Trying To Be Good During The Holidays

The most very good thing I've done during this holiday season was to finish the final four baby quilts for the Blanket Ministry at my Church which means I met my commitment of making twelve baby quilts each year.  It's always a good feeling to make these and an accomplishment when they're done.

I thought I would share my favorite patterns which uses just six fat quarters for the top; one for a baby quilt and the other for a lap quilt.  What I like about making these quilts is that you can use six fat quarters from the same collection or mix them from several collections.  For the baby quilt, I tend to pick bright colors based on the one or two focus prints I pick for the quilt and for the lap size quilt, it's a great way to use the large focus prints that you can't bear to cut up.

Baby Quilt

The size I make for the Blanket Ministry is 36" square which is the bottom quilt. I cut, from each of the six fat quarters, four 3.5" strips (3.5" x 20") and arrange them into two sets of three strips to make rail fence blocks.  Once the strips are cut and sewn, I cut 9-1/2" blocks, two blocks from each strip set, a total of 16 blocks, eight of each color set.  I like to arrange all of the blocks horizontally in a four by four layout,  so in order for the seams to nest, I iron one set of strips with the seams going up and the other set with the seams going down.  The top quilt is also made from six fat quarters but I cut five 3.5" strips which will make twenty blocks  for a quilt measuring 36" x 45".

Lap Quilt

I call these lap quilts, Happy Lappy Quilts and is based on the Six and One Half Dozen quilt pattern by Hydee Ann Sews, a tutorial can be found here:  Hydee Ann Sews.  I just love this pattern because it's a great way to use up the large scale prints some of which has been sitting in my stash for a long time.  Again, it is a great way to mix up fabrics from different collection.  It's a nice size for keeping the lap warm, 40"x 54" (approx.) and I like to take one when I go to the movies because my theater has the reclining seats and I'm getting to the age where I'm always cold.  These quilts come together quickly and make great gifts.

As mentioned in my title, I am trying to be good, meaning staying on task which is hard to do especially when all the quilt goodies I purchased on Black Friday are starting to arrive, new magazines purchased  and need to be read because I'm always looking for new ideas, plus I just discovered Kraft-Tex.  I still need to finish decorating the house, buy Christmas gifts (online of course), send Christmas cards (not online), clean my studio, etc.  It's gotten to the point I actually had to make a list and so far only one item has been crossed off.  Thankfully my husband and son are doing the bulk of the decorating.  Meanwhile, cleaning up my studio is going on day four, today's distraction is the new dies and discovering PicMonkey which meant I had to put a photomark on all of my quilt photos and making a photo collage.

Hopefully my plan on finishing everything by this weekend will happen because after all I still have a quilt top which needs to be quilted by Christmas--which isn't on my list.