Charity Quilt Top

A couple weeks back, my brother-in-law asked if I'd be willing to make a quilt to donate for a silent auction. There's a little boy in his neighborhood with Cerebral Palsy. The whole neighborhood has banded together to raise money for this little boy and his family. At various times in my life, my family has been the recipient of such kindness and I wanted an opportunity to pay it forward.

I bought a Frolic jellyroll a few months back without a specific idea of what to make with it. After the call from my brother-in-law, I set out on trying to figure out what sort of design to use for this charity quilt with the jellyroll. At our July quilt guild meeting, one of the girls brought a string quilt. I loved the look, but I'm totally intimidated by paper-piecing. Then I saw this pattern, which just so happened to use the Frolic line. After searching a bit more for inspiration, I read through Cluck Cluck Sew's easy double hourglass tutorial and knew I could find a way to fuse all these looks together. Here's what I came up with:

Note: The photos link to flickr so they're cut off a little on the right side.


I constructed each block using CCS's directions for the double hourglass blocks, but I made mine using three jellyroll strips.

I started by separating the jellyroll strips into sets of three, making sure to create contrast in the pattern and color, but also making sure the strips went well together. Then I took out my trusty ruler and cut each strip at 45 degree angles, alternating the direction of my ruler.



I was able to get five triangles from each jellyroll strip set. I paired four of them together as shown below. I reserved the leftover triangle for later use. Sewing the triangles into a block was tricky because of the cut being on the bias. When you sew something this way, you have to make sure not to stretch the fabric or else your block will bubble.



The 42 jellyroll strips gave me 16 12" blocks, 13 of them looked symmetrical like the one above, and other three were comprised of the leftover triangles, making them look a bit more scrappy.



Each strip set had a bit more leftover so I cut a few smaller triangles and paired them together like so.



I had enough smaller triangles for six 8" blocks, but I only used four blocks as the corner posts at the ends of the borders.



The quilt top measures about 60 inches square, a good size lap quilt. I need to pick up the backing material still and my deadline is swiftly approaching (September 15) so I best get crackin'. Hopefully the quilting and binding will go fast and I can hand this quilt off for the silent auction ASAP.

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