Serendipity blocks

I started another wool appliqué project. A few weeks ago, I saw Summertime Sampler, a wool appliqué quilt designed by Erica Kaprow. I was drawn by the bright colors and the whimsical nature of the designs. I was able to find other wool appliqué quilts designed by Erica Kaprow but the quilts all had different sized blocks. It was quite a challenge to determine a finished block size for my quilt and pick 20 blocks for my quilt. My blocks will finish to 8 1/4”.

Serendipity means the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.  I decided to name my quilt Serendipity because serendipity describes how I found and decided to stitch this quilt.

I have 2 of the blocks ready to stitch.

Beads of Courage Bags

For the last few days, I have been making Beads of Courage bags. I finished 20 bags and have fabric cut for an additional 30 bags. Beads of Courage was developed by Jean Baruch while working on her PHD in Nursing at the University of Arizona. She piloted the program at Phoenix Children's Hospital in February 2003. Every year, Beads of Courage provides assistance to more than 60,000 sick children coping with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and their families in over 250 children's hospitals throughout the United States, and in six additional countries.

I will be donating all Beads of Courage bag to Phoenix Children's Hospital, in memory of Kendall, a granddaughter of a good friend.

Marcie's Bunny and Birds

I took a break from working on Folk-Tails, Sue Spargo's 2015 BOM, to stitch Bertie's Spring by Bonnie Sullivan. I added some embellishing stitches, notably the buttonhole scallops on the baby chick wings and bullion knots for the bird legs. I decided to eliminated the half square triangle sashing and border on Bonnie's pattern and I was really undecided on borders for the wool appliqué. I thought about designing a wool appliqué border but then I saw some linen fabric I purchased at the 2014 Houston Quilt Festival in my sewing room. There were 7 15" by 15" of beautiful 100% Italian linen. After some careful calculations, I determined I would have enough linen fabric to make a piano key linen border. Linen is more loosely woven than regular quilting cotton and tends to shift and fray easily so I starched each piece of linen with Mary Ellen's Best Press which made cutting the 1 1/2" strips much easier. After machine quilting, I will be giving the quilt to my daughter. The quilt is about 32" by 38".