Strings and a great finish

Even infinite variety can get boring. No matter how scrappy a string quilt, eventually I want something a little different. So last night I decided to try rainbow strings at our Project Linus worknight. In my headbar you can see that I once tried rectangular ones; this time we used our traditional Heartstrings squares and made each row a different color. Not quite done, but I love how it's turning out.

Remember Tonya's Fungly challenge? We made fungly blocks at another worknight, and I joined them with red and aqua. Just got it back from Joe the Quilter today. (Don't be ridiculous, of course it's not Joe Cunningham -- it's our local Joe the Quilter!)
Check out the closeup of the quilting.
Joe, whose wife Bunny is a fabulous quilter, just got a quilting frame and started quilting himself. Isn't this an amazing job? Thank you, Joe!

New computer!

Hoorah! I apologize for not blogging, or reading blogs, for over 3 weeks. My old computer had become a real pain. My photo storage was overloaded and difficult to handle, and the blogger-photo interaction was crazy. Every day I could see fewer and fewer photos on other people's blogs -- really frustrating. But my new computer moves so fast I can hardly believe it! :)

To catch up a bit:
I pieced together the fungly blocks (and have enough blocks now for another fungly top). The blocks were made by attendees at a Project Linus worknight.
The front/back or Otto's top is done and it's ready for quilting. I am so disappointed that I forgot, completely forgot, to put on the narrow inner red border! But I'm not taking this border off to do it. I got so many comments on which outer border to use -- thank you! I ended up going with this one just because it was brighter, which I think is good for a baby.
Kate at Kate's Quilting sent me backings and embellishments for several ATC's. I had never made one and wanted to try. It was really fun! Her background reminded me of streamers at a party, so I decided to add a glass of bubbly and title it "Celebrate" -- but it got a little crooked. That made me change the title to "Tipsy" and put the bubbles trailing out behind. I think it was an accident that worked out better than the original plan. Thanks, Kate, for inspiring me to try something a little artsy!
There has been a lot going on with Project Linus for me lately. This is Make A Blanket Day for the Central Illinois Chapter in late September. Wow -- 700 blankets turned in/completed/made that day! Really impressive. The women in charge of organizing this were absolutely amazing.
I also took a couple classes at the Red Cross to get CPR, AED, and First Aid certification. They had this quilt hanging in the training room. I love the story behind it. One little girl and her friends made the quilt at her birthday party and donated it to the Red Cross. I hope that eventually it gets donated to someone in need after a tornado or other local disaster.

Finally, I used my new computer to take this photo of myself! It's a computer with a built-in camera. What a blast! I've been having fun playing with this new machine, though there's some work to do transferring things from my old computer and installing various other things. My DH and DD have been a huge help! Now that I can actually see the photos that you guys post on your blog, I'll do some catching up. I have missed you!

Fungly blocks!

We had a blast making Tonya and Bonnie's fungly blocks at last night's Project Linus worknight. The Fungly (fun + ugly) Challenge is to use your ugly fabrics to make a really fun quilt.It's a perfect project for using donated fabrics. Our guild members very generously supply us with lots of fabric for making Project Linus quilts, but sometimes the pieces are small, the fabric is dated, or the designs are not really cheerful or appropriate for children. We try to use them as creatively as possible, but it can be challenging! If you click on the above photo, you'll get a better idea of the variety of fabrics we have to work with -- big prints, calicos, novelty fabrics, brights, pastels...
I precut some 3-1/2" strips yesterday and cut fabric for a couple blocks, too. I set them out with a bag full of fabric ends for people to choose what they wanted. You can see in the photo that I also printed up pictures of one of Tonya's blocks as well as her finished quilt top to show people what the Fungly Challenge is all about. We used the Easy Angle ruler that Bonnie recommends to cut the triangles. Being able to use only one size strip for all the pieces is easier for a group than having strips of different widths for triangles and squares. I encouraged people to be free and not to worry, but I've learned that when working with a group, there's always lots of variation anyway. Our guild has members whose superb technical skills have won them national awards, and at worknights we also get walk-ins who have never sewn a stitch! We'll make it all come together when we put on the sashing.
These are two of my favorite blocks. I wish I had thought to photograph that red fabric before I cut it up (we just had a very small piece). It's lip prints, like you'd get if you put on lipstick and then kissed a mirror. Very cute, but not really the best choice for a Linus quilt! We can use it here, though. And look at those adorable roosters in the next block! They are a lot more fun when cut up and re-assembled!