A Change in Direction: Charity Quilt Patterns

UPDATED: If you have requested a pattern and you didn't leave your email address in your comment, I have no way of getting your pattern to you. Please be sure to include your email address within the text of your comment. 

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I had a long list of goals for this month; other than prep for and teach the Cut and Shuffle class,  everything else has changed.  

I'm a member of the Charity Committee in PCQ. Each member has a role, and mine is planning for sew days when we'll be making Kid quilts in March, 2-1/2" strip (jelly roll) quilts for adults in April, and quilts for older boys in May. So I took a careful look at the fabrics the club has available and tried to figure out what we can do with what we have. We have lots of dark and dated prints suitable for adults, lots of florals, some juvenile prints, and a few themed or novelty prints like fishing, vegetables, etc. What we don't have much of is light neutrals, and without light colors for contrast, it's almost impossible to make any pattern work. So I talked with the chair of the committee, and she ordered some flat fold cuts of light neutrals. 

Last month I presented some simple patten concepts to the committee, and I've been writing them up so we can use them for kits for sew days. Members of the committee are pattern testing, and I've made the first two samples as well. The plan is to post them on the club's website so everyone has access to them; they can download a PDF and use them as needed. 

The first pattern the committee liked is simple color bars arranged in a basketweave pattern. We have such a random collection of fabrics in all sizes, so this will work well for us to die cut and kit up. It works for kids and adults. 

So I raided my 2-1/2" strip drawer, pulled a few more scraps to cut, and also used a couple of strips from Carla.

Easy chain piecing and blocks came together quickly. 

Apologies in advance for photos with bad lighting; it's hard to get good outdoor photos here, either too much sun, sun from the wrong angle, or deep shade. The wind doesn't help. Here's my color bars sample top:

This is the adult size, 60 x 80, using 2-1/2" strips and blocks that finish at 10". We ought to be able to make quite a few kits for this with the resources we have available, using a die cutter for making strips. 

Here's and indoor shot, but the colors look a bit dull.

The second pattern is for kid quilts, and we'll be using this one in March to make kits. Again, a basketweave layout because it's fast and easy and results in a nice looking quilt.

This one uses strips cut at 2" wide, and we can die cut these when we make up kits. The blocks finish at 7-1/2" so we can get close to the preferred sizes of 45" x 60" (kid large) or 36" x 45" (kid small). The smaller kid quilt here will be 37-1/2" x 45", close enough. 

I made a sample of the small size using fabrics from my stash: a lilac print with sheep, a lilacy-grey Carolyn Friedlander texture, and a creamy white. 

This pattern can be made very scrappy which would be like an Eye Spy quilt, but the only kid print I had in my stash is this one. So this is the two-print version. The piecing came together very quickly. 

This will work well enough for a teaching sample when we make kits, but I think the kits we make will end up much scrappier than this. 

As we cut the large pieces (5" x 8") for this pattern from the kid prints in our stash, we can cut strips for the other patterns from leftover pieces that are too small, so we can make the best use of what we have. 

I have to close with an outdoor shot taken at about 11:30am yesterday. Look at that blue sky!!! We had a little bit of rain one night earlier this week; it must have been enough to wash all the dust and pollution out of the air. 

Anyway, back to the patterns for the charity quilts - 
A couple of the girls on the committee have been pattern testing. So far so good. The plan is to have all four patterns ready to post to the website and send them all to the webmaster at the same time so she can deal with them all at once. The other two patterns will also involve strips, because that's how we can make the best use of the variety of fabrics the club has. Stay tuned...

If you would like a PDF of either of these patterns for charitable use, leave a comment and be sure to include your email address. 

Link ups:  Alycia Quilts,  My Quilt Infatuation