Ducks baby quilt by Sara

 Oh how cute is this?!  I love applique, but am unwilling to do it myself, so I admire it that much more when others make applique quilts.  SID around all the appliques, to give them a little poof.

 A windy swirl in the background of the main portion of the block.

 Meandering hearts in the 9 patch border.

I just love the bee!

Stars with an inner border by Josette

Gotta love people who piece this well.  Nice crisp star points, and straight edges.

I also love this idea of doing a really scrappy quilt, with the connection of doing the same block, then using the same cream for the stars and the inner border.  Gonna have to steal this idea and soon.

Quilted withe the "Tangles" panto.

Bom from Joanne's by Linda

Another BOM from Linda, this one frm Joanne's. Quilted with the Hydrangea panto, perfect to go with the hydrangeas in the border fabric.

"Everything is Coming up Roses" by Linda

Goodness, when did we make this?  This is from Heart to Hand, but I can't remember what year.  A block of the month quilt, where you bought the fabric, and made a block per month for a year.  I love the setting on the blocks which results in a secondary pattern.

"Twinkling Stars" by me.

 Barbara Graham and her mystery quilt strikes again!  This one is from her book "Murder by Artifact"  I love scrappy quilts and a chance to clean out my stash.  Okay, maybe not "clean" it out, but use up some things from it at least.  The star pattern is called a Friendship Star, then done in two different sizes, and also incorporated into the sashing strips.

"Molar feathers" in the outer border, and of course, feathers through the sashing strips.  This one is also for dad.  He died July 21, in 1994 so I wanted to give a quilt to the police for him near that day.

"Summer at the Turners" by me.

 This one is for our friend Tom, the police officer who was killed in the line of duty.  Tom passed on the same day as my dad, but several years apart.

When I was a kid, my parents put a pool in the backyard, and this quickly became the summer hangout.  I found this panel in August of 2015 at a quilt shop in Coos Bay.  I knew that it would become a charity quilt, but didn't know when.  Finally, I pulled it out, cut the blocks apart, and added that Friendship Star block.  I knew when I was making it that this quilt was for Tom, so that block was appropriate.

 As I was piecing and quilting this quilt, I was able to recall so many fond memories of summers.  Floating in inner tubes down the Clackamas river and having "Boarding parties" to the other raft.

Since the pool was heated only by the solar tubing dad had put on the ground and the water ran through, it wasn't usually terribly warm in the pool.  Consequently, the best way to get in, was to simply suck it up and jump, and get it all over with at once.  Then there's my oldest brother, Dave.  One toe, then another toe, up to his ankles, slowly to his knees and so on.  Since he's 6'6", this took a LONG time!

 No surfboards in our area, but lots of dogs, and many really wild pants/swim trunks/shorts.

Yep, this is pretty much just exactly what it looked like.  Thanks mom and dad for the pool, and for putting up with all of us and our friends.

Chain of Hearts by me.

 This is another quilt for the police.  It's from a novelby Barbara Graham, but sadly I've forgotten which one!  I'm reading them all in a series, so the quilts are starting to run together.

I called this one Chain of Hearts because I came up with a new design of hearts on a chain that I quilted in the border.  It still needs a bit of work, but I am pleased with the concept.    This one went to the Portland Police today in honor of my dad.

African Animals baby quilt by Leigh

 Oh my, what a lucky recipient gets this quilt!  First off, it's all appliqued, by hand.  All done in flannel so it's extra cuddly.
What astounds me the most is that each and every little piece was traced onto the fabric, then cut out,  and stitched to the quilt by HAND!  Oh the time it must have taken.

Sweet little zebra, and those stripes!

Embroidered eyes on the birds and the monkey.

 The wonderful lion has a dimensional mane.

 There are 2 mice on the ground at the elephant's feet!

 Again, hand embroidered eyes, nostrils and mouth.

My personal favorite.  Each and every last one of the spots on the cheetah were done individually.  Wow.

Thorza's Chickens by Pat

Let's see if I remember this correctly.  Thorza was Pat's husband's grandmother who lived to the ripe old age of 101.5 years.  Something to strive for.  According to Pat, Thorza owned a chicken farm and supplied eggs for much of the Willamette Valley in her day.

Quilted with a pantograph design of chicken wire.  How perfect is that?

Kaffe Fasset Flowers by Pat

This quilt was a challenge, and became known to my friend Mia, with whom I email daily, as "The Buffalo Quilt."  No, it's got nothing to do with Buffalo, but it surely had me buffaloed for a long time.  That's the term horse riders use when they are fearful of a horse.  Most of my fears were from my own lack of note taking when Pat dropped it off.  Note to self "some sort of ruler work." isn't helpful when it comes time to quilt!  Once started though, it really went quickly.  The blocks are large, and since they are set on point, there was quite a bit of back and forth on the quilting. I couldn't quite get the entire block in to quilt it all at once, so do a section, advance, do a section, retreat.  Thank goodness for my motorized fabric advance!

Here's a shot of the backing, although it's actually dark green.  I stitched around the print flowers, and in the ditch around the black background of the flowers.  Then feathers in the solid black background around the stars.

 Hard to see the ruler work on those little white dots, but it's there.  Even in person I had to check some places repeatedly to be sure that I had gotten them all.

 More feathers in the borders.  I do love to quilt those!

Dad's and Lindsay's dad's quilt

 This quilt has a bit of a history behind it.  Lindsay had brought me the black and white fabrics to make a quilt in memory of her father.  I carefully washed and dried the fabric, separating lights and darks.  Managed to miss the one red hot pad in the wash that had never been washed.  Sure enough, what was black and white became black and pink.    I bought more fabric to replace what I had messed up, and put this aside for a time.  I randomly pieced the half square triangles of different fabrics together, and then set it with a pink fabric from my stash.  The plan was that this quilt would be for the police.  The batting is pieced together from former projects, and the rest of the fabric all came from my stash.  Recycling from a quilter's standpoint.

Today, I had the pleasure to meet the officer who knew Tom, and gave this quilt to her.  She also told me the story of where the Trip Around the World quilt had gone.  I got a little teary and definitely had chills.  So, here's a quilt from Lindsay's dad, my dad and Tom, plus the recipients of the original fabrics from the stash pieces.  All ready to help someone who's facing a tough time   Thanks everyone.

Continous curves in the pieced blocks.

Hearts in the setting squares since so many people I love were "involved" in this quilt.

Feathers in the outer border because I like them.  Even the perfect black and white binding! 

Mylan's t-shirts

Mylan is off to Gonzaga University in the fall.  This quilt represents much of his life so far.  Basketball, Disneyland, high school, even day care when he was little!

These are planes, and the shirt says "Let's Fly."  I had the quilt top nearly put together, when I started to look at that block.  It looked weird and I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be.  Then I realized that they were the planes, but since I had the letter going across the top, the planes were "flying" on their sides.  No wonder they looked weird.  Thank goodness I figured that out before I quilted it!