Charity Quilt - Chookshed Challenge #4

My Chookshed Challenge for March was a panel and I opted for a simple "bug" one and made the top in time for the Challenge date.

It is now quilted and bound and handed over to the charity group.

The fine black & white stripe was a bit mesmerising....and its strobing in the picture!!!

RSC - January

I pondered whether or not to join Angela for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2024....So many projects on my To Do lists...but also a LOT of fabric that needs to be used. 

Then I saw Janice's post and decided "Fishy Business" would be a fun project for the year and would make a good charity quilt at the end.  (I can also take advantage of the fact that Janice has worked out that we need two fish each month and a couple of spares...LOL)

The pattern is available here.

This is the quilt from the designer.

I decided the backgrounds could be all light-coloured blue/green tones - and I would use Bali fabrics for the fish in the colours given out for RSC.

The colour for January is dark and bright green and here are my January Fish.

My Claytons Retreat (aka Sunday Stitchers At Boonah Retreat) Day 4

Each year at this retreat we have had a Mystery Challenge.  This year we were asked to bring scraps - any shape & size.

The challenge this year was to make crumb blocks.  I have never tried these before, I started, but realised they were looking more like crazy patch blocks - so I did a bit of Googling to get me on the right track.  The secret is to have at least one straight edge on each piece and then sew two pieces together.  Repeat - so make sure the new piece has a straight edge and join to another piece.

It was going well - using the offcuts from my houses and trees - but there was not enough variety - and I had sent all my scraps to the girls at Boonah....I certainly wasn't going to deliberately create new scraps!!!

So, I got to this point.

These crumb blocks will be put together by De as  DV Charity Quilt.

The other thing on my To Do list for the retreat was to make more black red and white blocks to go with the ones I made at the last retreat.

I made 11 - but I have just about run out of black red & white - I have 30 blocks - though I wanted 42. . .so will ponder the next stage in this quilt top.

This will also be a DV Charity Quilt.

Day 5 still to go - might get back to some of my stuff - maybe the ABC Book that is overdue, or the baby quilt for the new grandie - also overdue!!!

Charity Quilts

I made these two charity quilts.

The first one is from a panel that a few of us found whilst on a recent shopping trip - it was a bit narrow, so I split it and sewed in two strips of white that I "decorated" on the sewing machine using some of the fun pictures and a strip of orange check.

 

(Not a very clear picture)

The end result:

The second quilt was started here and finished off with some simple quilting and binding.

Seems orange is the flavour of the month!

Esk Retreat - Sewing projects

My first retreat for the year - I went to Twight2Twilight at Esk from 10th March, til the 13th.

 Here is some of what I sewed.

A little "thing" for Peyton.  I had asked my daughter if there was anything she wanted made - to use up some of the Toy Story fabrics that were leftover after making the baby quilt for Peyton.
It seems Peyton is fond of grabbing tea towels and wrapping things - toys, dolls etc or just putting them on the floor and sitting on them.  My daughter thinks something like this might be a "comforter" thing as they move her to a new bedroom and a bigger bed. 

So the first project was to make up 9 blocks into a "thing".

I am going to make a few more as "spares".

Not long ago we acquired a (free) toy stroller - we were saving it to give to Peyton later on.  As her birthday is July and around the same time she will be promoted to "Big Sister"  status, we will make this part of her birthday present.

This is the stroller - we didn't keep the toys.

To go with the stroller, I made a small quilt and a matching doll carrier.

There were some adjustments made to the pattern - it was a tricky thing to make.
I do NOT plan to make spares of this.

Another project was to put this quilt top together.  It is 4 1/2" squares - off set by half blocks.  It will go to a DV family.

I also made a number of small projects - BUT it's all secret stuff.  I am not saying how many or what they are, but they are to go with this zippy pouch.

Overall, I achieved what I planned to do.
I had some "reserve" projects...in case.
I came home very tired, (every night was an after-midnight finish)
but feeling satisfied.

I had a fun time - apart from Maureen, the girls are people I only see occasionally.  That gives a totally different dimension to the retreat - compared to the ones I do with people I socialise with all the time.  The other girls are heavily into bag making - the range of bag hardware, zipper pulls, zips & webbing totally amazed me.   I was quite tempted to jump on board with some of the projects that they have or were doing.  But I'm home now and find I am able to resist being totally sucked in...for now anyway.

And to top it off - I have another retreat coming up - just after Easter!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Black, White & Red Quilt

Many years ago, in my Wynnum Group, for birthdays, we each made everyone a 9 patch block.
Each of us handed out a fabric or two to be used.  I gave everyone a red to go in the centre and at least one piece of black and white.  The rule was to use just black and white for the other fabrics.

Then, a bit less than many years ago, I made them into a top.

Then I put it in a drawer.

Now that my Sunday Stitchers Group is making charity quilts - or Quilts to Give as they are also known,  I decided to finish it off and donate it.

Not sure why I didn't align the red squares differently . . but it's done now!

Charity Quilt

A shop I occasionally frequent - Echidna Sewing run a charity project each month.
Each month I say to myself - "you can do that"...but I run out of time.

The project for June was to make a quilt for Little Stars Kids.
Little Stars Kids provide Cuddle Cases filled with new essential items like quilts, pillows, hygiene kits, drink bottles, crayons and much more when they are taken into Foster Care.
The brief was to cut 16 strips of varying widths from 8 fabrics and sew them into a quilt.  Ditch quilting was suggested but I stitched a big 1/4" either side of each seam.
It ended up about 40" wide and 60" long.   I made a "boy" one as I know there will be plenty of girl ones.  We were asked to limit the use of overly patterned fabrics.

It was fairly quick to make and some of it came from my stash - not all as most of my stash is fat quarters with bits cut from it!
Perhaps one day I will make some more.

A Good Day's Work

Today was a KQ Girls sewing day - we have switched to one Saturday and one Sunday a month.
I needed a machine sewing project and decided to take along the 21/2" scrappy squares that I plan to make into a male charity quilt.  I made one (finished off a long term project) back in September 2016 - here - and sometime after that I decided I should make a male one, as most charities get a lot of girly stuff. 
So I have been sewing leaders and enders with that in mind.   I had about 18 strips already made that were 32 squares long and another pile that were 20 - and more that I had made into sets of 4....so today I got all the smaller bits and joined and added  . .  .I now have 46 strips of 32 squares.  I haven't decide how many rows I will put into each quilt - but I'm sure I have enough for two quilts now.. 

I do this as my leaders and enders because I use different machines and the seam allowance is not always the same and on top of that, it is fast because I don't need to worry about matching all the seams - I don't want them to become another UFO.

In an earlier post I mentioned how this group had done some mini tutorials and we made numerous blocks with the idea of making a few quilts for charity.

One quilt had been put together but we were missing the side borders..and we had almost the right number of blocks to make up another quilt.  I bought some bright pink on a recent shopping expedition and finished the borders on #1 , made two more big hearts and put #2 together.  I to\k them along today to show the gang and they are off to someone else for quilting and gifting.

Tonight I thought I better make a start on joining the Winnie the Pooh hexies - I'm sure this baby won't be waiting for me to finish the quilt...but I don't want the child to be 6 months old when I'm finished....I've been putting these together by machine...it is fiddly - it is not quick...but it seems to be working...and - for me - with a finger still recovering - it is much much quicker...   (tedious...but music is going in he background).

So, not bad for a day's work.
And I still have Sunday to go!