Quilt for a Smile complete and sent

 Here is the finished quilt for Project Linus.  The outside white border ended up being really wavy thanks to some lovely bias edges so the purple border was added.  The wave isn't quite as noticeable now as it was before but I can still see it.  The purple does help to minimize the yellow solid which was a goal.

 Although I am not wonderful at machine binding, it sure does make the binding process manageable and quick.  I think this has been the best job so far.  It is quilted with loops all over.

The backing was picked up at Fat Quarter Shop during the Black Friday sale.  5.5 yards for half price and it maintains that nearly all of the fabric was from Art Gallery even if it meant buying some of the fabric myself.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate as it makes me feel like I might help someone in a similar position as my niece.  The quilt finished at 54x70".  Next time I will figure out something better to deal with the bias edges.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Sherbet Pips quilt top, another lunch bag, borders sewn on Quilt for a Smile (no picture yet and a bit wonky with bias edges), and maybe we should repaint that wall.

Quilt for a Smile top done

Quilt top assembled today although not completely pressed.  Now to decide whether to put a border of white around the outside.  It would make the quilting and binding easier since there are some very small pieces with those lovely 1/4 blocks in the corners.  So since I think I already decided to add a border to make future steps easier, thin or thick.....

And a friend and I sewed two Charm Square Baby Quilts from Oh Fransson's pattern using Little Apples and Sherbet Pips. I didn't take pictures before she took them to baste them.

And my mom and I are making an advent calendar for my sister.  She gets to applique the numbers.  I think I am doing the rest.

Boxed In for a smile

4 blocks completed, 20 some odd to go for my quilt for Quilt for a Smile.  I'm still using this pattern and may make it a bit bigger.  I'm using some of my own fabric since the yellow and blue were a bit overwhelming for me and I needed some negative space to rest my eyes.  I am quite happy to make it bigger and supplement with the Kona Snow.  I am mildly curious if anyone else is adding some solids for sashing, what they are using for binding, as well as what they are using for backing.  The strips are pieced and cut and now it is just a matter of assembling everything.  I'm not sure about a border around the outside or what color for binding.

A bag

Same co-worker that I will help make a quilt for her daughter liked my lunch bag.  Since her birthday was not too long ago, I asked her daughter what her favorite color was and made her a lunch bag using this tutorial.  I'm not sure she'll use it as a lunch bag, but that's ok.  And now more people from work want to learn to quilt.  Should be fun.

And here are the first two blocks that I was going to use for Pat Bravo's Quilt for a Smile.  After cutting and pasting the images in Word, I decided that the yellow was a bit too much so I think I will take off the outer border of color and add Kona Snow instead.  And I think I'll make some blocks with just Snow instead of a color border.  I'll do more organization tomorrow.

Quilts for a Smile

I happened across Pat Bravo's blog a few weeks ago and read that she was offering her scraps to people to make quilts for the Miami chapter of Project Linus.  She started a flickr group, Quilts for a Smile.  The scraps arrived today and I have since ironed and sort of organized them.  I think I will use Jaybird Quilts' Boxed In block from Quiltmaker to make a quilt similar to the one she has designed here.  Now to figure out how many 2.5" strips to cut and hopefully be able to strip piece a bunch of it.  

Other than that, I've quilted a quilt for my mom to give to my cousin.  Off to cut 2.5 inch strips......  And I'm still working on replying to comments from BQF and commenting on more entries.  Perhaps I can win Powerball and be able to quit working soon.