Making a charity quilt

Recently I received a call for craft items for an auction at work to benefit a local cancer charity. And since I had been thinking of making a simple quilt from some fat quarters I had, I suddenly found myself with a deadline.

Not a bad thing, since I seem to need a fixed deadline to finish a project these days...

So I started cutting...

Making it a challenge to cut as many blocks from a Fat Quarter, I managed to make five blocks out of most of them, ending up with 59 blocks. Of course it should have been 60, but well, let's say mistakes were made...

I decided on a 7 x 8 layout, and used the remaining 3 blocks on the back.

I quilted with straight lines on my domestic machine, bound with a solid light green, and of course finished with a label.

The auction was a great success, and the organisers donated the money last week. I have no idea how much the quilt itself made in the auction since I wasn't able to go to the auction myself. However, I have no illusion it will have fetched as much as it would be worth commercially.

But this is the way I look at it:

• I have made a quilt I loved making
• I had the opportunity to refresh my memory of a pattern I enjoy
• I have used fabrics from my stash
• I have contributed to a great charity
• I have contributed to the success of a fund-raising event which is now to be repeated next year
• Someone has ended up with a quilty hug to enjoy!

 Win-win-win in my book!

Also, I am considering writing the pattern for this, would anyone be interested?!

Details:
Size: 46" x 52" approx.
Fabrics: 12 (metric) fat quarters for the top
Wadding: lightweight cotton
Threads: Aurifil 50 wt colour 2479, used for piecing and quilting
Photos: phone camera in poor indoor lighting (sorry, the weather isn't on my side these days)!

This is a finish from my Finish-A-Long Quarter 4 list, too, and is linked up with the Finish-A-Long. My full Q4 FAL list can be found at this post.

Sandra

Baby Quilt for Helena

In my previous post I wrote about my one and only - and small - finish for the second quarter of the finishalong, but I did more sewing than just the one notebook cover. These other projects just never made it on my finishalong list, because they were started (and finished) only after the list was made. One of them was a baby quilt.

I do not know many people having babies, and so I haven't made a baby quilt as a gift for a while. So when I heard of baby Helena arriving, I decided it was high time I made another baby quilt. After all, what is better when you are a quilt maker, than making quilts?!

Not knowing the parents well - hardly at all, really - I decided to make a baby quilt I would be happy with myself, rather than trying to second guess the taste of the new parents. And since I like the quilt to be enjoyed beyond the early baby stage, I felt a cheerful, bright quilt was best. Which is great, since I have quite some fabrics lying around that would be suitable for that.

I started off with this fabric:

... and went to find coordinating solids (and a grunge) to go with it. Not finding any solid white, I also added a white-on-white print to the mix.

Then I changed my mind, and decided that it was better to use the flower print for the back, and use the solids (and almost solids) to make quarter square triangle (QST) blocks.

I started with 8 1/2" squares (my main ruler is 8 1/2" wide), and trimmed the QSTs to 7 1/2" after piecing.
I went with a square setting, 6 x 6 blocks, and spent ages rearranging the blocks to balance the colours (am I the only one?) until I gave up and concluded it was good enough. I also added an appliqué initial block in the mix to personalise the quilt. It made the quilt approximately 42" square.

For the quilting I abandoned my initial plan of straight stitching, and went with a long wave stitch instead, following the seams. This resulted in a less severe effect, and the odd wobble that wasn't due to the stitch itself did not show up as much.

I went for the same stitch along all seams, softening the strong graphic effect of the piecing to a small extent, and added echo quilting to the appliquéd initial.

Then came the next issue: The backing was a fraction too narrow! Rather than trimming the corners off the QSTs on the front, I decided to solve it by widening the binding. Usually I cut my binding at 2 1/4" wide, but this time I cut it at 4".

I sewed the binding to the front with a 1/4" seam allowance, and folded it to the back as much as it would go.

And then hand stitching it down onto the back in the usual way. This covered all edges neatly and securely.

To finish it off, I top stitched in the seam of the binding at the front, too.

And so, a few weeks after Helena arrived, she and her parents were gifted this quilt:

personalised with her initial

and the back

I may have to do this again, it was such a joy to make! And I hope it will give Helena as much joy, too!

Sandra

A last finish in under the wire

As well as my Lily Lapin I managed to finish a second project from my Quarter 4 finishalong list! And just in time since the link up will close tonight!

My Drunkards Path quilt is finally finished, thanks to the support and encouragement of the Finishalong community and my Instagram friends.

I started this quilt cutting out the pieces while on holiday last July. I used the 3 1/2" Drunkard's Path templates from Pappersaxten which were ideal to cut up a charm pack. The templates are for a Drunkard's Path version where the curve ends up in the corners of the block. The template set have extra allowances so that it is easy to sew the curves together, and the set comes with an extra trimming template for accurate blocks. Perfect!

When all blocks were assembled and trimmed I tested a few layouts:

With help from some feedback on Instagram I decided on the last version and sewed it together.


Then auditioning border fabrics,

sewing the top together,

and auditioning quilting threads:

In the end I used many different threads in different areas.
I machine quilted this one, emphasising the shapes I associate with retro flowers. 

Not being able to find a suitable binding fabric in my stash, I decided to turn in the edges of the quilt, and quilted the last border areas after finishing the edges.

Finally today I was able to convince my youngest to hold up the quilt for some decent photographs. Pfft!

Linking up with the Finishalong at Archie the Wonder Dog.

And if you want to be encouraged to finish your WIPs (quilty or otherwise), do join us for the 2017 Finish-a-long at Rhonda's Ramblings and other hosts...

Sandra