Charity Quilts...

I've already mentioned that I'm spending the next 5 days at a quilting retreat with my bee.  Have I also mentioned this retreat is at the beach?  I know, lucky us.  This is the first of two retreats we have planned for this fall.  The purpose of this first one is mainly to work on charity quilts to be donated to Interact, a woman's shelter.

I've got tons of charm squares from swaps over the last couple of years and I thought this would be a great chance to use some of them.  Here's a picture of some of them sorted by color...

Charm square stash

I figure I have at least a couple thousand of them.  When I started thinking of patterns that use lots of charm squares, a Disappearing 9-Patch seemed the obvious choice.  I'd made this one for my mom earlier this year...

Disappearing 9-Patch quilt

There are tons of tutorials about how to make a Disappearing 9-Patch block, so I'm not going to rehash it here.  If you've never made one and are interested in learning how, just do a search in Google.

I designed a simple quilt in Electric Quilt 7 using this block.  I love designing quilts in EQ7.  It's so easy to draw a complete one in a matter of minutes.  (If anyone would like the EQ7 project file for this, let me know.  Although you might not get it until I get back.)  So here's a picture of the quilt I came up with...

Disappearing 9-Patch charity quilt

As I have it drawn, the quilt will finish at 59" x 74".  Each quilt uses 108 charm squares along with sashing, inner and outer borders.  I've spent some time over the last couple of days putting together kits for it.  I've made 6 kits in 3 different colorways (green, blue and purple).

Kits for D9-Patch charity quilts

I'm not planning on making all of these quilts myself.  Any of the ladies at retreat who'd like to make one are welcome to them.  I also separated out enough charm squares for more quilts in red, orange and yellow if they'd rather do those.  I just didn't have a coordinating border fabric for them (and didn't want to purchase one).

Enough charm squares for 3 more quilts

It's such an easy pattern, I'm hoping I get at least 2 of the tops made.  I have another quilt I want to make for a child out of different fabric.  I'll have to let you know how much I actually get done when I get back.

Until later...

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and rescues those who are crushed in spirit." 

Psalm 34:18 (NLT)