Stack, Strip or QAYG your way to quick charity quilts
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Recently I was asked to demo at our local guilds sew day, how to make some quilts quickly for charity.
I have been making kids quilts mostly over the years at a reasonable pace, a few here and a few there. Then I got evolved in my church sewing group several years ago. That group makes bed rolls for homeless clients by using all kinds of textiles like drapery, discarded bedding sheets and blankets, canvas, fleece etc. But we also had boxes and boxes of donated cotton fabrics. Old fashioned calicos from the 80's and some kids prints. In order to work in our area freely something at to be done to empty some of the boxes.
I started by cutting squares and sewing the cottons with denim squares (we also have still, boxes and boxes of donated denim jeans). Simply sewn and then layered with flannel and backed and tied. I am a quilter though and so I have made many quilts in various patterns so that I could quilt them too.
One of my go to quick quilt layouts is this Streak of sunshine. This I learned from another charity group I am in Quilts for Kids. They are a national organization that makes comfort quilts for sick children in hospitals but other needs too.
Here is the one I made for the sew day.
Bonnie Hunter has a step by step guide to this below:
Locally, we also have a group in need of larger quilts for Sleep in Heavenly Peace. They would like their quilts to be 50-60" wide by 75-85" long.
I figured out a way to make 4 of the above baby quilts into one quilt. I skip the borders and just play with the way I sew my strips.
This doesn't make a perfect Trip Around the World quilt but it is close and I would say you could play with it to do more of what you want. Most importantly it is super fast and fun.
Here is the one I made:
It finishes at approx. 63" x 73"
What I love about this is that for one quarter you need 8 - 4.5" wof strips so for this you need 32. It is a good way to use up a variety of fabrics. I am trying one now with just 4 fabrics so stay tuned to see how that turns out.
Next up for sew day was the no piecing block in a block. Use up those precuts! I had this layer cake for over 10 years I think. Time to get it used and out to someone who can snuggle with it.
Angela Walters has quoted " it is better to be finished than perfect". So get your stash out and use it or you could also donate it to someone you know will get it made up and doing some good in the community.
This is made with a layer cake or 10" square and a 5" square. They are seriously magic as you don't piece it you just fold, stack, and sew.
I am putting a link to a video I found that is a little long but it shows the just of how you make this. Note they did not use sashing but I found it much easier to not worry about the underneath seams and the bulk of sewing them together. Plus for me I used up a bunch of scrap pieces in the sashing making it seem a bit more modern.
Then finally after sewing all these you will have some scraps so why not QAYG them up into a quick quilt.
This method is sewing and flipping the fabric strips right to the batting. Whatever size block you choose to make is the block size it will be because I sashed each block together front and back, allowing the batting to butt up against each other.
My batting and backing were cut to approx. 10.5" x 12". I love how the back turned out with all the different fabrics in random places.
I started with a table pile of scraps.
I have a small baggie leftover after making 36 of the above sized blocks. I need to do this more often!!
I used the sashing method of 1" strip on the back and a 2" strip ironed in half on the front so I could top stitch it.
This link is the closest I could find that explains what I did.
I hope you have found some of these ideas helpful when working on your stash or just something quick and easy ....and fun, to make up super fast and give away.
Let me know if you use any of these ideas.
Happy sewing!
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