Community Quilts: The Dallas Duo

Imagine how excited I was to see an email from Cheryl.  This quilt top has been a long time in the process.  I sent it to Cheryl in Dallas two years ago.  She wrote me that she misplaced it and the top didn’t come to light again until she unpacked all of her quilting supplies after a home renovation.  It’s not a problem!  I love to see charity quilts no matter how long it takes.

This top was made by Laura Hervey in Dallas, Texas, and she sent it to me some time ago.  I forwarded it to Cheryl in Dallas who makes quilts for a halfway house.  Cheryl always sends lots of pictures, so let’s take a look.

Below is Laura’s quilt top when it arrived back in Dallas after the detour through Waucoma.

What a nice quilt using only three fabrics and two blocks.  It’s a simple concept, but it looks complicated with all of those pieces.  Laura’s layout is giving me ideas for using some of my scraps.

The quilt top is loaded onto the longarm at last.  This picture shows the “floating method” for longarm quilting.  The quilt top and batting are not attached at the bottom, but they float until the very last row of quilting is added—then they are tacked down until all the quilting is complete.

The float method has an advantage that it saves time because those two layers don’t have to be straightened and attached.  Unless, of course, the Quilt Helper gets ahold of the batting and rips it to pieces while the quilt is on the longarm.  Then more batting has to be added and that eats up the time that was saved initially.  Do any of you have Quilt Helpers like this one?

It looks like everything turned out okay.  Laura’s quilt is a generous 81” x 84.”   This size is big enough to be a bedspread for a twin bed.

The binding fabric came from Cheryl’s stash and it’s the same rust color found in the brown print.

If you look closely, you can see the digital quilt pattern.  This one is called “Lisa’s Raindrops” by Lisa H. Calle and is available FREE at www.UrbanElementz.com.  It’s very simple and doesn’t take much time to quilt out.

Cheryl wrote that she didn’t know who supplied the dark green print backing, but it was included with Laura’s quilt top, already pieced and ready to go.

This quilt was a long time in the process, but it is ready to go into a Federal Express truck for shipping to Gainesville, Florida.  Some of you long-time readers may remember that Cheryl makes quilts for a women’s halfway house in Florida.  In a long note, she described that the director of the halfway house left and the program has been in hiatus for a while.  There is one woman still at the shelter, who is currently in the job-seeking phase of the re-entry process.  M. has been in prison for more than half her life.  She hopes to get a job making eyeglasses, a skill she learned while in prison.  This quilt is going to her.  Maybe it was hiding until now just so it could cheer up M. as she makes the very difficult journey from her old life to a new one.

Thank you, Laura and Cheryl, for making such a lovely quilt and sharing it with us.  I love to see the creativity and generosity of my blog readers!

While the halfway house is working on reorganization, Cheryl has started supporting a new halfway house in Kentucky for people with addictions.  Cheryl writes that many of the tops she’s making for the halfway house residents use a free pattern called five easy pieces.  You can find the pattern HERE.  If anyone is interested in make some for Cheryl, let me know and I’ll give you her address.