PCQ Christmas Quilts for Hospice: Kits and Progress

On Monday I wrote about quilty things that have been keeping me busy. One of those things is PCQ Community Service: pattern development for Christmas Quilts for Hospice and prep day for making kits. We had 27 people at prep day helping to assemble kits and we got about 40 kits made. 

The pattern requires 6" squares and 2" wide strips. My role was to help cut the strips. We used my big AccuQuilt Studio cutter with the 2" strip die. It took 16 WOF strips per kit, so I cut four 9" WOF panels, stacked them up, and George cranked them through the cutter. One pass yielded one quilt's worth of strips. 

A lot of the people who were assembling kits took them home to piece. I know we already have several tops, and even a few quilted and ready to be bound. 

I fussy-cut two kits at home and used colorful fabric for the strips, so I sewed these two tops myself, the red one above and a green one. You can see why I wanted to fussy cut. The large scale fabric in the green quilt was off-cuts from somebody's backing, just long strips, a challenge to cut. The pine forest and little red truck fabrics were scraps, and I actually pieced a couple of squares together to get enough. 

The two prints in the red quilt coordinated, and I just couldn't chop up those pretty ladies decorating their trees. 

Of course, I messed up when sewing rows together, and sewed bottom over top instead of top over bottom. In both versions. A bit of seam ripper action to take some rows apart slowed down the construction, but even so, these two tops came together very quickly. 

We're having another prep day tomorrow. We'll work on backings and cutting batting. Since these are small, about 44", I'll quilt these two myself on my domestic machine. They're due at the end of November, so I may take them to retreat in early November and quilt them there. The binding is already prepped for them. 

My friend Cherie saw my earlier post about this project and very generously sent some Christmas prints from her late mother's stash to us. Wow! 27 yards here. This will go a long way toward backings for all the quilts we're making! Thanks so much, Cherie! 

These small lap quilts will go to our local Hospice of the Valley. When asked about their needs recently, they mentioned that some of their patients in care homes never receive visitors and never receive holiday gifts. PC Quilters can help a little with gifts for them, with these holiday quilts. 

Link ups: Alycia Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict