Full Circle

At our guild holiday party, I happened to be perusing the items on the free table when my guild-mate Cordelia @notmadebyrobots walked up with a stack of good stuff to donate. Thinking back, all I can remember her saying for sure was, "there's even a quilt in there that just needs a binding." Memories may be fuzzy, but I do know that said quilt came home with me.

It did indeed just need a binding, so recently I went to see if I could find fabric for one in my stash. I discovered a piece of RJR Cotton Supreme in Raven that was just the right size, and that matched the background pretty well. 

It dawned on me to look through Cordelia's insta feed to see what I could discover about the quilt, and boy was I surprised. The quilt I came home with was made with bonus blocks from a quilt she made during the Improv Stripes QAL I hosted in 2017! If that's not kismet, I don't know what is.

Well I thought that was all pretty amusing, and it kind of made my day. At any rate, this quilt that measures 54" x 54" is now finished, and both Cordelia and I agree it would be a great one to donate to our guild's giving committee. We can rest assured they'll find a perfect home for it.

Stash Jazz

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to attend any Seattle MQG giving quilt sew-ins, and finally I decided to just go ahead and make a quilt for them to donate. Some time before her passing last year, Carole Lyles Shaw gave permission for the guild to use her Stash Jazz pattern for giving quilts. I opted to make the 55" x 62" Small Lap Quilt version, though mine actually came out 55" x 58" due to the amount of border fabrics I had. 

The pieced blocks were made totally of scraps; then the solid blocks and borders were from stash.

Honestly, piecing the scrappy slabs was time consuming! I had grabbed my blue and yellow/orange scrap baskets, thinking the quilt top would be primarily blues and oranges. Come to find out, I had more yellow than orange, so that's what ended up happening.

Still, when it was time to cut the solid slabs for each block, I still went with blue and orange - Kona Riviera and Orangeade. Except I didn't have quite what I needed, so the blue corners are actually Kona Ocean, and the orange corner is obviously a print. I think it works, especially since the quilt top is definitely focused on the scraps.

For the back, I started by piecing the leftovers, and added stash prints and solids to bring it up to size.

Early on I knew I wanted to do a grid for quilting, and when I remembered I had a cone of Aurifil 50wt 2225 [Salmon] - thank you Aurifil! - it felt like kismet. And gotta say, quilting went so nicely with my new machine. It gave me a lot of joy to have the quilting go so smoothly.

I had originally planned for a scrappy binding, but once I was trimming the quilt, scrappy didn't feel right. Or at least not with the scraps I had left. Happily, I happened across random pieces of original Cotton + Steel Mesa by Alexa Marcelle Abegg from back in 2014(!!). And I think it's a fun addition.

So thanks to perfect timing, our guild meeting is tonight, and I'll be able to deliver both the Pixie Stix quilt I bound and this Stash Jazz to the Giving Committee for donation. Pretty sure it will go to either Kenmore Senior Women’s Shelter or YWCA Pathways for Women. Perfect.

Linking up with Quilting Jetgirl's Favorite Finish {June 2025}.

Linking up with Quilting & Learning, What a Combo's Free Motion Mavericks.