Community Quilts: From ME!

Work is always the best medicine for me.  If I can get myself behind a project, I always feel better quickly.  I have something else to concentrate on and think about.

Some recent charity quilts were just what I needed to distract me and get me back on the road.

You might remember a week or so ago I told you that I finished up an Iowa Hawkeyes quilt for a benefit that was being held in the neighboring town to build a new park.  Well, there were leftovers from that project.  I ended up cutting out more tumbler blocks and made another quilt that is much the same.

This one has a few different prints than the first one.  I dug in my stash and pulled out a few more fabrics and Kelli stopped at Walmart and picked up a different Iowa Hawkeyes print.

I had fun making these.  I’m curious to see how they will do as far as raising money goes.  None quilt lovers will put out money for something that is for their beloved team.

I had some people ask about… my tumbler block size.  Mine were cut from 4 1/2″ strips.  HERE is a link for the ruler.

It’s super easy to use.

Do you see that paisley fabric on the top left?  The large polka dot with the white background?  Those were fabrics blog readers gifted to me.  THANKS!

I think it’s a fun quilt…

I used a variegated yellow thread on the top and the backing.  As with the last one, I cut my binding on the bias and binding was easy.

It was bright and sunny the day I took pictures.  This one washed out.  The gray is actually much darker.

You can see my hook and point design in action.

The backing wasn’t fancy…I think the variegated thread dressed it up a bit.

This quilt is going to the Kickin’ it Forward benefit.  This one is great and helpful to those going through tough times.  Each year in August the group puts on a huge fundraiser.  There is food, a silent auction and raffles, and a kickball tournament.  They raise so much money each year.

That money is distributed over the following year to families in need.  Much of the money goes to families to help cover expenses that insurance doesn’t cover when a family is going through a medical crisis.  There are so many expenses families incur when someone is ill and needing hospitalization or treatments.  Gas, food, and other travel expenses add up quickly for people in our area who have to travel a minimum of one to two hours to get to a larger medical facility.  The group was great and helped Kelli and Jason when the boys were in the hospital after being born at 34 weeks.

I love what this group does so much…and the people who put it together are family friends.  In light of that, this quilt top was sent here.  All it needed was a binding so I finished that and put that into the box to go to this benefit too.

I love the batiks in this.

I so appreciate the blog reader who sent this quilt my way.  It’s heading off to a great cause!

A simple rail fence quilt sure was dressed up with some great machine quilting.

I bound it with a red marbled fabric.

It looked great and blended great with the batiks.  Any person who isn’t into quilting would have a clue that the binding wasn’t a batik.

A huge thanks to the blog reader who sent this.

You might remember that I mentioned the park fundraiser coming up…well the Cresco ladies read the blog post and wanted to be a part of helping the group raise money.   Last week Sandra and Pat from their group dropped off two quilts.  Isn’t this one so cute?  I love the kid print.

They sent this one too…but this one had a catch.  The binding was tacked down but it needed to be turned and stitched down.  Sandra felt bad about giving it to me that way but I didn’t mind a bit.

I bind by machine so 20 minutes later I had the quilt finished.  These are already sent off to where they need to be for the online auction.

This one is so fun and happy too.  THANKS so much to the Cresco Ladies for sending these quilts for their benefit.  I hope they get lots of money for the park.

That isn’t all I had to distract me.  I had two more community quilts.  These will be donated to the local pet shelter when they do their big fundraiser this fall.  I’m so proud of myself that I am ahead of schedule on these.

I had blog readers send tops and these two I pulled aside and decided to finish myself.  Both of the tops have pets on them and will work great for the fundraiser.

The first one is in primary colors.  I’ve seen this pattern before but don’t know the name.

What a fun kid-friendly quilt!

You can see much of it is somehow dog printed.

How fun and bright.

You can’t really see it but I used a yellow variegated thread on top with a fire motif.

If I remember correctly, the blue dog bone print came with the top.

I had a little red print that a blog reader sent that I used on the binding.

The shade of red was a great match.

Another quilt top was sent by a blog reader.  This one is so cute but in a different way.  The browns and blues are so great together.

This was made from panel prints.  I love the little animals and kids on this.

I used a litght brown thread and did a simple stipple.

Isn’t it cute the way the borders on the blocks make stair steps?

The person who made the top was great and sent matching binding fabric.  The back was a piece I bought from the thrift store for $2.

That’s the charity quilts I threw myself into.  For me, working and staying busy is the best way to conquor the blues.  Thanks so much to those that sent tops to give me something to work on.

If anyone ever makes tops that are pet themed feel free to send them my way for finishing.  I’ll happily machine quilt them and donate them to our local shelter for their fundraising efforts.