Quilt Finishes: Community Quilts for School Kids

I thought I’d take the time to photograph and show you the quilts I finished last week for the school kids in need.

Some of the quilt tops came from the Cresco ladies and two came from Jean in WI.  THANKS so much to all of you who helped make this happen.

The first top looked like this when I started.

I told you earlier that when I am making these for school aged kids I want them to be around 60 x 80 or so…I ended up putting the cream inner border on this and then the larger red outer border.

Here is the quilting motif I used.  Next time I use it I will likely do a video on how I do it.  It is a favorite of mine…and it’s easy to do once you’re in the swing of it.

I really like how this turned out.

Do you remember me saying that there was one quilt that the thread kept breaking on, well this was the quilt.   I did piece a backing together for it…

The binding matches the outer border fabric.

Here is the next quilt…
It came to me like this…

I added the blue outer border.

I used the Hook and Bump motif on this…I used a variegated thread on the back.  I used a seafoam green color of thread on the top.  It’s and thread that doesn’t look like it matches any color but it actually matches and looks good on a lot of fabrics.

Can you see that little narrow strip on the far left of the backing?  That is where my backing wasn’t large enough and I didn’t realize it until I was almost finished with the quilt.  I added that blue strip while the whole quilt was on the frame.

I found a green to bind it with.  It doesn’t match the green of the sashing perfectly but, being the two fabrics aren’t touching, it looks just fine.

No one would know unless I told.  The backing was all pieced together from leftovers from another project.  It looks pretty good for a pieced backing.

The next quilt looked like this when I got it…

I think I remember a blog reader sending some crazy pieced blocks.  I wonder if these are it?  Anyway, it wasn’t long enough for what I needed so I added a top and bottom border- there’s a narrow cream on and the larger brown one.  I was going to add side borders but I didn’t have enough yardage.

I’ve told you all that I have a lot of fabric but the majority of it is fat quarter-sized.  It made finishing these quilts a little hard but do-able.

I wasn’t having the best day at the quilting machine the day I did this one.  I had all the thread breakage and then the backing on the other quilt was too small so I didn’t want to risk anything.  I went with a simple loop quilting motif.  I figured if I had thread breakage at least the quilting wouldn’t be so dense…but I ended up having no problems at all with this one.

The binding is red and matches the fabric in the pieced backing.  The dark color in the backing was the thrift store fabric.

The next quilt is from Jean in WI.  When I got the quilt it looked like this…

I loved the quilt from the first time I saw it.  I ended up adding a top and bottom border to this quilt too.  It needed to be a little bigger and the simple borders did the trick.

For this one, I slowed down my frantic pace and did a video on how to do this motif.  It’s a fun one and pretty simple.  I call it ribbons and poinsettias.  This is a bit Christmasy of a quilt but not a lot.  One might not notice it unless I said something.

The gold fabric at the bottom of the photo above shows Bethlehem and there is a print with words that has part of the Christmas story.  I wasn’t going to do this quilt for a school donation but then I remembered some of these quilts are going to the Catholic school too.  I’m going to note that this quilt should go there.

I was brave and used red for the thread.

The binding is the same print as the added borders.  The backing was a thrift store piece that I only need to put one seam in.  YAHOO!

The next quilt is also from Jean in WI.  I didn’t do a thing to this quilt.   All of the borders were already on it.

It was quick and fun.

I should have but didn’t take the time to shoot a video of this quilting motif.  It’s a variation of the hook and bump that I think you all with love especially if you like feathers as it gives you a bit of a feathered look.  I’ll take a video of this in the near future too.

The backing is pieced leftover from another quilt backing.  The fabric was originally from an auction.

The last quilt I did was a batik quilt.  It came to me like this…

Again, I needed it bigger.  I added the inner green border and the outer blue border.   It was a fabric I bought when a local fabric store went out of business.  This one was so fun to work on.  It reminded me that I like batiks!

This is a disappearing nine patch pattern.

I should have shot a video for this quilting motif too.  I know you will love this and find it easy to do as well.  Next time I will.

I used a variegated thread on the top that is rainbow swirl…it’s blues to purples and pinks.  I love the thread and use it often.

I used the same fabric for the binding as I used on the outer border.

For the thread on the back…I used up all of the little half and quarter filled bobbins that I had leftover from all my previous quilting projects.

Check out the backing fabric.  I was able to use up all of the bobbins except for the black and white and cream.  I used up the red, blue, purples, and pinks.  It was awesome.  I have empty bobbins again!!
The backing fabric came from Quilted Twins.  I bought it for another project and hated it for that project.  When you buy fabric online and it’s a big print like this with large variation, the small picture that we see on the computer screen doesn’t always show the whole all-over print of the fabric.  After I opened it up and looked at it, I just didn’t like it for that project.  That’s okay.  The fabric has the perfect home now!

I am VERY happy with all of the quilts.  It was a whirlwind of a week scrambling to get them all done in between all of the other things I have going on but I’m so happy I was part of it all.  I have a little more to do but the end is in sight.  YAHOO!!

Again, thanks to the Cresco ladies and to Jean in WI for your help in making these quilts happen.  You’re the best!