Shirley A's Quilt - "Just Breathe"

At some point during the pandemic isolation (it's all kind of a blur to be honest) my online group of quilty friends decided to have an "Orphan Block" Challenge.  The challenge was to take all those blocks left over from other projects, unused sample blocks, or maybe blocks made to learn a new technique, basically sad and lonely blocks in need of a home, and put them all into one project.  And believe me, it really was a challenge.

First, every single one of my orphan blocks went up on the design wall.  

Then, play time!  Making something out of this was a lot more of a challenge than I thought it would be.  I took some of the blocks, cut and stitched them to combine them with others to make new blocks, and some of the blocks I cut into smaller pieces.  It took a while to go from the above to this .....

..... and after deciding to fill in empty spots with checkerboard sashings, to this.....

And then it went to this.

I didn't want to end up with any "orphaned" orphan blocks, so I put most of what was left on the back.

I free-motion quilted this, and not without excitement.  I have a habit (a bad one) of getting my fingers a little too close to the needle while I'm sewing, but at least this time it was just my free-motion quilting glove that got caught and not my finger!  Whew!

Just a closeup.

One really special block went onto the back.  My grandson, Gavin, made this block when he was just a little guy and had decided, for about five minutes, that he wanted to learn how to sew.  I blogged about that here.

I am very pleased with how this turned out.

I named this quilt "Just Breathe" and gifted it to my precious friend, Shirley A, who was going through a very hard time.  She loves it.

I ended up with only these teal orphan blocks left .....

..... but I already had a plan for those!

Linking up with Can I Get A Whoop Whoop!