young father died last June), and Preeti is asking if you would take a moment, read her post, read Amy's about little Axel, and donate a small amount. As she says, "If 300 people gave $10 each, we'd meet out goal." I know quilters have humongous hearts, and I know that my post will see a lot of traffic this weekend, since I'm not only hosting TGIFF (and leaving it open a wee bit longer, sorry guys, made an executive decision; don't fire me) but I'm linking up my postcard finish with the other big Friday finish parties. THANK YOU for keeping my belief that there is inherent good in this world that gets my spirit so down a lot of the time.

What have you finished this week? You may link up your blog post, Flickr or Instagram post using the link up below. Remember to visit a few blogs and spread some quilty love and encouragement. Please include a link to this blog post and/or the TGIFF button, so your followers can come here to view all the great finishes! You never know, you may have your quilter ADD kick in, and have to go DRop Everything And Make It, aka DREAMi! (Come back for that link up on the last Saturday of March; see sidebar for the button which will take you to the explanation post.)



Linking up to the Friday Finish parties in QBL:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Busy Hands Quilts