Charity Quilts - Getting Started

In this first post, I want to talk about things to think about before starting a charity quilt.  I know this is stuff you all know and do, but maybe there is someone out there new to quilting who will find this information helpful.

Quality
"Quick & Easy" Charity Quilts doesn't mean "Fast & Trashy."  The last thing someone who's life is falling apart needs is a blanket that falls apart too.  :)

Make sure you are using good quality material that won't fray or shred.  Designer fabric isn't a must, but make sure whatever fabric you use will stand up to lots of love and machine washing and drying.

Make sure the stitching is secure and none of the seams are pulling apart.  If you are making quilts with beginning sewers, you may want to consider using 1/2 inch seams instead of standard 1/4 inch seams.  A 1/4 inch seam that goes a bit crooked is more likely to pull apart than a 1/2 inch seam that is a bit off.

Size
Make sure the size of the quilt is appropriate for the person it is going to.  If the quilt is designed for a child a good rule of thumb is for the quilt to be approximately 6 inches longer than the child is tall.  That way the child is able to curl up completely under the blanket and there is some room for growth.  Boston Children's Hospital has some general height ranges for children here on their website.  Quilts for those 12 and over should be close to twin sized.

Fabric
Now we are coming to the fun part!  (Like the fabric or quilt?  Click on the source link to go to the store selling it!)

Source

Fleece - Fleece is a go to fabric for charity blankets.  It is a heavier weight polyester fabric that is soft, fuzzy, and doesn't fray.  It comes in a variety of colors and prints and is usually 60 inches wide.  While not strictly necessary, the edges are often cut and tied in a decorative fringe.

Source

Flannel -  It isn't just for plaid shirts anymore.  Lighter weight than fleece, but still nice and soft, flannel is a great choice for either a quilt top or backing.  However, it is more likely to stretch while piecing and may not be the best choice for beginning piecers.

Source

Minky - A polyester fabric with a high cuddle factor, minky is a great choice for a quilt backing.  It is dreamy soft!

Source

Cotton Fabrics - The traditional choice for quilts, cotton fabrics come in a wide variety of colors and prints.

Read the Fine Print - If you are donating a quilt to a specific organization be sure you know if they have any specific requirements.  I know of some places that don't accept quilts made from denim and who require a 1/2 inch seam allowance and others who specify that they want quilts made only from new quilting cotton.   Make sure you give what is needed and required.

Source

Gender Balance -  I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I have the feeling that a lot more "girly" blankets get made than blankets for boys.  If you are donating multiple quilts make sure there are some for boys and girls.  You might also like to contact the organization and see if they need more boy or girl appropriate quilts.

Now that we have the basics covered we are ready to get quilting!   See you soon with our first tutorial!

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Vacation and Mail

Last week I got back from a three week vacation visiting family in the Northwest!  We started with a surprise (for my mom and dad) family reunion in Gig Harbor, WA, drove to Boise, ID to visit with all of my husband's family and then back to Washington for a week with just us and the parents.  It was fun visiting with everyone and my kids loved getting to play and meet all of their cousins.

While I was on vacation I took a break from reading blogs and posting here.  It was kind of nice, but nice to be back too.  :)  The first thing I did when I got back was open the package from my Pillow Talk Swap partner!

 I love the pillow Leila (needleanddime) sent!  I love the curves, the points, the colors...everything!  Plus she hand pieced the middle!  I am soooo lucky!  Thank you!!!

I also got a package of fabric from the people at the Iowa State Fair for the Quilt Block competition.  I like these fabrics much better than last years, but working with only three colors might be challenging.  I wonder if they realize the fabric designer, Vanessa Christensen, lives in Iowa.  We are using fabrics from an Iowa fabric designer for the Iowa State Fair.  Kind of cool!  :)

Hope you are having a great summer too!

Who Likes Fabric?

I sure do!  After being rather frustrated with the complete lack of grays in my stash when making the 4x5 Modern Bee Blocks I decided I needed to use the $20 gift card I had for my local quilt shop to buy some grays and whatever else caught my eye.  ;)

Left to right:  Sweet Treats by Diane Zimmerman, Sunkissed by Sweetwater,
Lost and Found by Jan Allyson, ? and Echo by Lotta Jansdotter

Grays are definitely in style.  I found no lack of them in the shop and choose a light, medium and dark gray that I thought would be good blenders and a few yellow/mustard prints that I will use in the HST Quilt.  I have to admit that I do like the gray/mustard combo.  

Speaking of mustard, there was a small spot of mustard on the Sunkissed fabric and so I ended up getting it half off.  Sweet!  But really, who goes around eating a sandwich in a fabric store and wiping mustard off their fingers onto the fabric?  Weird.

Found at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics

I kept my eyes open for some of the new American Jane line, School Days, but the shop didn't have any.  The Fat Quarter Shop doesn't have it in stock either.  ?!?!  They usually have everything.  I did find some of the prints at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics - these are my favorite prints of the line.  I really should get some...right?

Available May 2012

While I was skimming the Coming Soon section at the Fat Quarter Shop to see if they were getting in School Days, I found this fabric that I just adore!  I rarely like every print in a line, but Seaside is right up my alley.  I love every-single-print.  Such a lovely retro/vintage line.

Available August 2012

I also ogled Denyse Schmidt's new line Chicopee which comes out in August.  I love the lighter prints. 

Available May 2012

And if you wanted some more fabric to coordinate with Chicopee, I think this line by Jenean Morrison would be perfect!

Available June 2012

If I get my act together and finish up some UFOs, maybe I will start a mustard and gray project with some of the beautiful prints in Madrona Road line.  Love the florals.

Have you seen any fabrics that have tickled your fancy recently?
Anything else I should add to my shopping list?  :)

Fabric Prep and Some Light Reading

A few people asked if there was anything they needed to do to get their fabric ready for the quilt along.   The million dollar question...

To wash, or not to wash, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The possible shrinkage of outrageous fabric,
Or to take arms against a sea of bleeding dyes,
And by washing end them? 

I crack myself up.  :)  But really do you need to wash your fabric?

Some say yes because of shrinkage (1-2%), to remove chemicals and to protect against bleeding

Some say no because, if none of your fabrics are washed they will shrink evenly, the chemicals can help protect fabrics left on the shelf for long periods of time and make the fabric easier to work with and good quality fabrics rarely if ever bleed, so why bother washing?

I personally land on the "no washing" side.  I have never experienced bleeding or shrinking so I really don't worry about it.  I like to jump into a project and washing and the subsequent ironing (I hate to iron) just slow me down.   However, I would be sure to wash hand dyed fabrics and red fabric from a non-designer fabric source.  At the bottom of this post are links to some basic quilting posts and some of them deal with the washing debate if you want more information.

I would make sure your fabric is relatively wrinkle free.  There will always be some creases from being folded, but you might want to take some time to iron your fabric if it has been sitting in a ball in the bottom of your scrap bin.  :)

Also, take a look at your sewing machine.  Lift up the metal plate under the needle and clean out all that lint.  Give your machine a good oil and if you haven't changed your needle in a while put on a fresh one.  It is amazing how much better your machine will run if it is lint free, has been oiled and has a new needle.

The first block of the sampler will be posted Friday morning (eeee!) and I will go over how to make the blocks baby step by baby step.  If you want to do some background reading, here is a list of great posts on basic quilt making skills.

Quilt Class 101 - Fabric
Quilt Class 101 - Cutting
Quilt Class 101 - Guest Post, To Wash or Not to Wash?
Stitched in Color - Fabric Care (pro washing)
Stitched in Color - Rotary Cutting
Skill Builder Series - Fabric (grain, washing vs no wash and ironing vs pressing)
Skill Builder Series - 1/4 Inch Seams (how to cut and sew accurately)
Skill Builder Series - Seam Ripping (I'm sure we won't need this, but just in case...)
Do You Have a Happy Machine? (basic sewing machine care)

You might notice that different quilters have different ideas of how to care for fabric, cut and sew.  That is to be expected and is ok.  At the end of the day if your quilt is warm and isn't falling apart at the seams you have done a good job.  :)

I'll see you on Friday with our first block!!

Fabric Recommendations for the We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler

I have had quite a few questions about how much fabric will be required for this sampler.  In general, I find that it takes a bit less than a fat quarter's worth of fabric to make a 12 inch block.  36 blocks times 1/4 yard gives us 8-9 yards of fabric for the blocks.

If you are not sure if you will make every block, I would buy less yardage upfront and purchase more as the year progresses.  Make sure the fabrics you buy are ones that will be available later if you want your quilt to be highly coordinated.

............

Edited (5/15):  The Skill Builder Sampler will is available for purchase in book form!  It has been renamed "You Can Quilt!  Building Skills for Beginners" but covers the same skills with the easy, medium and challenging blocks and is a million times better than the original quilt along.  It is perfect for the beginning quilter or the experienced quilter who wants to branch out and learn new skills.  Find more information and order a signed copy in my Etsy shop or order on Amazon.  Because of the release of the book some posts have been removed.

............

What to Buy:

Sampler quilts come in all shapes and sizes and color choice plays a HUGE role in how the finished quilt will look.

You could choose to have your quilt be monochromatic like this, this or this one.  Notice how they still have light, medium and dark tones of the single color of fabric.  Including different tones of fabric will make the block patterns visible and interesting.

Your quilt could be made up of just a few prints like this or out of many different fabrics like this one.  Both ways result in beautiful quilts - the choice is yours.  I personally like to have a lot of different fabrics in my quilts - kind of a coordinated scrappy look.

When planning your fabric choices think about what you would like to use as a "background" fabric.   I will be using white, because I am boring and like white, but background fabric can really be any color.   In general, it is easiest to choose additional print colors and really make your blocks pop when you have a lighter background color.  (This is not a hard and fast rule:  note the popularity and effectiveness of dark gray as a background color.)  Your background does not have to be solid.  It could have a small tone on tone print or polka dots even.  

Here are some examples of different background choices:

These quilters chose to have a white background fabric.  Here, here and here.
These quilters chose dark background fabric.  Here and here.
This quilter chose yellow.
You might choose to do a mix of backgrounds like these quilters.
You might choose not to have any particular background color.  These quilts are excellent examples of that.

If you choose to have a set background color I would buy 3-4 yards of it and the additional 5 yards of fabric in a variety of colors.  If you want a coordinated scrappy look, fat quarters (a piece of fabric measuring 18x22 instead of 9x44) are a good choice for this project.  Be sure to choose light, medium and dark tones.

How can you tell if something is dark, medium or light?  You can either photocopy swatches of the fabric so you can see them in black and white or take a picture of your fabric.  In the photo editing tools, you can view the picture of your fabric in black and white.  Let me show you the fabric I will be using.

I have chosen a range of rainbow colored fabrics and a white background.  (Yeah, that bottom corner is suppose to be bright white, I don't know what happened.)

Here is my picture in black and white.  Notice the reds all read as the same dark color.  If I was doing a monochromatic red quilt I would need to find some different tones of red to add to the mix.  Notice how the orange and greens have the same value.  There are quite a few light and medium tones in the middle, but the darker toned reds, blues and purples balance them out.  Overall, I would say I have a pretty good mix of tones.

I went fabric shopping last week to add some purples to the mix.

When picking them out I tried to make sure they had the same feel as the other fabrics and also that I had a light, medium and dark.  Let's see how I did.

There is a good contrast of value between these prints and I could make an all purple block if I wanted and would still be able to see the block pattern.  If I tried that with my reds, the different sections of the block would merge together and look "muddy".

Another thing to keep in mind is scale.  If a print is very large and multicolored it can make seeing the overall design of the block hard.  There will be places in this sampler where large prints would look great, but please don't purchase all large prints.

Here are some additional great posts on fabric and color from The Skill Builder Series and Quilting 101:

Basic Info on Fabric and Precuts
Color and Value
Buying for a project
The use of neutrals

I highly recommend reading them when you have a chance.

I would love to see what fabric you choose to use for this project.  I have started a group on flickr for the Sampler.   For those of you not familiar with flickr, it is a photo sharing site.  You can join for free and upload pictures from your computer into your photostream.  You can then share those photos with different groups.
Here is the address of our group:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/wecandoitskillbuildersampler/

I have also added a gadget above the We Can Do It! button.  If you are not a total blog addict like me and want to make sure you don't miss any Skill Builder posts, you can enter your email address and all of my blog posts (not just the Sampler ones) will go to your inbox.

I will be posting tutorials for the blocks Friday mornings starting June 17th.  Between now and then I will write a few more posts on additional supplies you might need and basic cutting and quilting skills to know.

Thanks for joining in!  I can't wait to get started.

Denyse Meets JoAnn

So, I just happened to stop by JoAnn's Fabric in Des Moines.  The same one I had just happened to call the day before to see if they were carrying Denyse Schmidt's new line of fabric, and these beauties came home with me. (Tip: ask for DS Quilts - they don't know who Denyse Schmidt is).

I managed to limit myself to 4 favorite 1/2 yard cuts.   I love red and blues!  While the friendly lady was cutting we talked about the fabric.  I said I was glad they carried this line and hoped they would have it for awhile (i.e. until their premium quilting fabrics go on sale for 30% off).  She said, "Well, it's all about supply and demand.  If it sells I am sure we will keep it in stock."  I almost laughed out loud.  "It will sell," I said.  "Some of Denyse Schmidt's out of print fabrics are selling for double or triple their initial price and people online are offering to go and buy this fabric for others who don't live by a JoAnn's."  She looked taken aback and a bit unsure if what I was saying was true.  Oh yes, it is true.  And I would be more than willing to pick some up for anyone who needs some.

Now I just have to find someone in Australia who wants to trade some US color ways for the mustard floral.  :)