Linus crazy!

I have been busy sewing, honestly, but this retirement business is fraught with people wanting to meet you for lunch, for coffee, for shopping etc. and I'm really enjoying saying 'yes!' This week though, I've had two requests for Linus quilts. One is for a 14 year old girl with cancer who loves textiles - got to get a quilt to her in double-quick time - and the other for five disabled children who are going into fostercare, all boys. Of course, I have very few Linus quilts at the moment, as I've just made a big delivery to the refuge, so am trying to make a some quilts up to suit. Here is the one for the 14 year old girl (who loves pink).

The fabric in the centre was 'left over from a project' and donated to Linus. How can so much coordinating fabric be left over? Well, it's a good job we're not all scrap quilters like me, as there would be no donated scraps to make charity quilts from!

Here is the completed top from the pattern in McCall's Quilting. It's nice and gutsy and will be good for a boy, I think. And finally, I have put together these scrappy blocks which were made at a recent Linus sewing afternoon.

This will make a great cot quilt. Can you see DH peeping through the border fabric on the last two quilts? This donated fabric isn't very good quality, and while it will be fine for these children's quilts, shows its faults when held in front of a window. Now I need to get layering and quilting!

Linus quilts

I was recently invited to Ashlawn School in Rugby to talk to a Year 9 group about quilting. Their course included a module on recycling and sutainability, and their lovely teacher, Shakira, thought that quilting would fit in nicely. The girls (it was all girls, sadly) were a lovely group and very much enjoyed seeing some of my quilts, and were astounded to handle some Dream Green wadding (made from plastic bottles, if you've not come acrosst) and find how soft it was. I suggested that they might like to make some simple blocks for a Linus quilt, and they were very enthusiastic.

This is the back of the block, which is just strings sewn to a piece of lightweight Vilene either by hand or machine. If you fancy a go, the Vilene was cut into 6.5" squares. It's a simple project for anyone who can do a running stitch.

And here are the completed blocks, arranged ready for sewing together. It was lucky that there were 25 pupils present on that day, so it has been easy to include every block. Some of the blocks weren't quite finished, so while I was adding some strips, I decided to make a few extra blocks using leaders and enders.

Chris had kindly given me a bag full of gorgeous hand dyed fabrics, many of which were brown (and some frankly sludgy!) and immediately made me think of gingerbreadmen!

Here they are, getting ready to dance! I'll be making more as I assemble the girls's quilt.