Christmas Quilts for Hospice

Recently PCQ's Community Service Committee chair had a request from Hospice which we can fill. Hospice has clients who never get visitors and never receive Christmas or holiday gifts. How sad! They've requested small quilts, 42-45", to be given at Christmas to these patients. 

My role on the committee is lead pattern designer, so I've been playing with ideas.

We'll make simple 7" (finished) blocks. A 6 x 6 layout will result in a 42" quilt. Some layouts benefit from borders, so those quilts would finish up to 45".  Along with all the dark Christmas prints - lots of red! - we can use light Christmas prints, and we also have available some white or cream yardage for the light strips.

I have very few Christmas prints and I didn't raid the club's stash. I made as many blocks as I could with what I had, just to test out various layouts. The simplest layout is Straight Set. This would benefit from a top and a left side border added. 

The next layout is the always popular Rail Fence, no borders needed.

The third layout is Brick Wall. This works best with pairs of blocks together, and would get a top border.

There are many other possible layouts using these blocks, but in the interest of keeping the project quick and easy for everyone to work on at the next Sew Day, these are the simplest. Any of these layouts can be scrappy, or if enough fabric is available, could use all one or two dark prints. 

Committee members will be working on kitting these up, so the kits will be ready to hand out at the next Sew Day. If your group is interested in these blocks for charity quilts, here is the info for prepping kits: 

Prep for Hospice Christmas Quilt:  Per quilt kit:

Cut 36 dark 6” Christmas print squares. Could be 18 red and 18 green blocks, or all one color.

 - Cut 6” WOF strips and sub-cut 6” squares. This should yield 7 squares per WOF strip.  If desired, assort prints among several kits for a scrappy look. Or use all the same print in one kit, which would require ½ yard each of two fabrics.

 - If using a fat quarter, if it’s straight and the full 18” long, it should yield 9, 6” squares.

Cut 13 light WOF strips, 2” wide*. This will yield 36 pieces at 7-1/2” long and 36 pieces at 6” long per kit plus an extra WOF strip.  

 - From each WOF strip, cut 3, 7-1/2" pieces and cut 3, 6" pieces. Tip: open the WOF strip, stack two or three, and cut desired lengths.

 - If using partial WOF strips or scraps, make sure there’s enough in the kit to yield the required number of pieces.

 - If using all one light fabric per kit, ¾ yard is needed plus extra for borders. 

 - At the sew day, have available additional  2” light WOF strips for anyone who wants to add borders.

*Use die cutter if available

Each kit will include the pattern. 

In PCQ's stash there are Christmas prints we never knew what to do with because we weren't sure they'd be suitable for the recipients of our charity quilts. Now we have a use for them, but there's not enough for more than two or three small quilts.

We put out a request to PCQ's members for any unwanted Christmas fabrics that anyone would care to donate. We should receive them at tonight's meeting. Tomorrow the planning committee will meet to determine how many kits we can make up using the fabric available. We hope we can meet Hospice's need so that no one goes without a comfort gift this Christmas. 

Link up: Small Quilts and Doll Quilts