Monkeyshines
Topic: Quilting
****This is the 50th quilt I have made since starting in September 2010****
Project Linus is a charity that gives handmade blankets to children in need due to illness, catastrophe, trauma, etc., as a source of comfort. These can be knitted, crocheted, quilted or tied fleece and they cover all ages birth to age 18. I had read about it in one of Jennifer Chiaverinni's Elm Creek Quilters novels (The Giving Quilt) and then picked up a book at the library about the organization as well (Quilt it with love : the Project Linus story : 20+ quilt patterns and stories to warm your heart by Mary Balagna). This group immediately came to mind when I was gifted with THIS fabric:
I mean, REALLY? That just screams to be a kid's quilt!
It did take me a long time to come up with an inspiration pattern and companion fabrics, though. The first thing I knew I wanted to do was contain those critters in a frame. I found the perfect stripe for this and knew that I wanted to miter the corners of the frame.
Then I ran across a pattern advertising a new line by Andover Fabrics called Blackbird Acres and knew I had my pattern:
I whittled the layout down to just the center part with no borders and shortened it by one row:
Then I went to Electric Quilt 7 on my computer and re-drafted it to suit the sizes I wanted for the purple blocks because I had in mind to use some other already-cut scraps for those. Once I had it in EQ7 I worked on some color schemes and then it was off to buy fabrics.
I started with some black with colored dots for what is white in the pattern and to use with the purple blocks to create this: (the pinwheel triangles were accidentally cut extra when I made the Four Friends quilt)
Then I needed something to carry the jungle theme while remaining cartoony but more as a support fabric so it wouldn't compete with the monkeys. I found the perfect green print:
So what is the final result?
As you can see, I used the stripe for the binding. The back is red with monkey heads on it in an all-over pattern and multicolored dots in the background.
So there you have "Monkey Shines" my first quilt as a 'blanketeer' for Project Linus and my 50th quilt overall.
Ddd
Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net
at 12:01 AM PDT
Updated: Tuesday, 6 May 2014 2:42 PM PDT