Working Wednesday - Charity Quilt Challenges!

Hi, all!

This Wednesday I thought I’d share about charity quilt drives. As many of you know, this is a subject near and dear to my heart.  

I think the first one that I joined in was the 100 Quilts For Christmas charity drive, organized by Katie over at Swim Bike Quilt.  Her idea was for quilters to make and donate a quilt for a child in need in their local area.  Great idea, right?  The response to her idea was phenomenal.  Over 120 quilts were donated as a result of her charity drive!  She has subsequently changed the name to 100 Quilts For Kids and set it slightly earlier in the fall, to avoid the ever-busy holiday season.  I learned a lot from the way Katie managed her charity challenge!

A little while after that, I was explaining the concept of an “ugly fabric” challenge to my husband.  The thought of using someone else’s ugly fabric to make a quilt was quite humorous to him, but he did come up with a great idea - call it “orphan fabric”, and suggest people use their “orphan fabric” to make a quilt for an orphan!  Which immediately led me to remember that Judi over at Green Fairy Quilts collects quilts to take to Romanian orphans each year.  I contacted Judi to see if she could use some additional quilts, and she said yes.  And thus the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge was born!  

That year forty-nine quilters sent Judi sixty-one quilts for Romanian orphans.  The next year Judi had plenty of quilts, so we made quilts to send to New Orleans for hurricane relief, and to Happy Chemo to comfort cancer patients.  Fifty-five quilters gave ninety-four quilts combined.  Last year we made quilts for Happy Chemo again, and also for Quilts Beyond Borders, an organization that distributes quilts to under-served children across the world.  And the numbers keep growing - - - sixty-five quilters and one hundred and twenty-seven quilts in 2013!

A charity quilt challenge is a well-named thing.  Not only is it a challenge to the quilters who participate, but also to whoever is organizing it!  The first year was truly bare bones - it was the first time I had ever tried to do anything like this.  So I took the things I liked about other challenges and added some things I thought were missing.  We had some wonderful sponsors, and we had check-in dates and a final linky party to show off the quilts. The second year we had guest bloggers sharing their favorite quilt patterns, more check-in dates with linky parties, and our wonderful sponsors provided enough goodies for every participant to receive something for their efforts!  Last year we added a PDF calendar so that everyone had the schedule available to print out and keep handy, and once again we had enough goodies for each participant.  It’s hard work to plan, organize, and maintain the challenge, but it's so worth it!

The truly exciting thing is that people keep telling me they are looking forward to the next year’s H2H challenge.  It’s heartwarming to see everyone doing good and having fun!

Anyway, now it’s time for the eye candy.  You may have noticed the quilt in my blog header.  Its name is Maluhia, which means peace in Hawaiian.  It was made for a man who was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago.  He used to live in Hawaii and loves all things Hawaiian, so we ordered some fabric (directly from Hawaii!) and created this quilt.  

Unfortunately, his cancer has returned, and he’s going through treatment once again.  He stopped my husband at work the other day and asked him to let us know that he uses his quilt every day.  We are so glad that it is still providing him with comfort!

Ever since that quilt has been on my header, I’ve received requests for the pattern. It was also a very popular pattern for the H2Hers!  

This quilt was made for H2H2011!

It’s a great and simple tutorial written by Lisa Roddy, who blogs over at Shiner’s View, and she has graciously permitted me to include her pattern in what will hopefully become a book someday!

I’m going to share some pictures from her tutorial so that you can see the basics of how it goes together.  

This is the basic block.  You can see here how the sashing works between the squares.  See the process in the pictures below...

And voila! A completed block!

And here's the quilt laid out in full.  Notice that a 2.5" strip has been added to the right side and bottom to finish off the framing.

You can go directly to Lisa's tutorial by clicking HERE for more specifics on cutting directions and fabric requirements.

This is a great quilt for large scale focus prints.  Paired with solids or smaller prints for the small squares, it works up quickly and looks great!  You can add a border to make it larger, or reduce the number of blocks to make it smaller.  Choose your focus print based on your intended recipient - imagine a great novelty print for kids, with fussy-cut smaller squares and you've got a fresh new take on an I-spy quilt!  Or use a great Amy Butler large scale print paired with rich, saturated solids for an elegant, contemporary quilt.

Be sure to pop over to Lisa's blog and check out some of her other tutorials, too - 

Lisa is  a very talented and generous quilter who writes great tutorials and shares them with her readers!  Enjoy!!

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Do you participate in charity quilt challenges?  Why or why not?  Do you have a favorite go-to pattern?  A favorite charity?  I'd love to hear your answers to these questions. I know my experience, but yours may be different!

Thanks to all of you who have commented on the Working Wednesday posts in the past - you've been a wealth of information, encouragement and help to this wannabe writer!  

Hugs!

Sarah