Two Quilts for Be a Santa to a Senior
My local quilt guild is all about giving back to the community. Throughout the year, we have different local charities we support. When they announced that we would be making lap quilts for Be a Santa to a Senior, I immediately knew I wanted to join in.
I like quilts that use a good variety of fabrics, so I got to thinking. If I made two quilts, I could choose twice as many fabrics and still avoid being left with scraps! So I headed to my local quilt shop and chose 21 coordinating batiks. My only plan when I walked in was to get a color palette suitable for guys. I really love what I ended up with!
I naturally gravitate to batiks, but they were especially helpful in this case. Batiks tend to be a bit wider and have a narrower selvedge than printed fabrics. That meant my plan was safe, even though I needed a full 42 1/2” of usable width of fabric. After cutting the chunks for the wonky rail fence, I was still able to get plenty of 4 1/2” squares for the disappearing nine patch.
Side note - 4 1/2” squares are a bit smaller than what we typically use for a disappearing nine patch. It was my first time making one with that size square, and I ended up really liking it!
Even though all of the fabrics were the same between the quilts, I still wanted to quilt them differently. For the wonky rail fence, I used Vanilla Cream by Anne Bright. It’s a fantastic mix of swirls and soft spikes that works well on just about any quilt.
For the disappearing nine patch, I went with Cobblestones by Christy Dillon. I’ve been on a bit of a circle kick lately, and this one is a lot of fun. She laid out the stitching path so there’s very little retracing of lines that have already been quilted.
I backed both of them with minky. Minky makes for such soft and cozy quilts! I’ve been using a fair amount of it lately, but I have yet to put it on a quilt for myself. I’m hoping to remedy that soon!
The wind picked up a bit as I was taking pictures, and caught the quilt just right to show off the backing. I went with denim by Shannon Cuddle, and it’s the perfect blue. Also, can I just say how much I love the way minky shows off the quilting texture? It’s often so subtle on the front of a quilt, and I just love being able to see it clearly on the back.
I had a lot of fun making these quilts. All together, the guild donated 34 quilts to the project! I hope they all end up making someone’s holiday a little bit brighter.
