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

Do.Good Stitches: Diamond Kites

Back in April, I was in charge of our Bee Quilt for Do.Good Stitches.  I am now in a new group (our old group had to be dissolved, which was super sad), so I've been getting to know the skill levels and styles of my new bee mates.  Hopefully this block wasn't too crazy for them. :)

I made up this pattern using half rectangle triangles and asked for blocks in bright jewel tones.  

Doesn't it look cool all put together?

For the quilting, I went with random straight lines all over the whole thing.

For fun, I threw in a bunch of straight lines done in glow in the dark thread.  :)  It's pretty much not possible to photograph glow in the dark thread, so here's a picture of the back.  If you squint, you can sort of get an idea of what it looked like in the dark.  :)

The binding was done using a couple funky large prints that I haven't been able to match with anything until now. 

 Quilt stats:

Started: April 2016

Finished: August 2016

Fabrics: A variety of bright jewel tones with low volume background

Batting: Pellon 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approximately 58" x 47"

Recipient: My Very Own Blanket (an organization that provides quilts for foster children)

Methods used: HRT piecing, straight line quilting

Binding: Hand Stitched to the Back

Just under the wire, I'm linking this up with the Quarter 3 Finish-Along.  This was project #1 on my finish-along list. 

Do.Good Stitches: Final Humility Quilt

Well, I finished another quilt for Do.Good Stitches!

This one was a little interesting.  At the end of 2015, we had several members decide that their plates were too full and they needed to let go of our little quilting bee.  (Sad face).  So in January, we re-evaluated.  Half of us wanted to stay, so I took over as quilter and asked for THIS block.  I picked something super simple and easy, because I was hoping we would be able to find some new members to flesh out our group.  In the end, we decided it was better to just disband our little group and spread its members out amongst other Do.Good Stitches groups in need of members.  We were all sad to see our little group broken up, but excited to start a new adventure with each of our new groups.  Besides, I feel like I have made a bunch of new friends and I will continue to follow their work! 

SO.  Without any more talking by me, here are the best pictures I was able to come up with for our final Humility circle quilt.  It is being donated to Primary Children's Hospital in SLC, Utah.  :)

Do.Good Stitches: I-Spy Bubbles

I was in charge of choosing blocks for our Do.Good Stitches group in April.  Inspired by THIS quilt by Kati at From the Blue Chair, I asked my bee mates to send me blocks with raw edge appliqued circles.  I wanted raw edges so that the circles would fray a little in the wash, making them sort of 3D.  And to make things super fun, I asked them to use their novelty fabrics to make an I-Spy quilt.

YOU GUYS!  I never could have come up with something this awesome on my own!  There are so many gems in this little quilt.  I don't want to give it up!  In fact, it's been sitting in my living room being loved while I waited for the right time to photograph it (SHHH, don't tell!).  Don't worry - it'll be in the mail soon.

But seriously - the next time someone asks me what my least favorite part of the quilt making process is, remind me to tell them it's the photographing!

Anyway.  I asked Vickey, our host, to send me a bunch of circles rather than the two blocks we normally ask for.  I used a lot of those circles cover some of the seams between blocks and fill in some of the gaps to make the quilt look more consistent overall.  But she sent me a TON of circles (thanks Vickey!), so I used the rest on the back.

I debated for a long time on how to do the back.  I considered super scrappy, but in the end I decided to go with this cheap neutral solid because there is so much white on the front of the quilt.  I glue basted the extra circles in a layout I originally hoped would look like bubbles being blown from a bubble wand.  Not sure that's what I ended up with, but oh well.  Instead of stitching these circles down, I just heat set the glue with my iron and quilted over them.  I'm hoping they will still hold after many, many washings. 

Here's our little "label:"

For the quilting, I copied Kati and did pebbles all over the whole thing.  With a swirl snuck in here and there.  It took awhile, but it wasn't too bad.  The pebbles are pretty big and I tried to make some bigger and some smaller for more variety.  It sure took a lot of thread, though!

I think the crayon circle is my boys' favorite. 

Either that or the owl one...

For the binding, I rounded up all my novelty scrap pieces for a super scrappy I-Spy binding.  :)

I hope some kid loves this as much as I do!

ETA:
I had to see what would happen to the quilt once it was washed.  Let me tell you, it frayed a TON and it's super crinkly now.  :) 

I think this little turtle is my favorite.  :)

As for the back, it held up okay.  The little ones struggled a little bit since they weren't sewn all the way down.  I even found one of the smallest circles in my washer after pulling this quilt out.  Oops!  Next time I'll either quilt tighter/smaller bubbles, or stitch the circles all the way down.  

Quilt stats:

Started: May 2015

Finished: July 6, 2015

Fabrics: Various Novelty/I-Spy fabrics

Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approx. 54" x 60"

Recipient: Junior's House

Methods used:  Raw edge applique

Binding: Hand stitched to the back

This quilt was goal #4 on this quarter's Finish-Along list.  Linking up: