Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Complete!

Hello everyone! I know it has been a really long time since my last post - over two months! I have been very busy with work and trying to keep on top of household chores so I haven't had much time at all for sewing. I guess I'm still getting used to balancing leaving the house by 8:00am and getting home at 7:00pm but still having the energy to do something creative. I signed up to make this quilt for the Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Drive the day before I started working, so I didn't know how exhausted I would be at the end of each day.

That being said, I am really glad that I pulled through and finished this quilt. I chose an easy pattern that I knew I would be able to finish, and actually this only took me a weekend to complete. It was really nice to get back into my sewing room, and I'm happy that my weekend efforts might bring a little happiness to someone who is going through more troubles than just trying to balance their work life with sewing time. Sometimes I take it for granted just how good my life is. 

This quilt will be going to the Quilts of Compassion charity which helps people dealing with disasters in their communities. I have never had to go through a natural disaster, but they seem to happen all the time now. I'm glad that this quilt might help make that ordeal a little easier for someone. 

All finished up it is 60" square. That seems to be my favorite size of quilt. It's great for cuddling if you're an adult and you can really tuck in a child with that size too. I also thought the pattern and colors would be OK for an adult or child as well since it's not too grown up but not too childish either. I did a different type of quilting in each of the colors and then a large stipple in the background. For the backing I used a fun teal print that kind of looks like dandelion flowers once they've turned to the white seeds. 

Anyway, thank you all for stopping in. I hope I keep finding time in my schedule to be able to complete quilts for charity. I have so much in this world, so it is important to me that I give some of that back while I am able. Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and happy quilting!

Auction Quilt Finished

Hello everyone! I stayed up way past my bed time last night finishing this up. I needed to turn it in this morning so I was scrambling around at the last minute. My new job has left me with a whole lot less quilting time than I had a few weeks ago. 

Anyway, here's how it turned out:

I really, really loved this quilt. It was so soft, probably the softest quilt I've ever made. I think it was because the pieces were really large so there weren't that many seams to make the quilt stiffer. 

I backed the quilt with an orange floral print. I love the juxtaposition of the orange and blue. It's one of my favorite color combinations. The orange binding gives you just a pop of that complimentary color on the front and then nicely frames the back. I really love it and am kinda sad it won't be staying with me. 

I did straight line quilting on the whole quilt. It was a pretty easy quilt job compared to some other free motion stuff I've done. Other than working through the night, it was very relaxing. 

I didn't want to put a fabric label on the quilt since I'm not sure who will bid on it and actually end up with it. They might not even know who I am since I don't know everyone at the school (in case you missed it before, I'm donating the quilt to a silent auction where the proceeds go toward our church's grade school). So, I made a little paper tag instead and pinned it to the quilt. 

Anyway, I love how it turned out and I hope it makes it's way to someone else's house that will love it just as much. Now to plan my next charity quilt...

Hands2Help Charity Quilts Completed!

Hello everyone! I hope the start to your month of June is going well. We just returned from a long vacation (totally awesome and I have some more posts on that coming up to share with you), but I had a lot of sewing to do right away.

I've completed both of my charity quilts that I pledged for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge. It was such fun putting these together. I completed the challenge with my mother. Together we made 6 quilts - 3 for each type of charity.

Here are the two fishy quilts I put together:

Obviously these are both very similar. The first one has more pink and purple in it, so I consider it to be more of a girl quilt. The second one has more blue and green in it, so I consider it to be more of a boy quilt. I hope the children who receive them will enjoy them. Maybe they'll even make a new friend by talking to the other kid that gets the same type of quilt.

I decided to donate both of mine to the Russian initiative of the Quilts Beyond Borders charity (my mother donated hers to the Ethiopian initiative). I have just a bare twinge of connection to Russia since I studied a couple semesters of the language while I was in college. I've never been there, but I hope to travel there some day!

For these quilts I had planned on doing an all over pebble/bubble quilting. I think that would have worked, but I changed my mind at the last second. I decided to do what I like to refer to as my "seaweed" quilting. It's loops with some free motion lines connecting them. I think it makes it look like the bubble type of seaweed that you sometimes see washed up on the shore.

This quilting went really fast - it only took me about 2 hours on each quilt to do the quilting - then another 45 or so minutes to do the binding. This was also the first time I had ever completed the binding totally by machine. It was sooooo fast that I'm debating doing it again. I'm just very fond of the way hand stitched binding looks that I'm sure I won't make the change completely. However, these should definitely stand up to multiple washes!

For the back of the quilt I chose a green stripe on each one. I felt that the front of the quilt was very child friendly and I didn't want the entire thing to just be for children. I'm hoping the children who receive these quilts keep them for a long time. If they do, they may not want everyone to see a bunch of rainbow fish all the time, so that's why I chose the more grown-up green stripe for the back. I still kept the binding as the rainbow colors so some of the quilt top will always show through. ;)

My second quilt is in the wash right now getting all crinkly ad nice. The first is completely ready to go and folded. I've got to get a box to send these off on Monday!

And, here's one more shot of my little cat Leia. She snuck in while I wasn't looking and decided to test out the second quilt right before I put the binding on. I think she approves! I do have some fish blocks left over, so maybe I'll have to make her and her sister Sasha a little kitty quilt to snuggle on. I have a feeling they'll still try out my quilts even if they have their own though! :)

So, hope you all are having a great weekend! If you want to check out the other quilts that were made for the challenge, please head to Sarah's blog at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and see the other linked up projects. Mine will be there too, toward the bottom, since I'm cutting it close to the wire! There are some really great quilts there, and if you weren't able to join in this year I think she'll have the challenge again next year. :) Happy quilting everyone!

Charity Quilt Update

Hello everyone! I've had a couple of busy days trying to get my Hands2Help charity quilts finished up. I didn't manage to get mine quilted, but I did get my mom's quilted. :) Here's how they turned out:

The first two quilts are for the Happy Chemo charity. The first one was a cute frog and lady bug quilt. I stippled in the middle of the quilt and then did a loop pattern in the border. The second one was a fun and colorful quilt with butterflies and VW bugs. I stippled in the middle, then did hearts in the first border and loops in the outer border. They are both 45" square. 

This last quilt is for the Quilts Beyond Borders charity. It's another one with the fun and colorful butterfly and VW bug fabric. They wanted these heavily quilted so I stippled the whole thing. This one is 45" by 59" I think...

My mom is going to put the bindings on and ship these off herself. She already has the bindings put together, so I bet she'll have these in the mail next week! :)

In the mean time, I'm going on vacation for the next 2 weeks. We leave on Tuesday night and won't be back until June 4th. We're headed out west for the Sasquatch Music Festival in Washington. We're driving out from Madison, Wisconsin, so it will be a long road trip. We'll see Mt. Rushmore on the way along with some other rugged scenery. On the way back we're stopping in Seattle and Portland and then spending a couple of days in Yellowstone before coming home. I hope my husband doesn't get sick of me in the car! (We have some books on tape and good music so I think we'll be OK - just gotta find some hand stitching now...)

In some other news... My husband and I will actually be moving to Portland at the end of the summer! Our plan is to be out there at the beginning of August. That means I'll be kept very busy over the next couple months while I pack things up and figure out what I'll be selling, donating or packing. If you have any moving tips (or tips in moving cats across country!!!) please send them my way. I'm sure I'll keep you all posted with the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the process. Happy quilting everyone!

Charity Quilts - Hands2Help Challenge

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend and were able to get some sewing in. :) I finished more than I thought I would, and all of it during the Final Four basketball games.

My mother and I signed up to participate in the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge put on by Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict (there's time to join in if you want to make a charity quilt too!!). So, this weekend I put together some blocks to make two quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders (the orphanage charity). I'm trying to keep the quilts fun and happy, so I am making two fish quilts. My mom is going to help me fuse on some eyes and mouths so they'll look a little cuter.

The quilts have specific dimensions we are supposed to stay within, so I'll be having 3 fish across and 5 rows of fish, so 15 fish in each quilt. I'll have white sashing in between them to make the quilt to the right dimensions. My plan is to then quilt it with a bubble pattern in variegated rainbow thread. I just hope it looks as good in real life as it looks in my head. :)

My mom has already completed 3 quilt tops, 2 for the Happy Chemo charity and one for the Quilts Beyond Borders charity. I'm picking those up next weekend so I can quilt them for her. She's going to give me batting for my quilts then and do the binding for us at the end as a trade off. A pretty sweet deal!

She's so motivated I wouldn't be surprised if my mom finishes a couple more tops in the next coming weeks. We have until the beginning of June to mail off the finished quilts.

So, if you're able to help, I hope you'll consider joining in with the charity quilt challenge. It's bound to be a lot of fun! Happy quilting!