Orphan Block Finds a New Home...

This one-of--a-kind wall hanging began with just one leftover applique block. Our quilt guild held an "orphan block adoption" some months ago. Everyone brought in blocks, pieces, and parts from quilt projects they'd started but knew they would not finish. We had three or four tables full! Then the members "shopped" the tables to select one or more items to adopt and turn into a quilt project of their own design. Our block party was held this week, and there were more than a dozen completed projects, along with some quilt still in progress. It was great fun to see how creative members got using other people's work. Blogger is fighting me tooth and nail, and will not allow me to add any more pictures, so this is the only quilt I can show you. The Cotton Boll block was an extra one from quiltmaker Jill Allen's Best of Show prizewinning quilt at the Quilt Fest Jacksonville, 2013. I could not let that lone block languish, and brought it home to work on. The quilt almost invented itself, and used up the final few Christmas fabrics I had- which is a good thing. One guild member described the quilt as "out of the box"-which I think is a good thing!

Fabric or Paper... Paper or Fabric?

Which one will I choose? How about both? That's a satisfying answer, and yet it is the crux of my dilemma! I love both quilting and paper crafts, but each one has its own set of 'stash', specialty tools and supplies. And both need plenty of space to store all that. So I've been sorting through the sewing room, trying (yet again) to manage all the stuff. Note to self: you don't need to buy any more fabric or paper for a long, long time. I put all the notecards and postcards that are "quilty paper" together. These small pieces of art are like a magnet to me. These notecards are from BBD Creations in Vero Beach and I found them at a quilt show some years back.

It's not enough that I purchase fabrics when I visit quilt shows and shops, but the paper arts hold great appeal, too. I purchased the two cards at left, above, when visiting The Stepping Stone Quilters show in Nassau, Bahamas in 2012. They are the work of quilt artist Vee Jenkins. We're going to visit the quilt show again when on a cruise at the end of this month. So more of Vee's beautiful notecards may join the collection. The paper collage card on the right is from The Quilt Shop of Sedona in Arizona, but I don't have the artist's name. Imagine that design in fabric- nice! 

A quilting friend gave  me these notecards from the Heartstring Quilters near Philadelphia. They made a "Forever Yours" quilt commemorating loved ones who passed away after having cancer. They created portrait blocks and assembled the quilt, which was donated to the Breast Imaging Center in their area. But they also had a set of notecards made featuring the entire quilt, and then sections of it. A lovely project.

But look- there's more! The postcards in opposite corners, top left and lower right,  are part of the Amish Seasons collection. I bought them by the handful when in the Lancaster, PA, area. Such inviting images. And at the lower left is a card from one of Susie Riehl's watercolor Amish Quilts paintings. The upper right is a card that features "Star of Bethlehem", ca. 1850, from the Chester County Historical Society in Pennsylvania. So it appears hopeless- I'm an inveterate collector of both paper and fabric. I guess my motto is "anything quilty". Quilty as charged!