Quilt for CASA - 2014

This is a story about building a quilt with a theme. It is a year late in documenting but I just felt I needed to do this so that I could remember all the fun I had with this project.

One of my good friends, Jocelyn Bowie, asked if I would be interested in making a quilt to be used in a raffle by CASA (Monroe County Court Appointed Special Advocates).  The group had for years held a raffle for a wonderful playhouse that was built by the firemen in town.  The board of CASA decided to try something new.  The goal for fund raising was $5,000 and I said I would give it a try.

Picking out the right fabrics.

One-inch wide strips cut and ready to sew.

So the next step was to choose a design that would reflect a home theme, like the playhouse.  Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts is one of my very favorite designers and I found the Farmhouse Quilt in her Friendship, Strips & Scraps book.

Then I got to pull all the scrappy fabrics I could find in my fabric resource center (also know as a "stash") that would work for the Neighborhood.  The farmhouse are made with 1-inch strips with doors and windows appliqued in place.  The AccuQuilt die cutter comes in very handy to cut a gazillion 1-inch strips.  The quilt designed by Edyta was not quite big enough so plans were drafted to add another row (street) of houses and a cobblestone border of log cabin blocks to make it work on a queen bed.

Houses for the Neighborhood.

Around each of the houses were garden blocks.  I wanted this to be a very special quilt, so decided to hand applique the gardens.  There were cherry, apple and pear trees with some little birds perched on the branches.  I like to do my applique using freezer paper for the shapes and starch to fold the edges over the shapes until the pieces are ready to be sewn down.  Below is a picture of the tools I use, including the very important cup of coffee!

Tools of the trade for preparing
 pieces for hand applique.

Once all the pieces are prepared, it is time to "plant" the gardens.  The family took a trip to Hilton Head over Spring Break last year and I took all the hand applique blocks with me.  It was a fun project to work on.

All the parts and pieces for the gardens
 in the Neighborhood.

Once the applique was done, it was time to put the houses and gardens together.  Best part of this garden is the center block that has the little bird who just ate the cherry from the branch above him.  Such incredible imagination Edyta has!

I absolutely love log cabin blocks in quilts.  Any time I can add log cabins to a quilt, it happens!  Since this quilt needed to be bigger than the original design, I decided to add three rows of color coded blocks.  They looked like cobblestones to me so I imagined that I was building a little road of cobblestones around my Neighborhood.

Cobblestones

Pieces of cobblestone log
cabin blocks

The theme for the CASA fund raising is "Safe Homes, Safe Kids."  As I was building my Neighborhood, I imagined this as a safe and wonderful place for families and children.  Quilts represent comfort and warmth and security to me.  It just seemed so appropriate for the CASA cause.

Back of the Neighborhood

The back of this quilt took on its own life.  I did not like the backing I bought for the quilt so decided to see if I could get creative with the back.  There were a lot of red triangles left from the first border and I had lots of fabric left to cut up.  The back became a quilt by itself by the time it was finished.  A giant farmhouse is centered on the back with a border of red triangles and floral fabric that just seemed right.  In the windows of the giant house, I embroidered the words, "Safe Homes" and "Safe Kids".  

When all was finished, we had the quilt appraised.  Caryl Schuetz did the appraisal and it came it at a whopping $3,400 replacement value!!  Wow!!  Tickets went on sale late May and the drawing for the quilt was held November 1, 2014.  I got to pull the winning ticket and, wonder of wonder, who should win this quilt made with so much love but my very own Sista Karen Buckley in Sacramento, CA!!!  I could not have been more thrilled!  And..... CASA raised almost $5,000 selling raffle tickets for it!!  It does not get much better!

Here it is on my bed just before I mailed it off to her.  The end of April I will be visiting Karen in Orangevale and hopefully will get to sleep under this beautiful quilt.  

Here we are in 2015 and I am making another quilt for the CASA fund raiser.  More about that later.....