First Finish - A Donation Quilt

HA! When I was typing the title of this post, I typed “A Donation Quail”. Don’t ask me where my brain was, but it definitely wasn’t connected to my fingers. Anyway, I corrected it as you can see. So I have a QUILT, not a bird, to tell you about. It’s the Scottie Dog quilt (and here I keep typing God instead of Dog. We all know that cats are gods, not dogs, right? At least the cats think so). But I digress.

On Monday I sorted through all my batting scraps, which were piled high in the closet of the bedroom off my studio. I evened up the edges then either sewed or fused/ironed them together. The results were three Frankenpieced medium-sized quilt bats for donation quilts, neatly labeled with the size for future reference and 8 kennel quilt bats (less than 24” on all sides). And the remaining smaller pieces (less than 12” on a side) are saved for future zip pouches and smaller projects like that. I guess they could also be sewn together for more kennel quilts.

So, I pulled a Frankenbatt for the Scottie Dog quilt, layered it and quilted it up with a basic loop design. That was easy because it’s a small quilt. Then binding it was interesting. I used at least five different pieces of red and black binding, but that’s why we save the bits and bobs.

But the most challenging part was washing the darn thing. RED. I’ve never had reds bleed in the wash before, although I am always prepared when I wash any new quilt, fabric or clothing. It went in with 2 color catchers. They came out red, so I washed it again with 2 more color catchers, and they came out pink. Then I did a third wash and they just barely had some pink on them. I called it good. But it sure did shrink!  It went in at 44x52” and came out of the dryer rather scrunched up. I ironed it (who irons quilts?) and it measured 42x49”. But it’s soft and cuddly and ready for snuggling.

The backing was also a study in fabric variety - mostly the scottie dog fabric, but also large chunks of three other reds. It was a great use of lots of fabric pieces, binding, batting, etc.!

This donation quilt now goes into the pile. It’s my first finish of the year and is #4 on my Quarter 1 Finish-Along goals. You can see my list HERE.

Now it’s nose to the grindstone to finish up Saguaro Sunset by month-end. I have two more weeks to work on it, so I think I’m OK. Bruce and I went to JoAnn’s today where I got some flannel to use as batting. I do that for quilts that are going to family members in Arizona, because they don’t need the thick warm cotton batting. We had several other errands to run, then ended up having lunch at our favorite Japanese restaurant. I brought leftovers home, so there will be no cooking tonight. YAY!! That means more time to sew! (and do laundry...)