Faith, Hope, and Charity

Most quilt groups make quilts for others in need.  Some groups focus on particular causes or charities, like Quilts for Kids or Quilts of Valor.
Our group, called Ties that Bind, gives back to the local community.  We make baby quilts for local hospitals, lap sized quilts for nursing homes, larger quilts for a hospice, and all sizes for a homeless shelter.  We are always keeping our eyes open for others who need the comfort of a quilt.
Today on the blog I'm going to show you some of the quilts we've made so far this year.  At the end, I'll show you my new charity quilt top, and give the pattern for it.

This is Joan L., holding up one of the baby quilts.  You can see several other quilts also.  Joan and Colleen are the co-chairs of the charity quilt committee.

This is a lovely quilt made by one of our members.  I took the picture--I should have noticed it was upside down!

Beautiful colors!

Here's a fun pattern to use with charm squares.  The lady on the right is Colleen T., also our current guild president.

Lots of novelty print squares make a great quilt for a child.

It's hard to see here, but these are Halloween prints.  The quilting has black cats, etc.

These nine patch blocks are really enhanced by the hot pink sashing and border.

Another great baby quilt.

My favorite of this bunch--a string quilt.

The back of this baby quilt shows our label.  It tells who we are, and has a link to our web site.

Helen L., one of our faithful charity committee members, brought this box of fabric for us, which was donated by her church.

We finished a couple of tops on our workday, and put our heads together to solve some problems with some of our UFOs.  Ann W. was a big help with design and sewing.

I am so proud of our little quilt group.  There are only about 35 or so members, but we get a lot done.  Joan and Colleen ask for blocks to be made each month, and members donate their time and fabric to make them.  Then the committee (or sometimes mostly Joan and Colleen!) make the blocks up into quilts, and quilt them on their long arm machines.  They also buy the batting and backing (with guild funds) and any other fabrics or notions we happen to need.  Many of our members also make tops or quilts on their own.

We know that no matter what a quilt looks like, it will serve the purpose of warming someone.  But we take the extra effort to make our quilts as nice looking as we can.  Some of that might just be because we can't stand to spend our time making ugly quilts, and we naturally take pride in our work. 

It's more than just that, though.  The gift of a really nice quilt is more than just the gift of a blanket.  It says to the recipient, we care about you.  Your enjoyment of this quilt matters to us. 

This is my latest charity quilt top.  The pattern for the blocks is Twin Sisters.  I made this after watching an Eleanor Burns quilt show on public television.  The blocks are made from 2.5 in. strips, and finish at 5 in. square.  Each set of strips makes two blocks, with opposite colors.
Here's a link to a tutorial:  Twin Sisters Quilt Blocks Tutorial

For this particular quilt, I made 72 blocks.  Each of the 9 rows has 8 blocks, plus the sashing strips, which are cut 1.5 in. wide and 5.5 in. long.  I also cut 1.5 in. squares from random prints for the cornerstones.

The inner white border is cut 3.5 in. wide.
It was fun to make the piano keys border from my scraps.  I used up most of my 1.5 in. strips, and actually had to cut more.  The strips for the piano keys are cut 1.5 in. x 6.5 in.
The quilt finishes at 71 in. long x 65 in. wide, about twin size. 
I think it would work for a Quilt of Valor, if you used red, white, and blue fabrics.  Wouldn't that be fun?

May God bless all the quilt makers who stitch for others, even for people they'll never meet.