April's Completed Comfort Quilts: Strips Quilts and St. Louis 16-Patch

I started 2014 with the goal to make 30 lap quilts for donation to hospice using strips. I was inspired by the jelly roll race quilts, but I wanted to mix it up a bit. I have 2", 2.5", 3", 3.5", 4", 4.5", 6.5" strips, not always width of fabric as they are left over pieces from sashing and binding, etc. And to turn these into a set of quilts

Here are 3 completed strip quilts, ready for donation:

This quilt was just a series of various width strips. I like how the brights are contrasted by the pinks, and the solid.

This second quilt incorporated some blocks with the strips. Flying geese units the same size as the strip they are included in.

This third quilt has a number of small pieces worked in, blocks just laying around that were the same size as the corresponding strip. Also many more very narrow strips got worked into this quilt.

These 3 quilts are all 42" wide by 55" long, backed with either flannel or polar fleece. The fleece quilts don't have any batting, while the flannel quilts have a batting.

From my friend Joanie, over at Joanie's Trendy Quilts, I got the pattern for the St. Louis 16-patch, and I thought these would make great, quick quilts for donation as well. Here are 3 samples that I have quilted up that I am taking to my quilt guild next week for a 2 hour quilt-a-thon where all the people will be working on making these blocks. Several months back I brought 200 fat quarters to the quilt guild meeting, and passed them around the room. You know most quilters can't resist fat quarters. I told people they could take one and match it up with an ugly fat quarter in their stash that they had no use for, as this is the perfect pattern to mate an ugly fabric with a nicer one and make a stupendous looking block. But for those people who just didn't have an ugly FQ laying around, I let them take 2 or 4, with the thought they could make the 16-patches and bring them to this meeting so we would have blocks to start making quilts.

Our quilt guild also had a fun night where there were FQ games in January, and they collected another 200 FQ towards this project, so those new FQ are coming to this meeting. People are bringing their sewing machines, rotary cutters, etc., and I'm hoping we can get enough blocks made for 25 quilt tops.

So here are my samples to motivate the people in the guild (it always takes one over-achiever to get people motivated!)

First quilt is using just 2 fabrics. At first I didn't recognize it as a St. Louis 16-patch, but that is how it was constructed.

This second quilt was made with 6 fat quarters, a number on the green side. Several random green strips for sashing holds it together. The great thing about sashing these blocks is now there are no seams to worry about matching. If one block turns out 16.5" and the next 16.25", no problem, it's hidden by the sashing!

And finally this third St. Louis 16-patch. It used a number of FQ's that I made from 1 yard cuts of fabric I picked up in an online sale - 10 - 1yard cuts for $20!  All end of bolt items. These fabrics turned out to not be my cut of tea at all, but look how wonderful this quilt turned out. I especially like the scrappy sashing - who says your sashing has to all match, this was using the various scraps of sashing that were left when doing the blocks, and there wasn't enough green, so the red was pulled in for the 2 ends. Looks planned - that I think is one of the secrets of a great looking scrappy quilt, use up your fabrics and when you run out of something to match, throw in a contrasting fabric and it adds some spice and zing to the quilt.

So this brings me to 9 strip quilts completed so for in 2014, towards my goal of 30.  Slow and steady wins the race.  How are you doing on your 2014 quilt making/finishing goals given the year is now 1/4 over?


Posting this as part of Let's Bee Social! week #15. Click on the badge and check out what other quilt bloggers have been up to this past week.

Lily's Quilts hosts "Fresh Sewing Day" to link up finishes. So check out Fresh Sewing Day to see what other quilt bloggers have been finishing up.

And, for bloggers who have less than 50 followers, Lily's Quilts hosts the Small Blog Meet. This is a means to allow new bloggers to meet other new bloggers and make new friends. Everyone wins by getting to see all these new quilter bloggers and the facinating works. So why not check out the Small Blog Meet as well.

Have a great week and keep sewing!  Remember, find 10 minutes a day to do a little sewing, and in a week you will have sewed an hour, and 4-5 hours in a month. Before you know it, you will have made progress towards finishing a quilt.