There is a strong emphasis on charitable giving and many of my colleagues make a variety of fabric blankets and items that go to various groups. We've made little blankets for preemies, newborn baby blankets for local babies born on National Quilt Day, blankets for veterans, blankets for military families, quilts for Alzheimer's patients, bibs for nursing home residents, Linus blankets, Habitat quilts, quilts to decorate the walls of hospice rooms... well, the list goes on and on and on. I'm always impressed by the number and quality of the quilts that are donated through our guild. Within our guild we have a very active group that puts together "kits," shares patterns, finds fabrics and batting for us to use or at least get started on a "community quilt project." And once a year, in January, we have a working meeting where community quilts are actually constructed in a group setting.
Last January at the guild meeting, I started this quilt. We were given a pile of 2 1/2 strips of various lengths that someone thought went together either by color or theme. We were instructed to sew the strips together randomly and then cut them into 45 inch lengths and then sew the strips together until we had a quilt top that measured approximately 45 x 60. Well, I switched some of my fabrics and sewed until I got the quilt top about the correct size. That's as much as I accomplished at the meeting.
But I also had time to look through the fabric donations and found a piece of backing fabric that went along with the Asian theme of at least some of the fabrics in the quilt top.
Here you can see the backing fabric:
I brought the top and backing home and put it aside and it wasn't until this year's community quilt meeting was fast approaching that I finally sandwiched, quilted and bound the resulting quilt.
From this angle you can see that it is really more square than rectangular. That's because the backing fabric was that size. But I think it still came out pretty nice. I wasn't able to go to the meeting this month, but a friend handed it in for me. Better late than never!
I can't remember if these quilts were being made for a particular request, but I think that it would make a nice lap quilt for a lady, perhaps someone in the extended care facility at the local hospital.
My next project was a "string quilt."
When I was at the Houston Quilt Show, I signed up for a challenge to make a quilt for "Quilts Beyond Borders." QBB is a group that provides quilts to children in need in under-served areas of the world where the warmth of a quilt is needed at night. Lots of their quilts go to orphans in areas of the world like Ethiopia, Romania, Guatemala, Kenya, and most recently Syria. We were encouraged to choose a fat quarter and let that inspire the kind of quilt we wanted to make. Well, I chose a green piece of fabric, but it was really my friend Alice who provided the inspiration for the type of quilt I made. She has been making "string quilts" with some of her scrap fabrics and so, I thought it was time for me to try out the technique.
I had some off white strips that I had cut for a past project and I acquired some precut strips of fabric from an estate sale I recently attended. So here is what my first strip quilt looks like:
I used a rather dark mottled red/black fabric that I had on hand for the backing. Probably not the best choice for a child's quilt. I thought it looked a bit dreary. But I used some of my scraps to put some color accents in the back:
And here's a close up so you can see how the blocks come together to form the pattern.
It's interesting to think that this quilt will likely travel to a part of the world I will never have a chance to see!
Two very nice donations - but I think your string quilt is especially striking with the wide bands of white creating the diagonal lattice with your multicolored strips. Nice quilting on both pieces also!
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