Change of plans.....

And at least a full weeks warning if you want to join me next Friday in my Frugal Friday shindig.
I was off to a good start this a.m. but a call from my son's employer changed my day. He managed to crush one finger on his hand in a machine at work. Guess I'm the next best thing to 911 since he lives alone. I have pathetically little sewing to show you, but I will be back with a picture...I promise!

Tomorrow is Friday....A Finn Frugal Friday Feature..

coming your way. Are you ready? Do you want to play? Do you need more warning than this?? Well...I did mention it last Friday...does that count??I'm going to DO IT!! Every Friday til next year, if I can. Does it matter what you sew? Not really, but it would be fun if it was something 'improv'. Blocks from the orphan box, maybe just one or two,with stuff added. Or sting blocks, if you aren't sure about orphans.
I don't remember that we've had a lot of string blocks, or quilts, shown on the Orphan Train. But Mary, at Making Scrap Quilts from Stash, has loads of them. It's an ongoing project, and ALL of November is one BIG BLOCK PARTY with them. Why not sew up some to donate?

Or play in your scrap box or Scrap Saver's cut strips? I'm going to start sewing about 9 CST..and will sew through pretty much the whole day. I'm thinking about orphan blocks, and have spent some time today pulling some into a box. I mostly fly by the seat of my pants, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. Might just be that I'll sew string blocks *VBS* I will post my progress at the end of the day..a real Frugal Friday Feature *VBS*

I've misplaced my Frugal Fridays....

think I'd better fix that. A few weeks back, Michele, of Hearts and Hands, posted a wonderful quilt that she called "Everything but the Kitchen Sink". I love the quilt and I love the idea of making Friday a day dedicated to the piecing of such. If you have orphan blocks laying around, or odd parts and bits of things, try sewing them to each other. Probably 'filler' strips or squares may be needed. It's not hard. You can't do it wrong. It starts small and grows, like a garden. The sewing machine is your plot of earth, and a un-used quilt square is your 'seed'. Take it from there and see what happens*VBS* These happy little string guys came tucked into a box of fabric and orphan blocks I received from Julie, of Through the barn door. I love them...there aren't many, but they will make a great center for a orphan block medallion. I sewed them together on Wednesday. They are in an unpressed state laying here for their picture.
 This almost completed top is like Michele's "Everything" quilt, except she used her orphans and I've used dontated orphans *VBS* This one could be pinned and quilted. Time to get busy again!!!
 And here's another waiting for pinning. Again made with donated orphan blocks. I'm always happy to accept those from any of you gals who have no desire to work with them. I know that time is often very precious, due to work schedules and young children. Luckily I have lots of time and not many committments. Think about having a Frugal Friday in your week *VBS* Hugs, Finn

A long day's journey....

Things have been pretty quiet here at the Orphan Train. Most everyone is busy with one project or commitment or another. Including me. Of course I feel guilty about that, but it is what is. Last week a received a neat letter from Sue, Of From the Magpie's Nest. She has made a wonderful new Orphan Train quilt and wanted to share it with us. I'm going to add her words, but this time they will ALL be under the pictures and you'll have to fit them in where they go...LOL Today was a whole new form of getting this published from her files to my photo publisher...took awhile, but I got! Enjoy *VBS* 
 
 
 

finished the top and backing for my flannel Lincoln Logs friendship quilt and realized that I still had a lot of flannel left over. Then I read about the Hope Squared Project (http://margaretshopechest.blogspot.com/). They’re trying to create some 400 quilts to distribute to homeless school children in Grand Rapids, MI. I have ties to the area and felt compelled to contribute something if I could. I started by cutting 3” patches out of my flannel scraps and making 4Patch blocks. Then I made a couple of heart blocks. Then some liberated stars. I decided I wanted to make a quilt big enough for an older child (but not as big as twin size!) so I started putting the blocks together in rows roughly 54” wide. I used strips of the flannel scraps as filler between the blocks and kept making 4Patch blocks as leaders and enders. I even made a few Pinwheel blocks. Eventually I put together four rows, each one 12 or 15” high. Then I had to figure out where to place the rows in relation to each other. There were some more strips added to make things fit, and the 4Patch and Pinwheel blocks sort of became top and bottom borders. Voila! A 54 x 72” quilt made entirely out of leftovers!

Season's Greeting.....

It's never to early to think about making a lovely quilt for the holiday season *VBS* Here is another of Del Jeanne's creations, using Orphan Blocks. 

"A Christmas Gathering"--Christmas orphans collected over several years--made some, won some, had some given to me, but I think they look nice together!"
I hope Del Jeanne will continue to make Orphan Train quilts, she does a super job!

Doubled Delight...

Here I am, as promised, back with not just ONE, but TWO of Del Jeanne's orphan block quilts. I decided to combine them in one post, they seem to belong together. Here's what Del Jeanne had to say about the two of them. "Orphan Blocks Soldier Quilt"--just more patriotic orphans, put together for a wounded soldier (like "For An American Hero" which you already have a picture of)."

"Soldier Quilt"--same as above--fewer orphan blocks, but lots of orphan scraps that made crumb style blocks for it!"
I'll be back tomorrow with another great Orphan Train quilt. We're rolling.....


 

New Orphan blocks quilts...

Part 1 *VBS* I received a lovely email last week from Del Jeanne. She has been an Orphan Train traveler for awhile now, and her latest creations are lovely. This is the first of 4 that she is sharing with us. I'll let her tell you about this one in her own words. 

"Autumn Potpourri" was given to a friend who lost her husband. He was only 55, and she's a few years younger. I made several of these blocks from autumn charms I received in a guild swap shortly after plunging into quilting. Not really being a lover of autumn colors, they languished out of sight for a long time. Then I won a few autumn blocks in a guild block raffle, and was given a few more, so I finally got inspired to put all of them together. Right after I finished it, her husband died--in November, so it seemed like it was destined for her."
I've decided to split the quilts into 4 seperate posts *VBS*, come back tomorrow to see another lovely creation by the very talented Del Jeanne. As far as I know Del Jeanne doesn't have a blog, so be sure to leave her some compliments here!

Rolling.....

onward in my new quest *VBS* Have you decided to join Michele and I in the Virtual Quilting Bee for Charity? I hope so *VBS* This box of "goodies" from Chris in San Diego, CA has been adding and fueling my actions the past couple of days. As I use her generous donation of parts, bits, strings and blocks, I feel like a pirate with a treasure chest. As I mentioned yesterday, the hospital wash basin,filled to nearly overflowing with MAM beguns(or as friend Ila called it this a.m., "quilt seeds"...don't you just love it?)jolted me into action. I mentioned, over at Pieces, that I would estimate one to two hundred "seeds" that would become MAM blocks. I decided it would be fun(for me, who loves a challenge)to ACTUALLY count them. But not just count...to count out 10 PER DAY and finish them into 6.5" blocks. Why 10? Well, at 6.5", 10 of them gives a vertical row of 60". And that's a good length for a donation quilt *VBS*
 Here's the collage I made of various parts I found in Chris's treasure box. Some of these are already part of a quilt, some before the picture was even taken back in May. I am re-running it in thanks to Chris and all the others great gals who have donated orphan blocks, scraps and parts over the 2 years of this blog. The variety I have to chose from really makes it fun and much easier to make the Orphan Train and associated quilts. Thanks to ALL of you! *VBS*

In the midst of the letters and numbers.....

I sometimes get lost!! This is technically NOT a second post...*VBS*...I manage to mess up where I inserted the text in the post below. When I try to correct it, I get an error message that will NOT let me re-publish...soooooo...here are the links you need to Michele's Virtual Quilting Bee and to my post about the pan of scraps.

"Goin' take a sentimental journey....."

...gonna set my heart at ease". Yup, another old favorite song *VBS* Life is a journey, altho we tend to lose track of that little fact. Life doesn't happen all at once, it's a process and mostly we are too absorbed in our daily life to step back and measure. I don't know how other people feel about "measuring", I wish I did. I'm rather old to have just come to the realization that I'm an 'inchworm' in discuise. That's a song I like also *VBS*. The lucky inchworm measures the marigolds. I am, undoubt, a more sinister measure-er. The passage of time fascinates me. I might as well try to count the grains of sand on the beach as to grasp the passage of time, of things in motion, of movement. And yet, it is that ability to measure time that helps seperate us from the animal kingdom. So why all the talk of measuring?? Well, yesterday I blogged about scraps(and pieces)yet again at my regular blog, Pieces from my scrapbag. This sidebar, as well as that one, contain pictures and tutorial about my approach to scraps. I showed this pan(an old hospital wash basin)of "beguns" for MAM blocks. Read that post if you want all the details, cause to make a long story short...in order to find out JUST how many "beguns" were in that pan, I'd count out 10 PER DAY, finish them and set them aside, until all were finished 6.5" blocks for a mile-a-minute quilt top. The first half of the collage is the pan of "beguns", the second half is today 10 completed blocks, sized and ready to go!
 And since I finished that us, lickity split, I made 3 more of these string blocks that I need to enlarge the string quilt in first half of the picture. My friend Michele, of With heart and hands, a quilting journey, departed on a Virtual Quilting Bee of Charity quilts this past week. I joined her, but never got around to blogging about it. Last week, and part of this week, I have made MAM blocks from an abundant pile of flannel trimmings and scraps. As of today I am finished with them... they number 54-8.5" squares(to be made into a donation quilt). I'm going to carry on with sewing the bits and pieces, the backbone of frugal quiltmaking, the :scraps to treasure" way of thinking. I'm not sure how long this will last, but if you are so inclined, and not too busy measuring things,*VBS*, please join us!

Frugal Friday feature....

a very special quilt, made by Orphan Train Volunteer Carol. Carol blogs at Scraps and Pieces of Our lives. She's our newest orphan train volunteer but once she got started she discovered how much fun it is to play with Orphan blocks and offerings. She had sewn many of her scraps into HSTs(half square triangles) and was debating how to use them. Combining them with some donated panel fabric was the perfect solution!! Another lovely quilt that will go off the the organization she supports. It's a Canadian organization and you can read more about it at Carols blog.*VBS* Great job Carol!!

New Orphans come to play in the Valley....

They rolled in from Texas last week, and a fine bunch they are *VBS* I've been getting acquainted with each one. The new orphans are from my good friend Julie, of Julie Q Quilts.
 I put these new orphans right to work. Sorting them by size and color, stacking some, joining up others.Sometimes, if they arrived already sewn into a row or block, I unsew them and use them differently *VBS* That is pretty much how I work with orphan blocks. Sometimes color is the deciding factor, sometimes it's the height of the block. A great asset to have close at hand, if you are joining up orphan blocks, is an assortment of scraps or precut strips. More often than not, a strip can/will be used as a space filler. That helps you achieve the desired width of the row. When the joined together blocks aren't quite equal to the size you want, you "fill in" with a spacer strip.Sometimes in between the blocks, sometimes at the ends of the row.
 And a treat Julie sent along for me *VBS* A Moda Scrap bag of assorted sized strips from their pink, reds and whites collections. I love it!! Thank you so very much Julie, you are way too good to me *VBS*!

Frugal Friday Feature....

and excellent Orphan Train volunteer, Sue, of From the Magpie's Nest. Sue and I have been corresponding since before the Orphan Train began running *VBS* She's great fun to have as a friend and she makes wonderful quilts for many causes. Some premie quilts for a Neo-natal unit and some for foster children. Often Sue begins with the likes of these....the boxes, drawers and bins of unwanted and leftover blocks...the orphans.
 From them she creates wonderful useful things. Here we've got examples of her creative touch in placemats for a DGD, and a premie quilt...they are small in size. She also creates "units" or blocks to work into her designs, ala design wall.
 Often her blocks come from outside sources and she swiftly blends them into wonderful quilts in many sizes.
 I don't want you to think she just makes small quilts. Here are a couple of her earlier efforts. I know she labored longer and harder on these as seen in the number of orphan blocks used. And for you Gwen and Freddy fans, in their new book, Gwen has a couple of antique quilts near the end of the book. Take a good look at Sue's and then look at the ones in the book. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Frugal Friday Feature.....

my friend Carol, of Scraps And Pieces Of Our Lives. Carol is a brand new face on the orphan train. Welcome aboard Carol, happy to have you with us *VBS* This is Carol's first orphan blocks quilts. She's been following our progress for awhile and decided to hop aboard. 

Here is what Carol had to say about working with orphan blocks, bits and pieces: "I've been wanting to "stretch" my quilting and branch out into making some quilts without using patterns. I've been following Finn at her blog. She has such a creative way of quilting which I find really intriguing. When I seen a quilt hanging at the library I decided I would try to make a block like it. Needless to say, it didn't turn out quite the way it had at the library (my math is horrible), yet I really enjoyed the creativity of doing something totally different."
"I only had 8 flower squares which I fussy cut. I kept all the scraps from each square. I needed a block in the middle, so decided I would use up those scraps along with some of leftover scraps which I had used in the 8 blocks. The outcome....the middle block."
"I made each block 15 inches so that I would have a fairly nice size quilt. All pieces in this quilt were material that had been given to me or scraps in my scrap box. Cost for this quilt...approx. $2.00 for the batting & thread."
"This is my first "orphan train" quilt. It will be sent up north for my Quilts for the North project."
"I want to thank Finn (my dear friend) for the Orphan Train blog, for her creativity in quilting and for encouraging us to quilt with scraps and orphan blocks. Your the best!!" Thanks Carol! *VBS*