Sew Some Love Houses

Today I have two brand new things to share: this quilt, and a new link up from Kat & Cat Quilts. The link up is called "Sew Some Love" and is for sharing any project we are sewing for charity. I'm excited to be part of the first link party and to see what other crafty folks are creating to give away.

Over the holidays, my niece Lauren asked me if I would donate a quilt to a fund raiser that her sorority is having in March 2017. All the proceeds will benefit CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children), which provides legal advocacy for abused children near Walla Walla, WA. 

I've been eyeing the Hillside Houses pattern on Pretty Little Quilts and thought it would make a nice donation to a charity called CASA. Using only fabric that I already had in my stash, I pieced this quilt in blues, greens, and browns, with two bright red houses. All the roofs are solid gray, and the colors get lighter toward the top of the hill, as if the sun is rising on a bright, new day.

After Kat announced the new link up, I decided to name this quilt Sew Some Love Houses. Here are a few photos of it draped around our house, which is currently a boat in the swamps of Louisiana.

For the backing, I used a piece of basketball fabric that was *almost* but *not quite* big enough. Not enough basketballs? Fatten it up with butterflies, I always say. The basketball fabric is a really nice quality Robert Kaufman print that has been languishing in my stash for quite a while. Lauren's college is buried under snow right now, and I figured anyplace that wintry is probably full of basketball fans.

Here are a few of my favorite houses/blocks. Red bricks with curvy shingled roof.

Wood grain fabric and wood grain quilting.

Fun sky fabric. Partly cloudy with a chance of basketballs.

Faux Greek key roof pattern.

I made flanged binding out of a medium gray with a red inner stripe. I thought it kind of tied back to the two red houses in the middle. It's also a fancy-looking but very forgiving, all-machine-sewn binding technique.

This quilt wasn't my favorite thing to make, I must admit. I liked each combination of dark and light shade for individual houses, but wasn't thrilled with the overall look. It is so much bigger than most of my quilts (60"x75") that I couldn't step far enough back to see the overall effect, and I've been working on it a lot at night when the lighting was lousy. But things started to turn around when I decided to use the basketballs on the back and then started the quilting. It was slow going, but the addition of all that texture made me happy! And when Kat announced her link up, it reminded me that charity quilting is all about sharing the love.

I'll wash Sew Some Love Houses next week when we have access to more fresh water. The crinkling should be epic on this one after a spin through the washer and dryer. Then it will wing its way to Walla Walla, where hopefully someone will buy it in support of CASA's good works.

I'm also linking up to Free Motion Mavericks this week, since this was my biggest FMQ project to date, and with Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? because I'm happy it's finished!