Ooo…I like those! I got my machine back and need to play some catch up!
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These are both awesome blocks! I hadn’t seen either of them before. I love how they’d fit in with my black & rainbow BOM’s I had from last year, or as filler for my Halloween quilt block stash.
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I’m doing a rainbow theme for this year, and plan to donate the quilt to our church’s holiday fair. I know some people who will buy anything rainbow. You gotta love the lesbians!
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LOL. When Jim & I were living in Bowling Green, KY, we had a friend who wanted to attend the Unitarian Universalist church there. She had grown up in one in Louisville, but didn’t want to go to the new one alone, so Jim & I went with her. She ended up not attending often, but we did. After growing up Catholic, both of us were a bit afraid of ‘church’, and were surprised to feel right at home among the UU’s. BG is such a conservative place, that it was nice to be in a group that was proudly pro-LGBTQ+, that was welcoming to Muslims & Jews in town, that welcomed us liberal humanist/atheists into the fold.
After attending for a year or so, they held a silent auction for a member who had cancer. I figured I should make something to donate, but was so busy with work, it would have to be an easy project. So I did a scrappy rainbow quilt, with 2.5" strips I had leftover from countless other quilts, and scraps in the costume shop. But I got sick, right as I was supposed to drop it off, and the minister offered to pick it up for me, but then he forgot, and the quilt missed making it into the auction. When I dropped it off a week or so later, telling the minister he could do whatever he thought best with it, whether it be give it to the church member who was battling cancer, or save it for a future fundraiser, he got very quiet. He said he was glad it had missed the auction, because it was a very special donation, and should be given it’s own ‘stage on which to shine’. So he started the next Sunday’s service by showing it off, and asking that anyone who was interested in it, see him after in the Fellowship Hall, with an offer. There was a small bidding war, and it ended up going to a local dentist & his wife who adored rainbows. I think there were a few rather disappointed lesbians who hadn’t bid high enough. The dentist insisted on taking a picture of us with the quilt together after he won it.
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Hmm… I tried to upload a pic with my last message, but it keeps telling me permission is denied… Anyone else having trouble uploading pics?
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Yeah, it’s an ongoing issue. Sweets is on it
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What a lovely story. You never know how the things we make that to us are just ordinary, can touch someone’s heart.
I’m thinking that I’ll just have to do November’s and December’s blocks early to get the lap quilt done by the weekend before Thanksgiving for the holiday fair. I haven’t made much to donate the last couple of years, so this will be fun.
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Happy National Quilting Day!
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I finally got a good pic of my finished baby quilt. I really wish the site’s photo problems were fixed because I totally want to show it off to you guys!
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I wish I had spent the day ‘celebrating!’ 
@MistressJennie, I can’t wait for the pics to be fixed. I’ve been wondering if you’d completed your quilt and can’t wait to see it!
@marionberries, thank you for the BOM nominations! I’ll add them to the BOM roster next week (when I have access to a computer).
If anyone else has a block they’d like to share for the BOM, we still need blocks for June, July, September, October, November, and December.
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I can’t wait to see it! I’m sure it looks great!!
I’m working on a baby quilt too. I’ve been working on it for a while. The blocks are way more annoying to make than I had expected it to be. It needed a million half square triangles and I had kind of forgotten I don’t like those. It’s coming along nicely now, I wish I could show a picture! I haven’t been crafting much lately and one big reason was that this project was on top of the pile and I had really started to hate it.
It was intended to be a gift for the youngest child of a childhood friend and their wife, but honestly… relations have always been tense with the wife and they have gotten more complicated. I don’t really want to send my hard work to someone I dislike so much. The bought gift is enough. Then, a dear childhood friend of Mr Imma, who I also like a lot, announced her pregnancy this week! We hadn’t seen that coming but we are so happy for her. So I’ve decided that the finished quilt will go to her instead and I immediately felt relieved and much more optimistic about finishing it.
It’s a complex situation with the childhood friend. If the man/wife-roles were reversed it would certainly be called an abusive marriage. I grew up in an abusive marriage and my mother didn’t leave until I was an adult, because she had no place to go to. I’ve kept in touch with the friend for all of their 10 years of marriage to give them an exit. But the negative energy has cost me so much. I’m sticking with Christmas and birthday gifts/cards but I can’t keep pretending to like that bigoted, spiteful woman.
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Yikes, very sad & scary. I would have a difficult time giving creative energy over to a person like that as well. I’d like to think I could do it just for the friend but honestly, I am simply not that good. Resentment would burn inside me.
I’m working on a baby quilt as well, a scrappy garden game started May 2020, ha. The friend’s baby is a toddler now but she just had another baby so I plan to finish it soon. Like most of my WIPs it was abandoned at 80% complete so there isn’t much left to do.
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@Immaculata It doesn’t matter the sex of the couple, if one party is abusive, it’s an abusive marriage. Hang in there with your friend, they will need you.
I am excited to see the quilt. My neice showed me a picture of her three boys, each on his own baby quilt, ages abput 5, 3, and 1. They love their grand aunties quilts.
@Magpie , 
there’s always another baby no matter how long a quilt takes. Thank goodness my family has slowed down on adding to the next generation.
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I have a similar situation. I’m close with David, the husband. He’s kind, funny, easy going, deeply caring, and a true team player. But he was very overweight as a child/teenager, and was bullied & even beaten very badly. He’s a normal body type now, and while he does exercise & make healthy food choices, he also doesn’t avoid a beer or a burger at a party; and his exercise regime isn’t as hardcore as some who struggled with weight early on. By the time he met his wife in college, he had lost the weight, and was a new person. None of his new college friends knew him as overweight, and he got to start over. But that part of him that still feels like the ‘fat kid with no friends’ (his words, NOT mine), is very grateful for any attention and kindness shown him.
Enter his wife, who is perfectly average-pretty. She’s not a model, she’s just a rather normally shaped woman with even features and good skin and hair. (Please know, I’m not trying to demean her in any way. I’m also not a model!) She’s also smart, funny, loves her family, and determined. But in David’s world, a pretty girl paid attention to him for the first time, and it was amazing. He worships the ground she walks on. She is a goddess who picked him, and he will never feel worthy of her. Because of that she controls everything in their relationship. She makes every decision, and tells him what to do and what ‘they’ like. There is no compromise or teamwork, and it’s sad to see.
When they were trying to get pregnant with their second child, she picked a 2-month span she wanted the baby to be born in, and was adamant that David MUST get her pregnant at exactly the right time, ‘or else’. Gee, no pressure. You can’t control mother nature. You can try your best, but even all the ‘work’ at the exact right times, can’t be certain that you’ll conceive. But she kept saying he ‘better get her pregnant or else’. I know she doesn’t hit him, but not all abuse is physical; that kind of implied threat can be truly damaging to ones psyche.
When they did get pregnant, it was a summer that I had 4 friends having babies, so I made 4 strip quilts that I could do quickly & easily. When they were done, I showed David, and asked him to pick his favorite for his new daughter. He immediately said he’d go show Amanda, so she could decide. I had to explain that I was asking for his favorite. That she got to choose everything else for the baby, but this one choice, was for him, from me. He still seemed so uncomfortable about it, like he was afraid he’d get in trouble for choosing the wrong one. I finally told him I’d never tell Amanda that I let him choose. I’d just mail it as though it were a surprise to both of them, and he finally picked one he liked. I broke my heart.
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That’s such a sad story! I’m glad he got to pick his favourite quilt. That’s at least something he got to choose for his own child. It’s sad that this story is so recognizable.
My friend has also always been insecure, he was bullied, his family was emotionally distant. We both sat with the geeks at school. My mum volunteered at our school and they developed a bond, too. He’d had his heart broken a few times before so when he met this girl in college he was so happy. She didn’t seem so bad at first, just a bit odd, but the behaviour grew worse over time. Literally from the day they started dating no one has talked to him one on one. I don’t mean just other girls, it includes his parents. And you’re right @marionberries abuse is abuse, but when a man doesn’t allow a woman to go anywhere, it’s called controlling, but when a woman demands her husband to literally never leave her side people say it’s his duty to protect her.
But what I hate most is just how mean she always is. She’ll say mean things with a big smile on her face, too. Every time we meet she keeps asking me why we don’t have children, even though she knows there’s a medical backstory to that. At first I thought she maybe forgot but she keeps asking, usually when her husband is in the kitchen making tea. It’s very painful. When they first visited our new house one of the first things she said, before she even entered the house, was “the house is cute, but we could never live here, since we want to have family”. She had bumped into one of our neighbours while getting out of the car and looked very scared - that neighbour is a Black man. We live in a very safe and also very diverse neigbhourhood. Good thing we don’t have kids, or they would have grown up thinking people who are of colour, or gay, or without a college degree are equal to rich white people /s.
Obviously, when I called her out on it she only meant the size of the house… but this has happened too many times for it to be a misunderstanding. She also keeps mentioning Mr. Imma’s “white thrash” background in a sneaky way and it makes my blood boil. It’s true he’s from a working class background, and that’s not something he’s ashamed of (no one should). But I am from a very similar background as him. The fact that my friend, has never told his wife that says a lot. I do hope he can be a good influence on their children so they don’t grow up like her.
But enough about her! The quilt is nearly done and we’ll give it to Mr. Imma’s friend next month. The baby won’t be born until after summer but when it’s born we’ll just get more presents.
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This is the rainbow scrap quilt I made for the UU’s. It must have been about 10 years ago? It contains scrap strips of so many other wedding and baby and anniversary quilts.
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-I MistressJennie offer Ombre Rainbow Stars Baby Quilt for my large challenge entry
I might normally count this as a Medium entry, but somehow, finishing a quilt while 9 months pregnant seems like a huge feat! Especially the pinning. Baby did NOT like me being on my hands and knees, laying out the quit sandwich and pinning it all. My husband ended up coming in to help me lay it out all perfectly smooth, and get some of the pins in, all while on guard duty so the dog didn’t run in and jump on it while I worked. LOL
Here’s the project post:
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Beautiful, and what a treasure
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I finished the top for the HST baby quilt! Or maybe I’m going to add a border.
Aaaand… Another couple announced they’re having a baby. We hadn’t seen that one coming either. The father is a friend of Mr. Imma. I asked him if they’d like a baby quilt and what kind of fabric I should use. He said "something like that cool dino quilt you made for X’. Well, surprise, surprise, there are leftovers! So I’ll be making another one. This is the original Dinoroar kids quilt. I bought a yard each of the fabrics and the quilt shop decided to throw in a second panel for free. I think I only ran out of one of the fabrics + I also have like 40 leftover HST’s!
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