In June, my quilt guild (Houston MQG) challenged us to make charity quilts for a chance to win some pretty cool prizes. The main one being a Daylight Slimline lamp! I have one of the Daylight Luminos lamps and it has been lighting up my space for 5+ years now. The chance to add another Daylight to my workspace, as well as the opportunity to make more charity projects is a win win in my book.
3 Yard Quilts
Thanks to a donation from High Fashion Fabrics, our charity team was able to put together a bunch of bundles to make 3 Yard Quilts. Now I had never heard of a 3 Yard Quilt before, so a quick Google later and I discovered what they’re all about.
So what is a 3 Yard Quilt? The idea come from Fabric Café, a quilting business founded by the mother daughter team, Donna Robertson and Fran Morgan. In an effort to sell three coordinating fabric bundles, they designed a 3 Yard Quilt patterns. These patterns and bundles quickly became the top selling items for Fabric Café.
The idea took off, and these days you can find a wealth of 3 Yard Quilt patterns across blogs, Pinterest, and YouTube. Below I go through the four patterns I used to make they charity quilts I donated to HMQG.
Charity Quilt 1
The first quilt I made used the pattern Pretty Please by Donna Robertson. As of today, August 18th 2024, it is being offered as one of their free patterns of the month. Of the four patterns I made, this one came together the slowest. In addition, it is also the biggest at 44.5″ x 59.5″ in size.
With the quilting I kept things very simple. These quilts will go to Project Linus, and because of that I keep quilting less dense. That way it will retain a soft and fluffy texture for the kiddo that receives it.
Charity Quilts 2 & 3
The next two quilts I made feature 3 Yard Quilt patterns from Wood Valley Designs. Pink Picture Frame is a 44″ x 53″ quilt that features multiple borders around a center focus fabric. This would be a good pattern to use if you have a fabric with a small panel.
A had a piece of Strawberry Shortcake fleece hanging out in my stash, and it ended up being the perfect backing for this quilt. This quilt doesn’t have a traditional grid, due to that I did a simple serpentine stitch down the quilt.
The second Wood Valley Quilt pattern I used is the Criss Cross 3 Yard Quilt. This quilt finished at 41″ x 52″ which makes it the smallest quilt of the four. Even though it’s the smallest, it did take a bit longer to make. I changed the pattern and strip pieced the units rather than cutting them individually like the pattern calls for.
Charity Quilt 4
Finally, the fourth quilt I made used a Villa Rosa Designs pattern called Baby Goose which finished at 42″ x 58″. This quilt has the absolute minimum amount of piecing, and because of that it came together the fastest. The geese in the quilt are half square triangles, which in my opinion are faster to make than flying geese.
For this quilt I used a scrap of high loft polyester batting that I had on hand and I love the fluffiness of it. I know some of the quilt police are not fans of poly batting, but I find the fluff it gives great for baby quilts. Since this quilt features classic cars at the beach, I did the quilting in waves across the quilt. I’ve never used this quilting motif before and I definitely want to try it again.
Charity Quilts Final Review
Well spoiler alert… I did not win one of the Daylight lamps but honestly that was just an extra bonus in making these quilts. I’ve seen firsthand the comfort and joy a quilt can bring, and being able to provide this to someone in need was my main motivator for making these quilts.
Overall Houston MQG members made a total of 56 quilts! If you’re looking for a quilt pattern to make for charity, definitely check out the ones I linked above. Plus you can grab my 3 Hour Quilt tutorial which would be another great make for a charity quilt.
