This is the final week for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge, where we link up our finishes that will be donated to the H2H charities. I fell behind a bit on my goals this year, but did manage to finish a few by the deadline.
One of the charities chosen this year is the Little Lambs Foundation, which provides comfort kits to children in the foster care system, hospitals, or emergency shelters. I really like this group, and want to support their important work. I know that they often need receiving blankets for newborns, so I stitched up six.
My friend Stephanie gave me a big batch of really nice quality flannels and minky, and I used it all up in these. In the top photo, you can see that there were two "Tree of Life" flannel panels. I added flannel sides to bring them to about 40" square, and backed them with regular quilting cotton. I think this combo of flannel on one side and smooth on the other makes for a really great weight for a receiving blanket. I do a very small amount of quilting, mostly hidden along lines in the printed designs, to keep the layers from shifting in the wash.
The pastel piece on the far right is made of the minky. The pieces were smallish, so I trimmed them up as big as possible and made this simple patchwork. The backing is a cute railroad print of regular cotton. Minky is sooooo soft and cuddly, and sooooooo big a pain in the butt to work with. It's best if you can use a single, unpieced chunk as a backing. Otherwise the little fur bits get everywhere.
These next three are all made with panels I had in my stash, and backed with Stephanie's flannels.
The little owls are super cute, especially the upside down one! There's one in every family, isn't there? I'm happy they will find a home here in the US since some of my international charities prefer we not use owl motifs.
The ABC animals panel is the most classically "baby" themed, but I have to say: that is one GIANT frog.
The final panel is another "Tree of Life." Or maybe "9 Partridges in a Pear Tree." It has kind of a folk-art vibe.
This quilt, which I wrote about previously, is also for H2H, and will be donated to Quilts of Compassion. I also have three or four more pieces in progress and I'll tell you about them when they are done. Even though H2H has a deadline each year in June, I know that all these fine groups have an ongoing need for quilty comfort and comforting quilts. So anything in the pipeline will still find a way to go to work.
Many, many thanks to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for putting together this fun and useful challenge each year!
