Charity quilts

At the moment I'm working on 40 lap quilts for an old folks care home. I have had a lot of stuff hoarded for charity quilts but lacked the enthusiasm to do more than one every six weeks or so. Now I have a definite goal as there are 40 residents.  

Most of the flimsies are done, I finished webbing these tops and putting on scrappy  borders today. I cut the borders at 2 1/4", same as the binding. I love a scrappy binding! 

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A sample batch of 6 have been delivered, including these .

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I bound these two this week

There was a hiccup with this one, I cut the backing tooo small, so some orphan blocks came in handy! 

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These broken dishes blocks are my leader enders, cut from 2" strips 

I have been doing these for months now and have quite a stack, the aim is a queen size! 

Mittens and orphans

Two finishes today: super thick crochet mitts for my 8 month old granddaughter and a quilted mat for her play tent (at Christmas)

The mat was made from orphan blocks from Bonnies sisters choice, that I gave as a gift a couple of years ago

Linus quilt bound

Boyish quilt for Project Linus UK finally bound and ready! 

Orphan blocks, Bonnies Garlic Knots variation.  

I intended to make a quilt for me, but I didn't like the bright white, too much contrast for my taste. 

The colours are brighter in sunny weather, it has been dull here for days, sewing weather.

Please excuse my dog ears

A weekend of pressing...some time ago I stitched hundreds of HSTs for charity quilts from all sorts of fabrics (probably about a year ago!).  I will use these as leader-ender patches whilst sewing on other things. So many dog ears to clean up! 

I put the borders on my granddaughters first quilt, made from orphan moth in a window blocks. That backing is soooo cute! It was on sale, I ordered 5 metres but they only had two and a half in stock 😕

I started cutting all the string blocks to size for crumb quilt strips.  I am saving 3 1/2" strips for a scrappy border for some UFO or other! 

Sewing this weekend was Allietare blocks from Bonnies mystery a while ago. All the component bocks are made for this quilt, so it's only the  large block assembly that's needed. My daughter in law may claim this one. 

Last night I finished the binding for a Linus quilt made from orphan blocks. 

Definitely a girl quilt!

Decluttering and mending

I started another ten stitch blanket this week for Project Linus UK (well, 20 really-it grows quicker!)

I have a lot of random green yarn scraps, they may as well go to make someone warm rather than be binned. It will be my YouTube  watching project for cold winter nights. 

Sewing this week has been clothing repairs and a few 3" finished leader-ender broken dishes blocks...

...and a LOT of draw cleaning and reorganisation! I have five empty drawers now that I must not fill up with NEW projects! 

I found lots of  half made four patches left over from Perkiomen Daydreams-this was intended to be a large quilt, however I wasn't happy with the accuracy, so it ended up as a cot size flimsy. 

I need to find something to do with several hundred navy four patches that finish at 2". 

Linus finish 2 this week

• Orphan blocks from trimmed crumb strips
• bargain backing with fun insects
• various odd strips for sashing and borders
• Green cotton free motion quitting on the front, shiny blue poly on the back
• pieced batting

Linus finish

• Orphan blocks
• Bargain fabric for backing and sashing
• Quilted with variegated green cotton front and back
• Pieced batting
• 46 x 38"

Last push!

I have completed the last three play mat quilts for donation to a local charity. If they want them all, there are thirteen. Any remaining will go with the three I have reserved to Linus.  

I have several cot size to quilt  for Linus, but three doubles have to be quilted first. 

Then it is about time I made myself a quilt! 

•  scrappy broken dishes
• border and backing from the stash
• quilted back and front with tangerine cotton
• white border top stitched in the ditch in white poly core. 
• Scrappy binding from gifted poly-cotton duvet cover, backing trimmings and recycled cotton sheeting. 

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•  broken dishes blocks
• backing form the stash
• quilted in Gutermann variegated green on the front, gifted pale blue polyester on the back
• white border top stitched in the ditch in white poly core. 
• white border recycled sheeting. 
• grey border and binding was leftover 2"  strips from moth in a window.  

 

• broken dishes blocks
• both borders are recycled bedding
• backing from the stash
• quilted with white poly core on the back, Gutermann brown-yellow variegated on the front
• border stitched in the ditch with white poly core. 
• scrappy binding made from backing trimmings

Four finishes

• orphan blocks
• charity quilt
• border and backing from the stash
• binding from a roll I made up from 2 1/2" scraps some time ago
• quilted in my new quick favourite fake puzzle design
• white polycore on the back, Gutermann variegated green cotton on the front
• border top stitched with variegated red
• about 1m square

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• orphan blocks
• charity quilt
• border and backing from the stash
• binding from a roll I made up from 2 1/2" scraps some time ago
• quilted in my new quick favourite fake puzzle design
• dark blue gifted poly thread on the back, Gutermann variegated green cotton on the front
• border top stitched in the ditch
• about 1m square

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• orphan blocks
• charity quilt
• border and backing from the stash, white is recycled cotton sheeting
• binding from a not-so-neutral neutral, the border and backing are so busy this needed one colour.
• quilted in my new quick favourite fake puzzle design
• quilted with gifted mustard polyester on the back, Gutermann variegated green cotton on the front, a  YLI variegated green in the border
• about 1m square

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• orphan blocks
• charity quilt
•  backing from the stash, white is recycled cotton sheeting, blue stripe is a cotton duvet cover
• binding from off-cuts
• quilted in my new quick favourite fake puzzle design
• quilted with gifted mustard polyester front and back: in the ditch in white on the border
• about 1m square

Two more complete

 Today I am working on a broken dishes quilt with a new FMQ design. I like this, it's really quick and secures all the seams. 

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I tried it out on the border for the last one, binding completed this morning. That border fabric that I was determined to use up was tricky to quilt and match for binding.  I don't often quilt the borders, just stitch in the ditch as I like the fluffiness of un-quilted space.  This one was too wide not to have something in. 

• orphan blocks
• quilted on the front in mid green variegated, white polycore on the back
• heavily FMQ for practice
• borders and backing from a bargain bundle that needed using up
• scrappy binding: I had to cut some extra green for this as the border fabric wouldn't take my usual multicolour scrappy binding from off-cuts.

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Another finish, more moth practice

• Deep stash borders and backing
• Variegated green cotton on the back; cream poly in the ditch, gifted yellow poly on the borders, various experiments on the moth shapes.
• orphan blocks
• binding from a stash I made up a year ago

 Loopy balloons in the borders and sashing

Variegated thread looks awful on the moths! This was my original intention for the big quilt, glad I tried it out.

1/3

About 1/3 of the small flimsies for donation are quilted, eight.  I had a roundup and cut backing for the rest, they need to be gone!

Too many orphan blocks! 

Still to do: 

 Five larger ones here ready to go, for Linus.

And nine flimsiness here for Portage and Linus -there are another two 'moth in a window' flimsies to practice on in this pile. 

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There are three small quilts in progress, quilting/binding stage. 

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One crumb quilt double to be layered, that needs to be done in the next couple of months. Lots of quilting needed to secure all thise seams. I will  be able to use up reels of gifted polyester thread on this. 

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Two finishes, both about 1m square

• Broccoli backing  and green border from deep stash
• orphan blocks
• scrappy binding from backing off-cuts
• FMQ practice: variegated pastel orange and green on the front, cream polyester on the back (that was brave!)
• borders quilted in the ditch

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• broken dishes blocks
• FMQ quilting in cream  polyester front and back
• scrappy binding from backing trimmings
• Border from backing trimmings

Working at the orphanage

Two finishes today, providing a home for five orphans. They are not quilted. 

Sewing on the border-hang on, I'm sewing it to the border-time for lunch and caffeine!

All of these fabrics were bought as clearance ages ago, they are 'my' colours so I bought several yards of each. Wish I had bought much more of the dino fabric. 

The blocks were part of a sew along that I lost interest in, don't know why as I really liked them!  The spicy border fabric with the green line really worked in the block. 

I would have liked to mitre the corners, but there was less than an inch of border to spare, so didn't dare.  This cushion cover is 28", so I couldn't close it successfully with buttons and had no zips: I went hunting for a strip of velcro that has been hanging about for years, perfect. 

I used the dark star anise orange for backing.

Orphans, thimbles and uglies

This solid silver thimble is unblemished. It came into my possession from a house clearance. I was told it was worth £25 so paid it on the spot as it is a perfect fit.

The modern S, M, L, sizes don't fit me properly.  

As  a girl needs more than one thimble, I started looking on Ebay for antique thimbles in a 16 or 17 size. 

I bought two plain thimbles in sterling silver very cheaply. 

If I had cash to spare I could really get into collecting these, but of course only in the sizes that actually fitted!

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This small quilt is now finished for Linus, about 45" square

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I finished this flimsy that will go to a small local charity

 whilst watching Bonnie on archived Quiltcam

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I cut borders and binding for the next big quilt I will be working on

 I also chopped this UGLY (what was I thinking!) for binding and some mini broken dishes blocks (cut it small says Bonnie).

 This ugly will be used as a border on a charity quilt at some point.

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The trimmings from the binding were made into mini broken dishes blocks immediately in an effort to control the crumbs.

 I trimmed them to size guided by the neutrals cut with the easy angle. Looks like you can't cut that reindeer fabric small enough!

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I found two old spiderweb trials-I tried sewing to old sheeting but the result was too thick for a quilt, even if the look was good.

 I put a border on one, cut some heavy duty fabric for a back, and turned it into a cushion cover.

 Antique buttons on the back, and the raw edge of the fabric turned out for interest on the button flap.

 In this trial I didn't like the blocks completely random, The flimsy I made has sections in colour family, this has been a UFO for about 4 years!

I have been working on the rainbow hexie in the evenings. 

Linking for Scraptatsic Tuesday