The company I work for has an amazing benefit – every few years we get an extended amount of time to focus on balancing our work and our life, while doing some professional development or volunteering.
This is my third sabbatical – after 19 years. I chose volunteering as my activity and got to make 9 Project Linus quilts. It was wonderful. As overly documented in this blog, I try to make 12 quilts for Project Linus every year, and so I got to pack this activity into my break.
The theme of these quilts is COLOR and scrappiness. I used lots and lots and lots of orphan blocks and scraps. And yet my scrap pile doesn’t look any smaller. Would you like to see the quilts? Off we go….
See? Scrappy? Yes! Um, bright? Yes. My grandmother (the other one) was fond of saying that things she made were cheep and cheerful. She didn’t mean anything negative (I don’t think) – just that particular Midwestern, pioneer spirit of making the best out of what you have. Like when they printed floral patterns on grain bags so farmwives could make dresses out of them.
Oh, but I love these two. Pink and flowers are my favorite.
Another crazy one. And two rather more composed. It makes me so happy to convert fabric to quilt. Especially when I have so.much.fabric.
And two stunners made almost completely out of orphaned blocks. The solid fabrics add a punch to the scrappiness.
Making 9 quilts all in a row is fun, but taxing. I had to put other crafts and pursuits in my studio on hold for the onslaught of press, cut, sew, press, baste, quilt, bind. Here is a pic of the studio on a rather active day.
Really looks like I need a system!
I did get into a rhythm of cutting and piecing. I am thinking of writing a post for how to make a scrappy, constrained improv baby quilt for beginners. Feels like too much to take on right now… but someday.
What a fantastic action shot! Almost like a real quilt blogger.
Ultimately, the best part of making a bunch of quilts is being able to photograph them in a neat stack. So I leave you with that.
weeknight quilting 