2016 Service Project—Quilts & Bags for It’s My Very Own Bags of Love

Posted in Guild Projects • April 2nd, 2016

Anne and I have a contact with It’s My Very Own-Bags of Love. Children taken into foster care can rarely take anything from home. It’s My Very Own provides bags with a quilt, a toy and other necessities for the child to take with them into their new home. At the sew-in we plan to make some quilts to include in the bags.

The quilt sizes for the small children and babies can be crib size (40 x 50 or somewhere around there), to lap size for the older kids (50 x 60-ish). Again there are no hard and fast rules on the specific size of the quilt. Just making something that in our minds lines up with the age group and gender. The 5 age groups are Teens, 12-8 years, 7-4 years, 3 years-18 months and 18 months-infant, and each age group is broken into boy and girl bags.

For the project Anne and I thought to organize it so that if folks want to bring in a bunch of half square triangles or fabric to make them we can whip up some crib-lap sized quilts fairly quickly. There are so many different designs you can create from hst (half square triangles). I’ve put in a link below with a bunch we found.

In terms of color and size we were thinking of 4 1/2 and 8 1/2 inch squares. Anne has some 4 1/2 hsts left over from another quilt that are in white, blue and red. I’ve got some 8 1/2 hsts left from a quilt in orange and different values of turquoise (like how I used value instead of shade?). I also enough fabric for a pink and green girls lap quilt. I’ll post a pic of some of what i have so others can get an idea if they want to join forces. If anyone would like to get ahead and make some hst to bring to the sew-in that would be ideal.

Using half square triangles was an easy way to organize the project, but if you want to go your own way with a quilt – please feel free. The goal is to make something that those kids will feel proud to own and that we as a group can make a difference. Pointy points are nice but not necessary!

Coming to the meeting and sew-in, I’ll be bringing my machine, some extra fabric and a stack of pre-made half square triangles.

There are tons of different ways to make hsts and here is a great article that explains many of them to you: Quilt Making Basics Tutorial – Half Square Triangles – The Littlest Thistle

Here are some great links to different hst quilt designs.