Scrappy Log Cabin Free Form Pieced Quilt~ Project Linus Donation

Lots of variety in the scraps I used for this quilt. I tend to make a one or 2 color scrappy quilt usually, but then there are those fabrics that have 3 or more colors in each print, so it's time to use those all in one quilt for a colorful and wild scrappy quilt. There is Halloween prints, Southwest prints, African print, florals and more in this quilt. I had donated this quilt months ago to Project Linus, but hadn't shared it (I have a few more to share as well soon).

Quilt measures 42" wide x 47 1/2" high.

So scrappy!!!

Closeup.

Closeup.

Closeup.

Flannel llama print backing.

Closeup of the flannel llama print backing.

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Scrappy Log Cabin Variation Free Form Quilt~ Donation for Project Linus

I made and donated this quilt along with some other quilts in October to Project Linus. Apparently something happened that caused a stir and brought on some new rules. Someone wrote a letter, but the contents of the letter wasn't disclosed to us PL volunteers, so who knows what it said or if it was a real concern to warrant making so many changes?

PL used to give us labels for us to sew on to our own quilts that we donated, although they guarded those labels and only gave us some when we needed them, but they won't give us labels anymore. They need to inspect each quilt (who knows what they are looking for exactly?) and only certain people will do the inspection and then they will sew on the label for each quilt that will be going to PL. 

We have to now use batting in all quilts, which is pricey and we often buy our own batting or whenever they have batting that is donated to us we can take some. A long arm quilter would quilt our quilts if we wanted her to if we gave them to her and she used Minky on the back and folded it over as a self binding and they were beautiful and soft and didn't really need batting. Now, I have no idea if she will be quilting at all anymore or need to use batting with the Minky backing or no Minky at all? No one has answered my questions about that when I emailed the group leader. 

I would use Polar Fleece as a backing and would not use batting as it was thick enough (like Minky) as it was and it saved on having to buy batting too. This quilt here that I am sharing today, I used no batting, but did use Polar Fleece on the back and it also acted like a batting at the same time. I turned in a few quilts in October that had no batting and wonder if they were rejected as a PL quilt? Did they donate my quilts to the Humane Society for a dog quilt or somewhere else without my knowledge? I made these for PL donations and I really do not want them donated anywhere else but to PL, but I will never know where they went. If I wanted to donate to the Humane Society, I would have made simple dog and cat blankets to donate to them and not spent weeks sewing scraps to create quilt tops and then quilting them to donate to PL for a child to have. PL quilts that are donated to a hospital can be disposed of if they find something that is questionable, such as pet fur/hair on it, chemical smell, smoke, etc. All of this I knew before and none of my quilts ever had these things on them.

 

While there were other changes made too such as using bright kid friendly colors and adding an appliqué on a Polar Fleece blanket that has a crochet edging to make it more kid friendly is something that should have been mentioned years ago. Plus, these quilts are for newborn to 18 years old, so I would add they should be kid friendly for the age of the child they will be going to as well. You wouldn't want to put a babyish appliqué on a quilt going to an 18 year old. So whatever that letter said that brought all the changes about may have been valid, but to not have my questions answered and not knowing whether my quilts were given to a child through PL or donated elsewhere has left me with a bad feeling.

I have now decided to make and donate quilts to send to Ukraine refugees through Wrap the World with Quilts. They need all sizes from baby to adult and anything we make will be wanted and used. We can use any colors. I will mail them through Give Back Box (which is how I mail purses to Sew Powerful) for only $20 and use a large box that can fit several quilts inside the box. They are sent to Utah to be distributed. I had been wanting to make a few quilts to donate to this cause anyhow, so now it will be my charity to donate quilts to.

Here is a scrappy quilt that I had donated to PL, and I hope some older child did receive this quilt. 

Quilt measures 41 1/2" wide x  56 1/2" high.

Polar Fleece backing.

I used up a lot of scraps making this quilt, which tends to take me much more time than cutting out a particular pattern to make, but it is satisfying using up the scraps.

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Citrus Quilt~ Project Linus Donation

I had a Fat Quarter pack I bought many years ago in Citrus colors and since I never used it in anything, I decided it was about time to use it and make a quilt. I chose to make a Layer Cake Tumble quilt (free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop) and I cut up the 10" squares that I needed to make this quilt, but I still needed more squares, since you don't get many 10" squares from a fat quarter. So I found some other fabric that I could add to the FQ bundle, like the sunflower print and that print in the upper right corner. I used whatever white on white prints I had to create the top. A simple diagonal grid for the quilting and a multi-color binding to finish the quilt. 

I donated this quilt last week to Project Linus (along with 5 other quilts I had made). 

The quilt measures 62.5" wide x 62" high, so an older child/teen will receive this size quilt.

 I did choose to make the lap size quilt on the pattern, which says it is about an inch larger than what my finished quilt measures, so the quilting must have shrunk a bit? And why I was a half an inch shorter in height than width on my finished quilt, I have no idea? It really doesn't matter, but it is strange.🤷

My friend Shirley had recently given me some fabrics that she no longer wanted and this backing fabric was one of the fabrics and it was a large piece too, so I thought the colors of this fabric was perfect to use as a backing. Thanks Shirley!

I used a variegated citrus colored thread to quilt this quilt.

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Polaroid Baby Quilt~ Project Linus Donation

A long time ago I saw this tutorial for making a Polaroid Quilt, from  Wendi of Shiny Happy World. Wendi's quilt used her appliqué patterns, but I wanted to try this quilt using some novelty children's fabric I had on hand first. I also wanted to make a small quilt to see how it went before getting carried away with something too large. I am glad I chose to do a small quilt because while this quilt is small (39" x 39"), the individual blocks are large and it was a bit of a challenge cutting the angles on these large blocks. I am happy with the results. I don't think I would make anything any larger than this size again. I might try reducing the block size to something more manageable if I want to make an appliqué Polaroid quilt next time.

Since I am donating to Project Linus, the smallest size requirement is 36" x 36" (newborn size) quilt. I added a border to make the bias edges more stable and so ended up with 39" square quilt. The white bottom border of the Polaroid blocks is taller than the top and side borders and to me it looked rather too stark and plain, so I decided to add some words using small die letters I have. I think those words made for a happier, more cheerful quilt. Even though the baby who receives this quilt won't be able to read it, the parent(s) will and that will make them happy. 

I ran out of the red binding, so added the green on the bottom, in case you are wondering, 😄.

I quilted this using a walking foot and quilting in a diamond shape around the quilt.

Flannel backing shows the diamond quilting, but the green is really more lime green like the next photo.

The green flannel looks like this in person.

Quilty Hugs Everyone!!!

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Blue String Quilt with Tigger Appliqué & Butterflies (Project Linus Donation)

I made a blue string quilt, knowing that I would add some kind of appliqué on top of it after I sewed the blue string together. I had picked up this Tigger panel that was cut out (it had white all around it) from another Project Linus group free stuff table about 2 years ago! Gosh time flies! I also have an Eeyore cut out too I got at the same place and time. Since Eeyore is blue, I knew he wouldn't even show up on this blue quilt, but Tigger, being the fine orange fellow he is would look great. I decided to cut off the white fabric that surrounded him and fused him onto the quilt. He is so long with his tail that he covered all the blocks in width but one. There were some butterflies on this cut panel too, so I cut them out leaving off the white fabric as well. There are 3 pink butterflies and 2 blue butterflies, can you find them? I worried about the blue butterflies with the blue background, however there is yellow surrounding the outer shape so that they are not completely hidden and can be seen more clearly in person.

The quilt measures 36.5" wide x 45.25" high.

Scrappy string quilt with Tigger appliqué and pink and blue butterflies that were appliquéd on too.

The backing of the quilt is this blue flannel. 

Quilted the quilt with a diagonal serpentine stitch. Doesn't Tigger's silly face make you smile? Some child will love this one!

Tigger is so long, he stretched out over all the quilt blocks, except one. See the pink butterfly above him and the blue butterfly under his head?

Here is a close-up of the blue butterfly. I stitched with blue thread, but the yellow in the butterfly does help it to stand out against the blue. 

Pink butterfly also has yellow around it and I stitched with a pink thread.

Sending Quilty Hugs!!!🤗

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4 Scrappy Free Form Log Cabin Style Quilts for Project Linus Donation

Hello my crafty, sewing friends. Several months ago I got the idea to make a free from scrappy quilt using my turquoise scraps and a tiny orange center for each block that I made. Well, I didn't plan it out very well as I just kept sewing scraps and I had so many blocks started, but very few that were squared to the 8.5" square size I wanted, so I had to add blue scraps and green scraps as well as the turquoise I started with, 😜.  Then when sewing the blocks together, I didn't want huge quilts, so I made 3 square quilts at 40" x 40" and one that was a bit longer and a rectangle instead of square. I actually made 2 rectangle ones, but I will share that one another day, as I am going to see if I can sell that one first at a gift shop. If it doesn't sell, I will donate it too.

I love piecing scraps to make these free form log cabin style quilts. No rules, no mistakes, just sewing fun! They can be sewn with any width scrap (from 1" to about 3") and sewn in the Log Cabin style (sewing around and around in a clockwise fashion) or the Courthouse Steps style (sewing strips across from each other) or both ways in the same block. I choose where I want to sew the scrap based on the length of the scrap piece. Sometimes I don't have a long enough strip to sew on a certain side, so if it fits on a different side then that's where it gets sewn.

I backed all of these quilts using soft flannel. In fact, I didn't add any batting at all. I just sewed the backing and the top right side together, left an opening and turned them. I press them, topstitched all around, which closed the opening, and quilted to hold the 2 layers together in a Serpentine Stitch on the diagonal. The pieced top with the flannel backing was heavy enough as is without any batting and the quilt has more drape too. 

I like to add an appliqué animal or a flower on my scrappy quilts that get donated, but these were so busy, that when I auditioned a large appliqué by placing it on top, it got lost, so no appliqué for these quilts. I will have to choose a different light color to piece next time in order to add some appliqué to the quilts.

5 blocks across x 5 blocks down (8" finished blocks) makes this quilt 40" x 40".

The flannel backing I used was Peace Signs. I love how soft the flannel makes a quilt more cuddly.

Closeup of a few blocks.

This is the rectangle shaped quilt as it has 5 blocks x 6 blocks, making it 40" x 48".

Close up look.

Royal blue flannel backing.

Another 40" x 40" quilt.

There are a lot of fun scraps in these quilts. Sort of an "I Spy" quilt, making it fun for the child to find all sorts of things, like the ballerina pig above.

Another close up.

This was also backed in royal blue flannel, but I needed to add a strip of the floral print flannel to make it big enough at the top.

40" x 40".

I spy a hot air balloon, butterflies & flowers.

This flannel backing is the floral print.

Happy Scrappy sewing!

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Knit Baby Blanket for Project Linus

I had knit this blanket and donated it to Project Linus earlier this year. I knit a ribbing at each end and the rest is a simple garter stitch.

Garter stitch closeup.

Ribbing closeup.

Happy knitting!

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