October Project

My son's school holds an annual fund raising auction that usually raises somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000.00. I have been involved with the gift basket comittee for the last 9 years which involves creating baskets using donated and purchased items. I have also personally made and donated a quilt each year. These can be seen on my website, Quilters Stitch Together as well as how much they raised at auction. My son is now in 8th grade and will graduate next June. For the auction each year, each class at school creates a project that is auctioned off to the hightest bidder. Traditionally, the 8th graders have created quilts. The woman who was making the quilts decided she was done 2 years ago. The projects changed, but they didn't have the fundraising power of the quilts, so I was asked to make quilts for this years' class. This is on top of making nearly 400 gift baskets with a crew of two other women. I agreed, and we decided on a project in which the students were asked to create a 6" block using their first name in a graffiti style. Another woman spent time with the 2 classes at school getting the blocks made. The art work I got back was amazing as you will see!

So inspired was I that I spent the entire weekend working on the first of the two quilts. Each will have a different background fabric, but I wanted an interesting set, so I found this one and thought it was perfect for these blocks.


For the first round of "sashing" I used black for framing the blocks. You sew on rectangles and then trim them into triangles. I found it in a book by Margaret Miller called Smashing Sets. Not as complex as you might imagine, but you do have to keep things straight!


Here's the second round going through the machine - I was chaining them to make it quick and efficient.


Here is a block with the 4 rectangles sewn on but before I trimmed them.


Aren't they fabulous??


Some of the fabulous artwork in the completed blocks which measure 9 1/2" unfinished.


This is the center of the quilt before borders. I'll add those tomorrow and either sandwich this one or start on the blocks for the second one. Both have to be done around the first of November, so the clock is ticking LOUDLY!!