My Beach Blankets have arrived!

My in-laws arrived with bells on to visit for the holidays and I was thrilled when my mother-in-law Helen pulled out the 2 beach blankets I pieced together this past summer. I had given them to her, since they were scrappy beach quilts, so she could practice quilting on her new longarm machine and she did a fabulous job! Here's a look back at how and why I made them.

If you have a long arm machine you are just learning to use, these scrappy beach blankets are a great way to get your feet wet! Another great way to practice long arm free motion is to piece together some scraps you love to make a charity quilt. It's great for the community and gives you a wonderful sense of accomplishment and self-fulfilment while you hone your skills.

Miniature Binding

It's charity time with the holidays coming! I always have so much fun playing with scraps and busting my stash to create some quick little treasures. Here's an adorable holiday placemat.

It's as simple as choosing a feature fabric that speaks for itself and then adding a border fabric and practising a new machine quilting technique. Here's a quick sketch of my quilting pattern. I started on one side and stitched short, medium and long stripes and then matched up with opposite stripes on the other side. You just have to be sure you are sewing straight and use the same number of stitches for the short ends of the stripes. (I used 6 stitches every time to make it even.)

My local quilting guild makes holiday placemats for Meals on Wheels every year in November. This year we need over 30 for our local community. For this one I had just enough red for the backing and border and could find NOTHING in my scraps at home to match for a binding. All of my yardage fabrics were at the gallery studio downtown, so I decided to make an extremely mini quarter inch double fold binding by pulling around the backing fabric.

It's the wobbliest little binding I've ever done - I mostly bind by hand which, of course, is always perfect. (wink) But, it worked out quite well and if you look closely it's half the size of the usual hand stitched binding so it's as cute as a button. It looks like a machine sewn miniature binding. 

Last year I was in my Thursday evening writing group and a friend that I'd known for a few weeks heard me say for the first time that I'm a quilter. He jumped on the chance to ask me to give the quilting guild a message. He said the best part of his Christmas holiday is receiving his new placemat every year. And he really appreciates our generosity. I am so grateful, just so, so grateful for my wonderful family and friends.

Good Border Girl

If you know how much I dislike pinning you'd know that I'm being a very good border girl measuring and pinning a nice wide strip onto my charity froggy quilt for Prince George. A generous quilter named Barb there offered to quilt and bind it. Thank you darling! It will be in the mail today.

Charity Quilt (Prince George)

I have been requesting and receiving least favourite fat quarters (and more) from students in my classes for a few months now and I have quite a stash built up of little gems. But I don't think students are getting the part about least favourite. I have been receiving fabrics that are not only beautiful, but also colour coordinated with the other fabrics donations from the class. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the ladies are getting together to hand in fabrics I can use together! But regardless of what comes in, I'm having fun and it is a challenge to use it all up so it doesn't take over my studio.

So for the Prince George charity quilt I'll have some fun piecing together either a spring time froggy quilt or a fabulous fall quilt, whichever one comes together faster. And the left over fabrics will be made into pet quilts for Critter Aid in Summerland as usual. Thank you ladies! Your package will arrive soon!

Charity Quilt (OK Falls) - Halloween Quilt Top

Here are some snapshots of a little pieced quilt top I created from the charity fabrics. It is such a cute Halloween print and it goes very well with the black and white scratchy star print.

Halloween Fabric

When quilting for charity, I try to maximize the bits of fabric that I receive. These 2 fabrics were larger than a fat quarter and when measured, they cut perfectly into 5" squares with very little waste. Piecing them in a checker board pattern creates a balanced children's quilt that features the main print fabric and is very easy to quilt with an all over design.

Toddler Charity Quilt

I have decided to only use fabrics that are donated so as my donation stash builds I'll be keeping an eye out for something that goes with this! Right now this quilt measures 30" x 30" so I'll be adding a few more borders to make it big enough for a toddler. The bulk of the fabrics were from a class taught in Okanagan Falls, BC, so that is where the charity quilt will be donated. 

If you are interested in donating your least favourite fabric (fat quarter or less) from your stash to my Charity Challenge, feel free to contact me through the Brandy Lynn Designs website. I donate the charity quilts to the communities that invite me to teach or speak because the students donate the fabric. The communities to receive the next few quilts will be Okangan Falls, BC, Prince George, BC, and Oliver BC. 

Charity Challenge progress

I've been playing! My charity challenge fabrics are looking much more quilt-able in pieces. I've sorted and cut most of them them into the largest pieces possible to use up every square inch.

I am estimating that I will get 3 or 4 quilt tops from the fabrics donated by this one class. Way to go ladies! 

Charity Challenge

Last year I moved across Canada leaving my wonderful quilt guild and my post as ABC Quilts Coordinator where we distributed up to 600 quilts per year. Although I have become involved in several wonderful guilds in my new local area, I have found a bit of a void in my life. I miss the charity quilt program. There are a few such programs in my area run by wonderful women so I have decided to take on a self-imposed challenge. For every class I teach, I will invite the students to donate a fat quarter 18" x 20" or less of their least favorite fabric in their stash. Something they've grown to hate or fallen out of love with...something they are sick and tired of having around. Then I will take these fabrics and make every effort to use them in a beautiful way to make charity quilts.

So here are the fabrics from my first class of donations. I was pleasantly surprised that some were so lovely! So watch for upcoming posts on the results! And if you want to donate your least favorite fabric to my charity challenge just drop me an email through my website at www.brandylynndesigns.com