Wednesday was the day to deliver 17 children's quilts to Laura's Home, a ministry of the Cleveland City Mission, for them to use as gifts for their current residents. My little quilting group of friends has been working on these quilts since September and we were delightfully surprised at how many we finished once again. It always seems as if we'll be lucky to get six finished!?!
One of our members makes these wonderful tote bags "to wrap" the quilts. Since the purpose of Laura's Home is to transition women and their children into a self-supporting life, they will be moving to permanent housing and so we hope having their own tote will lift their spirits.
This year, we were given a bag full of Beany Babies and so those were also tucked down into each tote. These cute little creatures always elicit delight, don't they?
So here is a look at the quilts we made this fall -- perhaps it will inspire your own charitable quiltmaking?!! The pictures aren't my best -- taken in the evening and standing on a chair looking down on them -- so I apologize for that.
The scrappy bargello quilts we make (inspired by Bonnie Hunter's instructions) never cease to amaze me.
This one is all flannels and uses a simple quilting strategy!
We start with this box of ugly strips and we make the strata with the help of elderly women with memory issues. Every time we get these delightful results!! (I wrote about it earlier this year.) Actually, I believe they do a better job than we could because they are working from their intuition -- not out of worry about what someone will think.
And if the quilt isn't quite as long as we want, we have adopted this habit of adding borders to the top and bottom only -- great way to use some of that stash of novelty prints.
Some are retired teaching samples from my stash -- better to have them covering someone than wasting away in my stash.
When I give one of these away, it means I get to make another one!! Love using this tool from Marti Michell, the Tessellating Windmill template.
And some are old UFO's that we rescue and repurpose. These little card trick blocks provided a perfect way for me to try out this diamond border idea again.
This twin size rail fence became three cozy quilts perfect for some lucky children -- I wonder if there is currently a set of triplets at Laura's Home?
These basket blocks were cast-offs we rescued (rather nicely if I do say so). Does anyone recognize them?
Here's a set of pillow panels I just had to have (twenty-five years ago).
And this top was made about 10 years ago because I just had to use that periwinkle floral.
I did one of those "1660" quilts -- jelly roll race -- didn't like the finished size of it -- and so it was split into half, trimmed a bit and became a couple little lap quilts. Check out the fun quilting!
The next few were started from "scratch" -- leftover squares from someone, now working together!
A little charm pak that became a wonky 4-patch!
And the center of this was suppose to be a backing for another quilt, but we decided it was too much fun and converted it into a quilt top by adding borders. Perfect for a boy!
Sharing is one of the great blessings of the Christmas season. Being able to use my skills (which sustain me so richly) to bless other people is important -- keeps me from becoming self-indulgent!!
Back to the cleaning and I hope a bit of baking this afternoon -- want to make biscotti!!
Merry Christmas!
Mary Huey
