Charity Quilts of Late: Do.Good Stitches and a Baby Jelly Roll Race

Whew!  Guys!  I got a new laptop for Christmas and I LOVE IT!  Lets all cross our fingers that 2018 will be the year I blog a lot.  No more excuses. :)

But first - lots of catching up to do.  I'm more than 6 months behind!  Yikes!

First up is a bunch of charity quilts from 2017.

Back in March, I was in charge of choosing blocks for Do.Good Stitches Believe Circle.  I wanted to do a two color quilt and I love green, so that's what I went with.  I wasn't even thinking about the fact that St. Patty's day is in March.  That was just a lovely coincidence.

I went with the Pinwheel Churndash block from Missouri Star Quilt Co. (love their tutorials!  They are perfect for Bee blocks).  You can find the tute we used RIGHT HERE.

This was my favorite block (I believe Ben made it).  Isn't it great?

For the back, I used up a bunch of my larger green pieces and made this giant churn dash (with one of our extra blocks in the center).  Not the prettiest greens, but I was happy to use up some of the stash.

I actually quilted this one from the BACK.  I was hoping the quilting would sort of show a shadow of the giant churn dash on the front.  So I echoed around the churn dash a few times and filled the rest in with swirls.

You can sort of see the design on the front here:

It was only kind of effective, but it was still a fun experiment.  :)

This quilt was shipped off to "My Very Own Blanket," an organization that donates quilts and blankets to children in foster care.  :)

Quilt stats:

Started: March 2017

Finished:  May 2017

Fabrics: Various Greens and Low Volumes

Batting: Pellon 80/20 Cotton/poly

Finished size: Approximately 40" x 50" 

Recipient: MVOB

Methods used: Piecing, FMQ

Binding: Machine 

Next quilt!

In December (2016), I asked my Do.Good Stitches Bee-mates to make giant log cabin blocks for me.  I think these finished at 18" square. 

We used this piece of fleece (it had been in my stash for a long time) as our color inspiration.  Then I used it for the backing of our quilt.  It's super soft and snuggly.

Once I got the blocks back, I sliced them up on the diagonal and put them back together.  It's another experiment I've always wanted to try. 

I think it turned out kinda cool.  I'd like to try it with smaller, non-improv blocks.

I totally bound this one by machine!  I'm getting a little better at it.  I still prefer hand binding because I feel like it takes LESS time (time sitting at the couch hand sewing with the TV doesn't count - it's the sewing machine time that is valuable around here).  But I tried a fancy stitch on this one and it was kinda fun. 

I quilted this one with a nice overall meander - except I threw in a bunch of basketballs and footballs for fun.  I think you can see a basketball in the above photo if you look very closely.

This quilt was also donated to My Very Own Blanket.  I hope some little boy is loving it right now!

Quilt stats:

Started: December 2016

Finished:  May 2017

Fabrics: Various

Batting: Pellon 80/20 Cotton/poly

Finished size: Approximately 45" x 62" 

Recipient: MVOB

Methods used: Piecing, FMQ

Binding: Machine 

Last up is my Jelly Roll Race baby quilt:

You may remember that I snagged myself a "midarm" quilting machine last year around the holidays.  This was one of the quilts I made to practice my quilting on. 

I've always wanted to try a Jelly Roll race quilt, and the top took me just under 2 hours to make (including borders).  I used a smaller jelly roll with only 21 strips, which yielded a super long and skinny quilt.  So I unpicked a couple of rows and added them to the sides for a nice little baby sized quilt.

The quilting was just sort of okay.  I never really got the hang of the quilting machine.  I had lots of issues with tension (particularly side tension - I think I finally get why long-armers really need their backings to be so much bigger).  Plus the machine I got was big and bulky and not very smooth and it hurt my back.  Among other things.  In the end, I found another buyer for it and I'm happy to continue quilting on my little domestic.  It's funny - moving the quilt just makes sense to my brain.  Moving the machine is strange.  That's not to say I would LOVE to try out a REAL, GENUINE long arm machine someday (as opposed to a home-made, jerry-rigged setup).  ;)

Anyway.  Back to the quilt.  I knew I couldn't give this away to a friend or family member, but I was happy to donate it to charity.  :)

I tried another fancy stitch on this machine binding.

The back is this print that my friend Abby gave to me when she was destashing.  A lot of Abby's fabrics went into my backings in 2017.  Abby is the best. 

The end. 

Quilt stats:

Started: March 2017

Finished:  May 2017

Fabrics: Joel Dewberry True Colors Jelly Roll

Batting: Pellon 80/20 Cotton/poly

Finished size: Approximately 36" x 40" 

Recipient: Charity 

Methods used: Piecing, "Mid"arm quilting

Binding: Machine 

Total time to make: 4.25 hours

A Few Recent Makes

Once Cheyanne's Quilt was finished, I got to spend some time on a few little projects.  It always feels great to make something quick after a big project. 

First up - remember the Dresden plate mini I made for my guild swap?  Well, at our meeting one of the ladies mentioned that she had seen someone sew a giant Dresden on the side of a skirt and the idea rooted itself in my brain.  So I made myself a Dresden skirt.  Fabric is from the absolutely gorgeous Bright Sun line by Sherri and Chelsi that I won in a giveaway.  :)

We attended a wedding for our friends (the bride is from Taiwan) and I whipped up these quick "his" and "hers" towels.  I'm really hoping that says "hers" in Chinese...

My nephew turned three, and of course he needed something handmade from me.  I decided on a crayon roll.  

I even included a pocket for a mini notebook.  Now both of my twins have decided they MUST have one of their own.  

I LOVE this fun transportation fabric.

And then Emily Herrick posted about this book on Instagram and I went right out and ordered it because - CRAYONS!  Also, it's an adorable book.  :)

And here are all the bee blocks I've made that haven't made it onto the old blog yet:

For Vickey:

For Jaime:

For Vickey:

 For Kristen:

For Brittney:

For Jaime:

Do.Good Stitches: Star Cluster Nine Patch

I have another Do.Good Stitches quilt to share with you!  Our January quilter ended up leaving the group, so I offered to take over her month.  I didn't have a lot of time to choose a block, but I've been dying to try this cluster star block for awhile so I went with it.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to test it out before posting it for all my bee mates to make and it ended up being a little bit harder than I expected.  Mostly because there are lots of tiny HSTs.  But everyone did such a great job, even though I know this block probably wasn't their most favorite to make.  At least the second block I requested from them was easy!
ANYWAY.  The tutorial for the star cluster block can be found HERE.  We made the 12 inch version, so I recommend the 16 inch version.  :)
I asked my bee mates to make their blocks in whatever colors they consider girly.  Since I'm having my third boy in a month or two, I figured it would be fun to play with girl fabrics for once.  :)  The blocks turned out amazing and they go together really well!  Here is the finished quilt:

I used a purple flower print for the back, but it's pretty busy so you can't really tell.

Of course I had to make a label:

For the binding I decided to go quick and easy and just folded the backing over onto the front.  Whew!

And now I want to talk about the quilting.  I decided that this quilt would be a perfect one for practicing lots of different FMQ designs.  I also knew that I wanted a good mix of straight and curvy lines, plus a good mix of large scale and small scale designs.  So I took Angela Walters' Dot to Dot Quilting class on Craftsy and used her designs for about half my blocks.  It was fun coming up with something different for each block, and I definitely got some good practice in!  It's also a good thing this a charity quilt and not a show quilt.  I know the recipient will love it either way.  :)
I used Aurifil 50 wt thread in white and it blended in REALLY well.  A little too well in some spots - you can't really see the quilting designs.  But sometimes that's a good thing, right?  (I'm well aware that my quilting is NOT perfect!)  I quilted a pebble/bead design in all the sashing and now I know that white quilting on white fabric shows up better than anything else.  :)  But I kind of love the effect.
NOW.  For documentation purposes (I will be boxing this quilt up tomorrow and will never see it again), here are photos of every single block.  I'll spare you the commentary.  ;)

And a few more photos just for fun.  The back is so busy that you really can't see the quilting on the back at all. 

I have really awesome bee mates.  They did such a great job and I loved seeing the different fabrics they used for their own personal interpretation of "girly."

This quilt will be donated to a Juniors House to benefit children who have been victims of abuse or neglect.  I hope some little girl loves it!

Until next time!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2015

Finished: March 13, 2015

Fabrics: Various

Batting:  Pellon Nature's Choice 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approx. 45" x 60"

Recipient: Junior's House

Methods used:  Piecing, Free Motion Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding: Backing folded over and machine stitched to the front

P.S. this was my March goal for ALYOF (#106), so I will be linking up HERE:

This was also goal #2 on my Finish Along Quarter 1 List.   I'll be linking up HERE: