Here's my finish for this week, a sports quilt for a teen boy. Our quilt group's contacts in social work have told us there is a lot of need for quilts for teens, especially boys, so I put this one together with a familiar pattern.
When I first started quilting, I had the crazy idea of making a quilt in every existing pattern. This was before the current quilt revival, but even then this was an impossible dream. There are literally thousands of traditional quilt patterns, let alone all the wonderful new ones shared with us on the internet.
Now that I'm making quilts for charities, I think of good quilt patterns like recipes. There are some you go to again and again, like menus for week night suppers. They need to be simple, relatively quick to make, and use materials on hand. Most importantly, they need to be comforting for the recipient.
This quilt pattern falls into that category. It's called Scrappy Bricks, and I found it on the website of the Linus Connection based in Austin, Texas. Click
HERE for the PDF. They give several different sizes, all based on rectangles 4.5 in. x 8.5 in. and 4.5 in. squares. (They have links to lots of other good patterns, too.)
I made this one three rows longer than the teen size, and added 4 in. borders. The finished quilt is approximately 48 in. x 72 in. Long and narrow. I quilted it closely with 100% cotton batting, to make it flatter and easy to fold up in a back pack. Above you can see the backing.
Many of the fabrics have sports prints--baseball, hockey, soccer, etc. I chose the fabrics of the other bricks from the colors of the sports prints, so I have red, black, green, and blue.
I decided not to take any outdoor pictures of the quilt. Weather wise, it is an absolutely dismal day today, with driving rain and wind. But I believe in spring because
the robins are back! These two are sheltering against the wind in our wood pile.
I'm wishing sunshine and good weather for all (including the robins!) this week.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches
Link ups at
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop,
Busy Hands Quilts, and
Crazy Mom Quilts.
I love seeing what everyone else is making!
