100 Quilts for Kids, Sewing Day.

At DC Modern Quilt Guild we have been working up quilts to donate to kids in a homeless shelter next month. 100 Quilts for Kids began a few years back by Katie Blakesley  one of the guild's first presidents. It's a challenge to make a quilt and donate to your favorite kids charity.  Yesterday we had a sewing day meeting devoted to assembling quilt blocks, made by various members or working on a quilt you were making to donate. Many were using fabric donated to the group for this purpose. It's Denyse Schmidt's DS Studio fabric line mixed with solids and other scraps or donated fabrics. One of my favorite quilt book writers who makes pretty vintage looking fabrics in colors that are a bit vintage too.
This past month I worked on hourglass blocks that our guild treasure Heather chose and organized this year. I enjoyed the challenge of making Heather's blocks last year for the same project so I decided to join her team again. We received two fat quarters of fabrics in a bundle to make a pair of blocks and the tutorial to make them up in the block design I had never done before. It took some concentration and a new square trimming tool I didn't have but it was fun once I got going. I finished four hourglass blocks at home.

Then made up another set at the meeting Saturday with some help assembling and pressing from other members. Jessie Aller and her little Vivian did some pressing for this block you see laid out on my cutting mat and Susan assembled the first set of nine from this pair of fabrics.

While I was at lunch the blocks that were completed were laid out on the carpet at the library meeting room and assembled into a twin size top by Heather and several other quilters and was ready to go home to be backed and machine quilted over the next several weeks. It a crazy bold mix up of these funky colors but we know it is going to be some one's delight when it goes to a needy teenager.

I love all the shoes in this shot of the hourglass quilt top

Besides the quilt I worked on there were others that showed up completed and ready to donate we got see with Susan Fuller as the volunteer holder upper of the quilts for these photos. She is tall and did a great job, thank you Susan and these include several of her finished quilts!

There were a lot of groups doing various quilts with this donated DS Studio fabric and I caught a few photos of the quilt tops but not everything.

Melinda took the group fabrics and made a quilt all on her own and was binding it with a great orange-red, she had it quilted by SueZquilts the long arm quilter who is a sponsor to DC Modern Quilt Guild and it looked really sharp. Everyone was interested in the unusual mix of green, orange and purple that made up this quilt derived from one of the DS Studio prints. The best part of working on quilts for some quilters is the selection of prints colors and patterns and how they look when assembled. So even thought it is a lot of work that goes into all the quilts the chance to experiment with different fabrics that might not be your favorites is a good challenge to undertake. It was a fun meeting for charity quilting on a cool rainy autumn day, perfect weather for working inside.