Hands2Help 2020 - Our First Guest Blogger, With A Charming Bingo Block

Hi, all!

Let's get this party started!  This is the first week for our guest bloggers, and I'm so happy to welcome Kate from Katie Mae Quilts!  Kate's been part of Hands2Help for several years now, but this is her first year to be a guest blogger - and it's a great post!  Yes, all this social distancing can play havoc with our plans, but Kate came through.  I'll turn the blog over to her now!

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Hi! I'm Kate, from Katie Mae Quilts (and also Instagram and Pinterest and district coordinator for Quilts of Valor) and I volunteered to write this post for Sarah way back in mid-February - you know, a hundred years ago in real time. It's a very simple block, but also a fun retreat game! And I was going to go on my guild retreat (that I've been co-planning for six months) at the end of March, and work out any of the game kinks, and be able to show off a finished quilt for this post.

Well, I think you all know what happened to any guild retreat at the end of March.

So, I have this block to show you! It might make a fun retreat game. It might end up being a disaster. I don't know. You'll have to try it out and let me know! If we're ever allowed to go on quilt retreats again.

The block is a Disappearing 25 Patch made with charms. It's the same concept as the Disappearing Nine Patch, just with more pieces. For the bingo game, I asked the guild to make a block that has a four patch of novelty fabrics in each corner (those won't be cut), the middle eight blocks in a solid or "reads as solid" fabric, and the middle block in a white or reads as white. The bingo block finishes at 22.5" BEFORE cutting.

We asked for novelty fabric because our guild's charity of the year is the local pregnancy crisis center, so these will be baby quilts. You could easily do just solid color fabrics, or red/white/blue/flag/stars fabric for Quilts of Valor - whatever floats your guild's boat!

I asked my retreaters to email me a list of their novelty fabrics and solid colors before the retreat, which I would have put on little pieces of paper to be tossed in a basket. (Simplified lists! Pink is pink, not fuchsia or rose or cerise or carnation. Cow fabric is cows in a field or cartoon cows or cow print or just a bunch of MOOOOOOOOs.)

Then at retreat, we would have used quarters or buttons to track as I pulled each piece of paper from the basket...you know, like bingo. One marker per paper pull, even if you do an entire row in pink-fushia-white-rose-cerise. White square is a free space, first one to get five in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins.  Prize would be a charm pack.

And then, after the fun of the game, you whip out the ruler and slice the blocks up just like any other disappearing block, 2.25" from the most inner seam. Mix them up. Twist them around. Voila!

The finished block is 22", and the partial blocks are 11" finished. So four in a 2x2 layout makes a 44" baby quilt. Nine full blocks and three partial blocks in a 3x3.5 layout makes 66x77" lap size quilt.

I bet it looks cool as a finished quilt. I hope I get to see one! If y'all do one before my rescheduled retreat (which is...maybe August?) please shoot me an email and let me know how it goes!

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Doesn't this look like fun?  Oh, if only the world would get back to normal so we could get together and play Charming Bingo!  But I agree with Kate, this would look great as a finished quilt, and wow, will it work up quick!  Charm squares for the win!!!

Join us next week as we get to enjoy another great guest blogger, and keep working on those quilts (or face masks, if that's what you are spending your days doing, like I am!).  We may all be stuck inside, but there are lots of people out there who still need a quilt-y hug, and we have the ability to provide them!

Hugs!

Sarah