Giving a Quilt Away
Giving a Quilt to Neighbors and Colleagues
Donna’s neighbor found out that she quilts and asked if she would make one for his wife. All he said was make it purple. I think she succeeded. :) The colors are mesmerizing. She quilted with an edge to edge design called Kashmir. It is large and open and has floral aspects, while not having any flowers. It is a great design for a quilt top geared towards men or couples. What a great friend to be giving a quilt to a neighbor like that. 
Kathleen has been learning about the five love languages. One of the languages is the giving of gifts, and two of her colleagues at work have this quality. So Kathleen decided to make them each a gift. What is fun about this pairing is that she quilted them differently. She custom quilted with a stitch in the ditch treatment. The left was an all over edge to edge meander. They both look amazing in my opinion, but the blue ribbon on the right does seem to pop out a little more than the ribbon on the left. Do you see it? She also saved a lot of time by using one really big piece of backing fabric. We rolled all that fabric on at once, then just added the second top after the first was finished. 
Giving a Quilt to Friends of Family
Pam was very generous with her time when she agreed to make the next three quilts. Pam used the childhood clothing of a friend of her daughter's to create the pinwheels. I think the use of the common fabric in all those pinwheels was brilliant. It really focuses the eye on the fabric that counts. The letter in the middle has cut outs of t-shirts or other tops appliqued on the pink. The letter is the little girl’s first initial. The color also corresponds with the child’s color in her mother’s color coded style of parenting. 
To quilt these quilts, Pam chose to work from the front of the machine and just meander from edge to edge. When you are working with so many different fabrics with quilts like this, it is a good idea to work from the front. There are seams and ridges that can get caught if you are not paying close attention, which is hard to do from the back.
What a very sweet gift for these girls. Lots of our other renters also make gifts for others. Check out some of them here. Quilting as a hobby is sometimes costly, but it is also very fulfilling. There is no better feeling than to complete a long and difficult project successfully. You can admire your masterpiece for a while, but then you are left with the reality that you don’t need another quilt. You already have more than enough for every bed, every couch, for every season and holiday in the year. Giving a quilt away is a great way to add more reasons to quilt. Find a charity to support, or just find a friend who needs a little support themselves. There is always someone out there that could use a homemade quilt.
I’m Angela- Co-host of the Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting PBS show. APQS Long arm Dealer and Educator. Triplet Momma. Designer. Thread Bimbo.
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