quarterly donation project :: 2010 Q1

 I finished the last blankets for Project Night Night for a total of four as part of my quarterly donation project.  Each bag contains a handmade blanket, a book, and a stuffed animal.  These bags will be donated through our church to a local homeless shelter.

As time consuming as it was, I learned a lot from making four blankets in such a short period of time.

1. Fleece works well as a backing for a cotton front but only if it's quilted.  The fleece and cotton don't form a sturdy blanket without some quilting.
2. Closing edges of the blanket before quilting does not work. I did this to save time with the puppy blanket below, but the layers shifted while quilting.  Binding edges after quilting is a better way to go.
3. Tighter quilting, although more time consuming, produces much better results.
4. Free motion quilting is really a lot of fun and surprisingly relaxing.

I love this dog fabric.  It has all my favorite shades of blue and brown.  I don't think I did the print justice.  The blanket is backed with light blue fleece and I simply stitched the edges together to make a quick blanket.  But the perfectionist in me could just stop there.  Even with all the dogs, I felt it needed more.  So I tried free motion circles like with the Elephant Parade quilt, but the result is unpleasant.  I tried bigger circles, and they just didn't work. 

The front looks okay, but the back fleece is a mess.  I gave up halfway through, but my husband convinced me that the quilting was unique (yep, you definitely won't see quilting like this anywhere else).  So I plowed through and am praying that the recipient likes the front so much that he doesn't care about the back.  I should have stuck with stippling.

My sister, Laura, was kind enough to donate the animals and books for this project.  Thank you, Laura, for your generosity.  I know that the kids will love what you picked out. 

 

 

Other quilts donated for this project {Elephant Parade & Candy Swirls}.