Quilts from the Ashes

The Thomas Fire in Ventura County, California started December 4th. Within 24 hours, my husband's cousin and her boyfriend lost their home to the fire. The fire quickly spread to become the largest fire in the state's history (and is still burning 28 days later!). A week after the fire started, the Ventura Modern Quilt Guild put out a call for quilts and quilt blocks for victims of the fire. I knew immediately what I needed to do.

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Scott Griffin, the Vice President of the Ventura MQG, designed the Perkiomen Valley quilt block for use in the "quilts from the ashes." Super Buzzy, a quilt shop in Ventura, is spearheading the efforts of collecting the quilts and blocks. They recommended a 6x7 layout of the 12" blocks to make 72" x 84" quilts. (If you would like to help, read more here.)

Image courtesy of The Modern Quilt Guild

I dug through my scraps and chose the four colors I had the most of - aqua, blue, orange, and purple. I initially thought I would have enough aqua to use in both of the quilts, but soon realized I barely had enough for one!

I used every scrap of those four colors that I had. I went through my entire stash trying to find more purple, finally finding *just* enough.

Each quilt needed "dark" and "light" fabrics, so purple and blue became the darks and orange and aqua became the lights. I decided on blue/orange and purple/aqua combos. I had much reservation about using the blue/orange combo. I'm still unsure about it. I love the colors together, but it may be too literal of fire and water for someone who lost their home in a fire. The colors are often associated with a particular sports team too, so that quilt to me is a little risky on whether the recipient will like it. But I just don't have enough of any other color to use!

Once all the squares were cut, I made the HSTs first. Each quilt needed 84 - so 168 total!

I assembled each block one at a time in order to try and prevent repeated fabrics within each block.

I assembled the tops by pulling blocks randomly out of the pile. It became near impossible to keep the same fabrics from being too close to each other. I decided that finished was better than my illusion of perfect, and whether the same fabrics were next to each other or not really wasn't that important.

Once the tops were assembled, my husband went on a fabric run for me to the local quilt shop to buy wide backing fabric (he's the best!). The only decent choice was a mottled gray, so both quilts got the same back.

I pin basted the orange and blue one first. I used the very last of my 80/20 roll of batting from The Warm Co. Between cleaning off the dining room table, ironing the backing fabric and top, and basting, it took right at two hours.

For quilting, I decided to use Aurifil 50wt Medium Blue #2735 on the blue halves of the blocks and Aurifil 50wt Orange #2235 on the orange half of the blocks.

I quilted a medium sized stipple/meander first on the blue halves, then the orange.

Once finished, the stipple covers the entire surface, creating an illusion that it was quilted all at once.

After cutting all my scraps into squares, I had no yardage left for binding. From the leftover scraps, I was able to cut 2 1/4" strips of several different fabrics to create a scrappy binding.

The orange/blue quilt was finished December 30th - my 51st quilt finish for 2017!

I immediately began pin basting the purple aqua quilt. I really wanted 52 quilt finishes for the year!

Starting the evening of the 31st, I begin quilting using the same stipple/meander design, but this time using Aurifil 50wt Medium Lavender #2540 on the purple halves of the blocks and Aurifil 50wt Light Jade #1148 on the aqua halves.

Once quilted, I used a purple batik fabric from Jo-Ann's to make 2 1/4" binding strips, then machine stitched it on.

The final stitch was at 11:30pm - my 52nd quilt finish for the year! (See all my quilty finishes here.)

I am quite shocked that I was able to make so many quilts for the year, but I am even more satisfied that the final two were quilts for others.

I will add labels to the quilts and get them in the mail this week. I pray they will be a blessing to my husband's cousin and her boyfriend as they start the new year.

This is the first time I've ever taken photos on the ice of our pond! We've never had ice thick enough to even attempt it. It was -5 degrees at breakfast this morning, and the ice is at least 6" thick. I'm not brave enough (or maybe stupid enough) to attempt ice skating, but quilt photos near the shore worked well!

Linking up to Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts, Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter, Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication, Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation, TGIFF at Anja Quilts, Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Friday Foto Fun at Powered by Quilting, Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and Scrap Quilt Challenge at Persimon Dreams.

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