Six for them, one for me

Here's number six for Project Linus. It's quilted in the ditch around the bow ties and the design extends into the border. This is not a big one, just 36" x 42", little baby size, because that's all the block pattern fabric that I had. I wanted to use it up, and this was a quick pattern.

Now, one for me. I was rooting through my stash when I came across some fabric from Thimbleberries, probably from 4 or so years ago. It's printed like small applique squares, 7" and 3.5" finished size. I have 8 large squares and 20 small ones. It was leftover from a baby quilt I made for a co-worker. The complete line had yardage of the print designs used in the blocks, so you could add sashing or a pieced design around them and reinforce the appliqued look. It's in the lovely murky colors that I prefer.

So, I got inspired. I dug out all the matching fabric that I still had, and made up a plan. There will be 35 blocks, 5 x 7, randomly selected, either the large printed block, a solid calico block, or a small printed block with sashing to bring it to 7" square. There will be a 3.5" border, pieced from all the calico scraps with the 3.5" print squares in the corners. The backing is a neutral print from Thimbleberries (because that's the only one I had enough of) and the binding is green print. And that uses up every scrap of the matching fabric! I think it will be darling and be very "me".

Back to Project Linus: I have decided to donate 24 quilts to them this year. I've already finished six, and that leaves 18 over 10 1/2 months, which I think is a do-able. I can get in a sewing fit and turn out 3 or 4 and then take a break, holidays or such. They're all machine quilted and machine bound, and I'm not choosing such hard patterns, so I think it's possible.

This chapter of Project Linus is rather small, and I'm not sure how many quilts she's taking in. The neighboring district is huge and handles 2000+ quilts a year, but I don't think ours did more than 250 last year. So we all need to step up. Part of the problem is that the coordinator just took over the program in the last 18 months and hasn't had the support to build much group focus. I don't think she has meetings now. If all the blanketeers got together occasionally for work or socializing, we could maybe get some momentum going. This is NOT a criticism of the coordinator. She took it over when the last one had to stop, I believe for health reasons, and I respect all the work she does. We contributors need to pitch in more. I think I may suggest a picnic/potluck this summer when it's warmer to start building some comraderie. I hope she would consider hosting it. Her house is close to a nice park, which we could use.

Oh, dear, I'm turning into a "group" person.