An Old UFO with a New Purpose

A couple weeks ago my sister-in-law Jackie came to me with a request for a quilt to give as a gift.

Jackie, her husband, and a group from their church go to a remote village in Alaska for missionary work every summer. They've been doing this for about 20 years, same village. They basically take Vacation Bible School to the village.

After 20 years, Jackie has become very close to some of the people from the village, including a young woman she's watched grow up, go to college in the Lower 48, and visit here in St. Louis. The young woman is now about to be married. Jackie is attending the wedding, in another village above the Arctic Circle, in July, where it will still be daylight at midnight.

Jackie wants to give her friend a quilt as a wedding gift. We talked about what's needed and looked through my available finished quilts and UFOs. We had to nix the ones with a lot of white in them, too difficult to keep white in the village. That left one finished quilt in blues, and this UFO in browns:

Jackie chose this one because she likes the native feel of it. I asked if that would be offensive in any way, and she said no. She also thinks the colors are good choices for the remote village environment.

This is a race-style quilt from before my blogging days, probably a stash-busting project because it uses fabrics left over from tumblers quilts I made as gifts in 2010 and 2011. It's constructed like a Jelly Roll Race quilt up to a point, then chopped into sections and assembled. The strips finish at 3" and the overall dimensions are 60 x 72".

We ordered backing and batting, and I'll quilt this with vertical organic wavy lines. Jackie needs it by the end of June, so I have plenty of time to get it done. I've also committed to making a Hands2Help quilt, so I'll get that done first because the deadline is sooner, then finish this one.

Linking up with Patchwork Times, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt