As long time readers know, I make a lot of baby quilts. Lots and lots. Since 2014, I have a yearly goal of how many charity quilts I want to make. I love making baby charity quilts. There is no prescribed palette or style – I can use all the colors and prints I want and eventually the quilt will provide comfort to a child who is sick. Not much better equation for sewing happiness.
I also have the pleasure of working with a lot of young men and women who become parents and need baby quilts. Last year I made 6 baby quilts – and only one of them was a charity quilt. And I didn’t even mean to make it as a charity quilt. I made Fancy Forest by Elizabeth Hartmann. 
A gorgeous pattern – but at the end of making it and basting it, I was tired of the project and didn’t pay close enough attention. Heavy quilting to the rescue!! It ended up being a just fine adorable baby quilt, but too punctuated by error to be the fall festive wall hanging I was going for.
I want to do 12 charity baby quilts a year. I haven’t come close the last two years. Couple that with the baskets and boxes and stacks of orphan blocks and scraps, I set an aggressive goal this year – 26 project charity baby quilts.
I have (had) a backlog of 5 tops ready to go. So far I have been able to get 2 done and one almost done.
This quilt was originally made for a friend’s baby and then I decided it wasn’t quite right with her colors and style. It sat for a year+ just waiting for the binding.
The next one I finished, I couldn’t face doing binding. I hate binding. So I finished without binding and then did free-motion quilting on it until my eyes swam. I know this breaks all the rules of quilt finishing, but I like it. Cheerful and soft – that is about all you can ask of a baby quilt.
I have more tops in the hopper. I have had this finished giant block for 2+ years and am almost done with it. I quilted with just the batting, and now am tying it onto the back with embroidery floss. I have now remembered that takes more time than binding!! Binding isn’t looking so bad now.
and I also have been setting (and mostly meeting) scrap usage goals. This quilt top is done entirely from a scrap basket, that still is overflowing. I love the cheeriness of the blue and yellow. Total pure fun.
I also played with interspersing some yellow in the blue blocks and some blue in the yellow blocks, which adds some interest.
weeknight quilting 