Care quilts weekend

This weekend, my guild Bærum Lappelag had a care quilt sew together.
We had so much fun, and many quilts were made. We will see many finishes over the next months, as most people took their tops and sandwiched quilts home to finish them.

You can see more photos from the weekend at the guild’s website, here. Click on the photo in the post, and more photos will appear.

Julie has also posted photos on her blog, here

I demonstrated the 1600” race method, as I have used in the 5 quilt tops above, and Julie demonstrated the Twister ruler.

How to make a 1600” race quilt:

Step 1 – buy a Jelly roll, or make one from your own fabric collection, like I do :-)
You will need approximately 40 strips of fabric full width, 2,5” wide, or if you like me, like to use your scraps in all different lengths, approximately 40 yards of strips.

Step 2 – join all your strips into one looooong strip.

Step 3 – join the 2 ends of the 1600” strip, sew one loooong seam (800”) and cut open the fold at the end of the seam with a pair of scissors.

Next step – do step 3 again and again, until you have a quilt top, 32 strips high.
Nearly there, just one more seam to go!

If you are a more visual learner, watch the process on YouTube here. I was inspired by this video, but I must admit I use more than 45 minutes, since I cut my own strips and like to enjoy my coffee as I piece.
I have timed my process here at home to about 3 hours, pulling fabrics, cutting, sewing and breathing while doing so ;-)

When we have the sew together of care quilts there are usually both fabrics and batting we can use from.
I  use from my own fabrics – care quilts is a good way to reduce my fabric collection and warm someone else, like a pay it forward. I like Paying It Forward!

If we all did acts of kindness,
maybe it would set the world in the right direction.

Hanne