Hands2Help Check In #1: Fern

Once again this year, I committed to making two quilts for H2H at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I'm happy to announce that one is complete and that I've made a third commitment! This completed quilt is on my Q2FAL List. Oh! I actually am ecstatic that I won a prize in Q1! I've been part of the FAL since January 2015, and have never won anything, so when I found out I won a $50 gift certificate to Mad About Patchwork, I might've said 'Oh YAY!!' aloud. Too funny: last year this great little shop curated a beautiful kit for the Plus Playtime QAL, as well as offered a prize, both unsolicited, so kind of them, and this year they are once again offering a prize! I love small quilt shops, and try to support them as much as I can. This Wednesday the cutting instructions come out for this year's QAL, Beothuk Star. 😊
Anyhow, back to the subject of the post:

Sorry for not the greatest photo, but it has poured all day.
The first Rockin' Rectangles tutorial grabbed my attention: so simple, so effective. I bookmarked it. Probably that day or the day after, I spied a charm pack of Fossil Fern by Benartex flannels I'd bought a couple of years ago at Connecting Threads. I grabbed them and sliced them in half... and then knew I needed to go shopping for a light flannel for the background. The one I had here was too gold in tone.

Then, Bernie of Needle & Foot Fine Fabrics (no affiliation, another great little shop though!) saw my comment on someone's blog to that effect, and contacted me, saying she had some flannel that might fit the bill. Yep, it was good, and so I bought enough for this quilt and enough for the backing of quilt #2.
It didn't take long before I had a flimsy on my formerly naked design wall, as I'd said on an Instagram post. Having a bad chest and sore throat that's turned into laryngitis this weekend meant I wanted something uncomplicated and gratifying to just sit and quietly sew.

This quilt is destined for the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre, a cause for which I have made quilts for the past three years now. I specify that they go to a child, and I make them girl or boy appropriate. This one is for a girl. The charm pack had 42 squares, which gave 84 rectangles, so I needed more, as I was making this four columns wide by 28 rectangles long. I looked through my scraps of flannel for those that would tone in. The pink polka-dots was perfect, though very little left; the mottled navy also worked well, but very little, and so I used the green floral, which was good tone-wise but not motif-wise. But I wanted to make do and make it kind of homey you know? Adding a strip (yes! I had to piece it but it's good) of the floral helped tie them in and then I used a brushed cotton in the green and pink plaid for the other two columns.

I make them as lap quilts, as the kids will hold onto them as they meet with their counsellor, and they get to keep their quilt. This is why I made mine smaller than Sarah's pattern. I kept the quilting simple as I didn't want to stand for long with not feeling the greatest, and I wanted a fast finish. Wavy lines it was, but of course, I had to add a little pizzazz, with some random rows of pebbles...

and then quilting loving and positive thoughts into the quilt:

"you are beautiful"

a couple of others along with my initials:

"love" and "smile"

I quilted love in a couple of places and heal and hugs. You can see my mmm! quilts label in that photo as well as the scrappy binding which was virtually ready to be pieced together, as I've started a baggie of the ends for RSC or scrappy quilts! I simply added a couple of strips, one left from  the 1920s ladies after trimming the quilt after quilting, and two pieces of the pink and green floral.

I wanted a light and soft backing, and somehow these two came together, both feminine, both from stash, Liberty Print (it's lawn I believe, very lightweight, so pretty) from a friend from a couple of years ago, the Hoffman International from forever ago:

The Hoffman is 1920s ladies

It washed up beautifully! It was so soft beforehand and is even more so now. I've named it Fern, as that is such a pretty girl's name, and well the original charm pack is Fossil Fern!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: 'Place Your Bet' by Sarah Craig of Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Size: 44.5 X 55" after quilting and washing
Fabric: Benartex Fossil Ferns flannel charm pack; P&B Textiles 'Moose Meadows' flannel
Backing: from stash: Hoffman International and Liberty of Japan
Batting: left over Nature's Touch? and some left over Warm 'n Natural

Quilted: on Avril my Avanté: 32 346 stitches
Threads: pieced on Billie, my 1947 Featherweight; quilted with Essential 100% cotton 50 wt cream top and in the bobbin. Binding pieced and applied by machine on my Bernina with Mettler 100% cotton.

After reading Leanne's post at Devoted Quilter where she is donating a top she made for the March Island Batik challenge to Victoria's Quilts Canada, which is one of the causes, a Canadian one, for this year's comfort quilts, I thought hmm! I have one top from last year's twelve challenges that is still not quilted; it is pretty much exactly the size they're looking for, so why not donate it?

So now I just have one complete quilt to make, a boy-themed one.

Linking up
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Cooking Up Quilts
Dizzy Quilts for the Q2 FAL