Back in the fall, my grandfather was in the hospital and I had asked for star blocks to help make a quilt for him. I've since been absent from blogging while dealing with an unrelated death in the family, so now that I'm back I wanted to show you all how beautifully this quilt came together!

Roughly half the blocks were made by me, and the others were donated by kind friends from the blogging and Instagram communities including my name-twin Eileen,  Rebecca, Lisa, Sandra, Lalaluu, Cathy, and Julie. I'm fond of how striking this quilt is, but I'm mostly just honored and humbled by the kindness of fellow quilters.



This quilt was given to my grandparents at Christmas and they were delighted with it; my grandfather is doing much better now and has made a full recovery! Thank you to everyone who has made blocks and sent well wishes.

I also finally finished the behemoth Goodnight Irene queen sized quilt for my cousin and his wife in time for Christmas. This one used mostly Denyse Schmidt fabrics and was longarmed by Shannon Parrott of River House Quilting.

This is the first time I've participated in a swap on Instagram! I enjoyed scoping out my partner's feed and planning out this little quilt. I winged it a bit with this quilt, making a section of flying geese at a time and then moving around the layout as I went until I got something I liked.

Rearranging as I went was fun and freeing - and while my points aren't all perfect, my flying geese definitely improved! I quilted it with quarter inch straight lines using the walking foot as a guide.

I also included these two cute little kitties in amongst the flying geese. I think I hit a good balance of scrappiness through a variety of fabrics while still limiting the color palette and keeping it from becoming too busy. I'm very fond of the backing lightning bolt fabric as well.

I can't wait to do more swaps!

There are also progress photos on my Instagram.

Do you do swaps? If so, how do you find the swaps that interest you?

I'm linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Link a Finish Friday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday.

I've just finished a quick new quilt top today; I suddenly wanted to cut into the fat quarters of Anna Maria Horner's Pretty Potent that I had in my stash, and there wasn't really much total yardage so I added the borders from a grey I had on hand and flying geese from the last scraps left. I really enjoyed working on this as the limited amount of the fabric on hand forced me to get creative. I actually love how the grey makes everything pop more, and the partial border is more interesting to me than if I'd had enough fabric to do full rows of flying geese.

Now if only I had any idea how to quilt this! I can't decide on a design.

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Link a Finish Friday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday!

 It's finally finished - the first quilt I ever started!

The herringbone quilt for my friend Wendy is complete - at about four months after her birthday that it was intended for and just in time for warm weather, whoops, but she absolutely loved it and that's really all that matters.

I hand sewed the final edge on the binding for this quilt, which was a first for me. I do like the effect better than machine sewing even if it is time consuming. Many episodes of Poirot were watched in the final stretch of binding.

I ended up only using the green thread and quilting a simple quarter inch grid to keep the fabric center stage, and used a cute mint and white polka dot sheet I found at Target for the backing.

I surprised Wendy with the quilt during a picnic with friends at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. If you are ever in NYC I recommend visiting; the gardens are breathtaking, particularly the Japanese koi pond and shrine. They have a cherry blossom festival every year as well.

Unfortunately I've been playing violin so many hours that I've caused myself some wrist and arm strain, so I'm taking it easy for a few days! I've had some therapeutic taping done to help reduce muscle strain and pain that is making it feel a lot better and they were nice enough to color coordinate it with my outfit:

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, TGIFF, Link A Finish Friday and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.