Twin Twirlas, Two Cheerful Charity Quilts

I found the tutorial for Twirla on the butterflythreadsquilting.com blog, and thought it would be an interesting way to use some stash FQ's, in this case Kaffe prints and some light chambray semi-solid fabrics. Originally the plan was to make a twin-sized quilt. The block was sized to make good use of the FQ's.

It may look like I've posted the same photo twice, as the color combinations and placement are the same. If you look closely, the quilt on the left has prints making the dominant patter, and on the right it's the semi-solids.I liked how each print wedge fits against contrasting solid. The backing is gold and there was enough extra to use as binding. The Bellini quilting pattern is an abstract leafy-looking design.

Since Last Time

Quite a few projects have been finished since last I wrote.  Five burp cloths and a heavy single layer flannel blanket with a binding edge were made for our neighbor's new grandson. The flannel was leftover from a bathrobe made several years ago. They liked both so much that they offered to pay me to make more. I could not find the nice thick flannel and suggested they look in person. My flannel scraps are mostly pinks and yellows now and they wanted "boy colors only". 

Charity Quilts: Hexagon strippy quilt 56.5” x 40.5” , Spilled Ink Quilting. 

Purple triangles + string blocks  61” x 42.5”, Sinuous Wave Quilting This used up some triangle UFO blocks and leftover string blocks. 

Diamond String Quilt 61” x 50”  Sinuous Wave quilting.

Not pictured: Green leftovers NICU top ~ 36” x 24” quilted on Juki and 2 NICU wholecloth quilts – flag fabric quilted on Juki.

Gift Quilts:

Binding Tool Braid –Gingiber Christmas jelly roll & panel quilt-70” x 71”

Butterflies pink and purple lap quilt 54” x 41” given to neighbor. A different coloring of MSQ's "Outstanding Stars" quilt.

Son’s Trip Around the World -  Blues/Greys 90” x 90”. This was a good stashbuster.

Project Tracking

I keep a Word document to organize my projects. It's a simple way to keep track of things, with several sections: : 

• Projects in progress
• Tops waiting to be quilted
• Projects not yet started
• Finished Projects (with numbers)

The projects are moved around the list as they get started/quilted/finished.

This is my condensed recap from 2020:

2020 Finished Projects

16 NICU QUILTS

LAP QUILTS: 4 Charity, 3 Gifted, 6 Other

TWIN QUILTS: 8 Charity, 4 Gifted, 1 Other

SMALL QUILTS: Garden applique hanging; 2 feather placemats

CHARITY QUILTING (pieced by someone else): 1 TWIN & 2 LAP

OTHER PROJECTS

Charity: 3 pet beds , 4 pillowcases, 7 large Christmas stockings

Four sofa pillows

Clothesline basket – zig-zag stitched

3 Burp cloths to neighbor's daughter

7 knitted “Little Dragons”, given to neighbor kids

New ironing board cover

Recycled old ironing board fabric into seat cushion cover for studio and also the small June Tailor pressing mat cover

Waterproof Gorilla cart cover

Spoonflower fleece blue blanket for TV room

By Annie pouch for Son's girlfriend

There is a separate document that has a list of projects in mind (sometimes just an idea of how to use a bundle or a large piece of fabric), and another listing fabric I'm lusting after (grouped by online store.).

Pinterest is used to track finished quilts, and there are sub-boards Charity Quilts Donated, Gift Quilts Not Yet Gifted. I also have a board called Quilting Queue, and it has several sub-sections too.. I really like having images of ideas.

Tracking how many blocks I make each month has been fun, and I take part in the 350 Blocks Project over at Prairie Moon Quilts. August was the highest month - 283 blocks pieced, with a total of 1376 for the year.

Here are a couple of Christmas quilts made and given away. Both were stashbusters.