second quilt: Quilts For Kids quilt

The second quilt I made I finished in February of 2012 and was for the organization Quilts For Kids. This is a great organization that supplies quilters with fabric and a pattern and the quilter sends the finished quilt back to their local chapter (or the national headquarters if so desired) for distribution to a children's hospital. You can learn more about Quilts For Kids here. I really wanted to make a quilt for my local Iowa chapter since my niece battled leukemia (& won) a few years ago and I know she would have loved to receive a quilt when she was undergoing treatment. You can read more about my niece's battle here if you so desire. She was treated at the Children's Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska and so I hope to make another QFK quilt for the Nebraska chapter in the future.

The quilt kit I was sent was for a disappearing nine patch. This worked out great because I hadn't made that pattern yet (obviously since it was only my 2nd quilt - haha!). The fabrics were fun to work with because I love batiks and also because orange is the color for leukemia! The focus fabric was a cute dark purple butterfly print, which I was a little sad that I had to cut it into smaller squares for the pattern, but I think it ended up looking really fun! I could see a little girl just like my niece snuggling with this quilt while enduring chemo. Below is a close up picture of the fabrics.

You'll have to forgive the poor photography quality as I took these pictures on my iPhone and obviously no longer have the quilt to take better pictures. I did outline quilting 1/4" away from each seam. I think it gave the quilt a nice drape and left it slightly puffy, which I think a small child would prefer. Below is a picture of the whole quilt. Again, pardon the poor photo.

 

I had a little bit of the butterfly print left over, so I fussy cut around the butterflies and appliqued the squares in the corners of the quilt. I zigzagged around the appliqued squares to stay with the geometric "feel" of this quilt. All of the fabrics are provided by QFK, with the exception of the binding. Some people use left over backing for the binding, but I didn't think that would compliment the purple border very well, so I purchased a dark purple fabric for the binding. I don't know that I love the look of the dark purple binding, but as this was only my second quilt, I tried to not be too hard on myself. ;)

 And lastly a picture of the back of the quilt. This fabric was a purple-blue fabric with more butterflies. Unfortunately I don't have information on any of the fabric as I didn't get any selvedge since the fabric is sent to you "ready to quilt". The selvedges are already cut off and the pieces cut as needed. Of course, it is nice that you can take the fabric out of the package, give it a quick press, and you are ready to sew! This quilt ended up measuring approximately 36" x 44" if I remember correctly.

I also sewed a label onto the lower right hand corner of the back of the quilt. The labels are also provided by QFK in conjunction with Tide's Loads of Hope project. If you haven't heard about that, you can read about it here. I really enjoyed making my second quilt and I hope a little kid is enjoying it right now!