Fun Charity Quilt Ideas

Before we get to the “topic of the week”, I’d like to share some information about the Art Walk in Watertown, WI happening this coming Tuesday night. Artists will have work on display in businesses all up and down Main Street on May 28th, from 4 – 6! I have a grouping of my quilts hanging in the front windows of Hafemeister’s Funeral Home. You know you’ve made it when you have your work hanging in a funeral home ~ LOL!!! Mike and I did the hanging of the quilts on Tuesday.

and they’ll be there from now until after the art walk.

Mike got some interesting photos during our hanging session ~ with reflections from Main Street. Note my elbow in the upper right on this one. He was actually trying to photograph me hanging the quilt inside the window, and instead the quilt was captured under a reflection of the mural on the side of the florist shop across the street.

In this one I can’t quite determine where I stop and the buildings begin!

Here’s the map and information for anyone interested:

Praying for good weather 😊!

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And now for the charity quilt post you’ve been waiting for (along with a tutorial on a great way to make the backing fabric fit for a quilt that’s just a bit too big):

At our most recent Fiberistas meeting both Ruth and Barb shared their passion for charity quilts, and Lori had a quilt to give away too. Some of their quilts and ideas were thought provoking, and I felt they were worth sharing. Ruth is making quilts for cancer patients going through chemo. She chose fun patterns to use up some of her large stash of older fabric.

Some of the fabrics in this quilt came from family garments!

Each quilt needed to have at least one heart on it. Isn’t it clever how she added them here in the side borders ?

This is the ministry and link she’s donating her quilts to:

https://www.comforterministry.com. These quilts should be about 50″ x 70″.

Ruth also found this information in a Facebook discussion on the best sizes for lap quilts etc for nursing homes/skilled nursing facilities:

Then Lori shared a fun baby quilt that she’d made for her new great niece.

She explained that the quilt was 50″ wide, so she needed to piece the back. Her technique was new to me and I was intrigued. She said that when you have a long enough piece of 44″ wide fabric for the back you can piece it diagonally.

And here’s how. My sample is just a small piece of scrap fabric from my chunk jar, but you’ll get the idea for doing this with yardage.

First cut the fabric diagonally:

Then slide the two pieces until they are the right width:

Sew this diagonal seam:

and cut off the excess:

Very clever. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this done before. Thanks Lori!

Next up for show and tell was Barb. Her group from church loves to make baby quilts and they came up with a delightful way to package them ~ cake boxes!

Here are the ones they have already made ~ waiting for little ones to be wrapped up in them.

Barb also had a quilt hanging that she recently finished. It was from a workshop I taught many years ago.

I love the details she added with her embroidery machine!

So many wonderful quilts and such great sharing from a talented and generous group that only had 4 members present. I love these ladies!

And one more thing:

I received a lot of positive feedback about the directions for the walker bags last week. Please note that if you decide you want to make a walker bag in the future, simply type “walker bag” in the search box on this blog ~ and that post will appear! You may do that with any previous tutorials I’ve shared 😁!