Last November, Cheryl in Dallas sent a batch of quilts to aid the victims of the Oregon wildfires. This got the attention of Nancy in Reno, Nevada. Nancy had two quilt tops that she especially wanted to go to Oregon as that is where her daughter lives and went to college. Nancy received these tops from a friend of a friend. Nancy sent the tops to Cheryl in Dallas for finishing. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) the need for quilts to help the wildfire victims seems to have been satisfied by generous quilters. Local community groups said they received so many donations around Christmas time that they no longer were serving the wildfire communities.
Nancy then decided the quilts could be shared with any group that would benefit from them. Here are two more beautiful tops that are going to find homes with seminary students who will eventually live . . . in who knows what state or country?
The first quilt top is a generous 90” x 90” made in lovely lavender, pink, and white with a bit of black for a nice accent.
In this photo, you can see that there is a bit of a ripple in the top, probably because most of the blocks have half-square triangles cut on the bias. But the borders were nice and straight and that kept the quilt flat when it was quilted.
The quilt is made of two blocks. Four of each type of block were grouped together. Here you can see Block #1.
This is an arrangement of four of Block #2.
Time to get this top loaded onto the longarm.
Cheryl in Dallas used a very dense quilting pattern. This one is called Gypsy Feathers and was designed by Donna Kleinke.
Lots of feathers and circles in this digital quilting pattern.
What a nice finish. In this photo, you can see that Nancy’s mom alternated sets of four Block A’s with four Block B’s.
For binding, Cheryl used black fabric that picks up the small amount of black in the pansy, daisy, and violet fabric.
The backing is made of fabric from Nancy’s mom and Cheryl’s stash.
In this close-up picture, you can see how nicely Cheryl’s choice of lavender fabric paired with the green fabric and flower pot fabric that Nancy donated.
The second quilt Nancy sent was a twin size 72” x 90.” Here’s the top as it arrived in Dallas… It doesn’t lie flat — is that a serious problem? We’ll see.
The center portion of this top is made with the nemesis of quilters: bias edges. Bias edges on large triangles created more opportunities to stretch.
Cheryl decided to go ahead and quilt it and see if that fullness would ease out as the quilting progressed.
This top was quilted with tons of sunflowers. The pattern is Simply Sunflowers designed by Deb Geissler at UrbanElementz.com.
Can there be too many sunflowers in a quilt?
This border shows that the excess fabric did NOT quilt out. The right side of the quilt had many pleats, not something that any quilt-maker wants to see. What to do? The best way to approach this would have been to take the border off and adjust it for the excess length caused by the bias edges, but that has to be done before quilting. After quilting, well, the best approach was to remove the border altogether. Not a perfect solution, but the smaller quilt looks so nice with nary a pleat insight.
Without the borders, the quilt is now 54” x 71,” which is a nice size of a child’s bed or a couch throw. At this distance, it’s easy to see the quilt is made of two different blocks set on point.
Cheryl found a pink marbled fabric in her stash for the binding.
The backing is pieced from three fabrics. Nancy sent the green fabric along with the tops. The pink and white framing are from Cheryl’s stash. These colors are just the thing for this spring-timey quilt.
The quilts went to Luke’s Closet at Dallas Theological Seminary, and they will be given to students. Maybe the pair of quilts will go together to a family that has a small child. Some of the couples in the married student housing have babies (the one-bedroom apartments are really small, so it’s cozy!), and they will appreciate such a lovely quilt for their little one.
Quilt tops should not be relegated to storage in a closet permanently. They need to be turned into quilts to honor the maker and bless the future owner. I think this is a great way to do both by passing on the quilts to a student or students who are going to appreciate them so much. Thanks, Nancy, for making this donation, and thanks, Cheryl in Dallas, for finishing the tops.
Not sure if this is true but I once thought I read that the longer a border is cut. If it’s cut in a one length piece of fabric. And not pieced together. It can cause the “ripple effect “. Have you ever heard that?
They are both very lovely and glad a solution could be found to make them usable.
Jo, you do such a good job of explaining things, could you perhaps use part of a post to explain with a bit more detail what was going on with the quilts and how problems like that can be avoided? I know I’ve had rippled quilts before but I do a lot of hand tying or plain straight line quilting so I have been able to fudge over it. Or maybe you have already and I just need a link to that post. The quilts did indeed turn out lovely!
Side borders. I think I read here once to measure in the middle (top to bottom), then maybe take two more measurements 5″-10″ from that middle spot. Average the measurements if they differ. Cut the border to that average size and ease the top to the border. Or ease the border to match the sides if necessary. Press. Do the same to finish adding top and bottom borders.
From what Jo wrote it seems like the rippling was caused by the triangle blocks having bias edges? But I thought fabric cut on the bias has less stretch. At least that’s what I recall from the bit of garment sewing I’ve done. I’m most likely overthinking this lol
That first quilt looks like tic tac toe! Great way to use blocks! I watched a video on you tube from a long armer on how to adjust a wavy border. I can’t remember who did it but it was very interesting how she maneuvered the excess.
Very nice quilts in spite of the problem. I’m sure that get to be a problem for the long-arm quilter, but glad they could work it out.
Beautiful quilts for some blessed recipients! Thank you for all your work ladies!
Wonderful quilts! I loved how you said “They need to be turned into quilts to honor the maker and bless the future owner.”
Both are beautiful quilts. As a longarmer, it is not possible to quilt out so many ripples using a E2E design but can be successfully done by doing a very dense custom quilting. Many quilters load their borders rather than measuring in 3 spots across the quilt and cutting them properly.
Indeed lovely finishes by Chery! Lovely color combination by the makers of the tops and backings. Thanks to all who had a “hand” in the donations!
Two lovely donations, Nancy and Cheryl!! Thanks for sharing, Jo.
Beautiful quilts! I have had success with cutting borders on the lengthwise grain, no matter how long they are.