donation project for kids

For the last couple of hours I've been working on cutting up socks to make sock monkeys for a donation projects.  A friend is collecting sock monkeys for kids where she does mission work in Tel Aviv, Israel.

I'm using this tutorial to make the monkeys.  (There is also a tutorial for making an adorable sock cow!)  I've cut and sewn all the pieces to make 5 monkeys.  Later during the Sunday night shows, I will stuff all the pieces and sew the monkey parts together.  If I play my cards right, the hub just might help me stuff.

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}. 

 

 

candy swirls quilt :: complete

Donation quilt number two is finished!  I call this one Candy Swirls because the brightly colored circles and such remind me of candy.  And I couldn't be happier with Miss Candy!  Well, that's not exactly true.  I wish I would have left some of the printed fabric as much larger pieces (I really love that design), but I was going for scrappy-pieced columns.  I think I ended up with more of a grid pattern since the width of the swirl pieces didn't vary enough, but live and learn.

I will admit that I almost tore the top apart after I pieced it together.  I scrutinized it for a while thinking about how much I really didn't like it.  I wanted to go with white sashing for a crisp, clean look but you have to know your audience.  Kids can be kinda dirty.  Green was probably a better choice.  But as much as I didn't like it, I thought it might look different once quilted.

And man, am I glad I waited!  Since I knew I would never see this quilt again, I decided to try free motion stippling.  I've never done it before, and I thought that if it didn't turn out well, I could give the quilt away and never have to look at the nightmare again.  But I cannot believe how much I love it!  I think this has turned into my favorite quilt so far.  The stippling brings it all together and makes the quilt look like one large piece instead of a bunch of smaller (ill-placed) pieces.  And I echo my husband's sentiments when I told him how much I loved the way this one turned out: it's too bad I can't keep it.  But I'm sure it will go to a great home.

I simply went with light yellow fleece as the backing for this one.  I was trying to save time and money by avoiding the batting and backing.  Plus, these quilts are for children and are required to be crib size or smaller.  To me, that's a drag-around size, so I don't want them to be too heavy.  The fleece is soft and adds just the right amount of thinkness.

Looks like a jigsaw puzzle . . .

I will absolutely stipple again but it took me just over 4 hours to quilt this little one.  I think my stippling is tighter than others I have seen but it works with this quilt because the quilt is so small.  I should probably try to spread out the curves a little more to make it easier on myself.  As with the Elephant Parade quilt, I think the tighter curves and loops were just more comfortable for a beginner with limited space around her machine.

And look who managed to sneak into yet another photo . . .

The Candy Swirls quilt measures 38.5 x 32.5 inches and will be donated to Project Night Night along with the Elephant Parade quilt.

elephant parade quilt :: complete

Here is the completed Elephant Parade Quilt.  I decided to call it a quilt because I spent a lot of time quilting it.  I originally thought that I would quilt in large circles to take up a lot of space but that is much easier said.  Since this was my first free motion quilting experience, I found it more natural to quilt in small to tiny circles.

I loved the free motion! It took a few circles to get the hang of it, and the shape of the larger circles was more difficult to control.  I'm sure it would have turned out more uniform if I wouldn't have had to stop to sleep on three separate nights.  But I think the best part about this circular, or pebble, design is that it doesn't have to be perfect.  I traced each circle twice and I actually think it looks better when the circles don't match up.  It gives the quilt a more improvised look. 

I ended up using four different thread colors on this quilt: light pink, medium purple, light purple, and apple green.  I didn't mean for that to happen, but I kept running out of thread.  I once ran to the store for more purple and picked up the wrong shade (I'm really not surprised).  I was too tired to return it, so I just went with it.

This is what the back looks like.  Because of the design, I can't really tell that the thread is four different colors.

In anticipation of binding the quilt using the backing fabric, I left about an inch of extra backing fabric around the edges (I did have to trim a little before binding).  I then turned under the raw edges until I met the top fabric (about half an inch) and pulled that edge onto the top and machine stitched the binding to the quilt.  None of my layers shifted much so this was a fast and effective way to bind.  The only thing I would recommend when using this binding method is to use a continuous quilting method.  I started and stopped for each new row and you can see these points on the back.

Even though I didn't piece any part of this quilt top, I still really like it.  The top fabric design has quite a bit to look at and the quilting adds extra detail and brings attention to the design elements.  So I think this makes a great quilt even though I feel like I cheated by using complete pieces for the front and back.

The completed quilt measures 35 x 39.5 inches after washing.

This quilt will be donated as part of Project Night Night to a local homeless shelter.  This is part of my 2010 First Quarter Donation Project.

donation project idea

I am always looking for different ways to volunteer.  In my experience, volunteering is always rewarding but even more so when you are doing something you love.

So when I received a flyer in the mail from my church asking for donations of stuffed animals, books, and blankets (they can be handmade!), I was totally in.  I have been looking for a way to make volunteer work a regular part of our lives, something more than just the occasional bake sale or random monetary donation. 

I participate in two walks for different causes each year, but other than those we really don't have a cause that speaks to us more than any other.  So in order to explore different causes that can use the kind of help that we can offer, we are implementing a

"Donation Project of the Quarter."

Choosing a cause each quarter will ensure that we keep others' needs in mind throughout the year.
In order to make this idea official, I created this board to display our chosen donation project and hung it in my craft area.

This quarter's project is Project Night Night.  I will pick up two bags from my church and fill each with a stuffed animal, a book, and a (handmade) blanket.  The bags will be donated to children at a local homeless shelter to offer comfort during their difficult time.  For this project I recruited my sister, Laura, to help fill the bags.  While I'm busy constructing the blankets, she will choose the books (one of her favorite pastimes) and the stuffed animals.

We have until the end of March to hand over our donations so please stay tuned for the results.  I am very excited about this donation project because I get to do something I truely enjoy that will help comfort two small children.