#opgivewarmth: Quilts for Children in Foster Care

Not long ago I met Sarah of {no} hats in the house when she gave a little lesson on foundation paper piecing to the Indy Modern Quilt Guild.  I like her style.  When I was dragging my feet on joining the Forest QAL (quilt-along), she actually did it, and her finished quilt is amazing.  (I never joined, and so far I've only made the fox block from the QAL - I'll share it here soon.)

At the meeting, Sarah shared a new collaborative project she was just starting to pull together, #opgivewarmth.  You can read more about it here; the goal of the project is to make/collect quilt blocks that will become quilts for children in the foster care system in Indiana as part of the larger non-profit program My Very Own Blanket.  I've lived in Indianapolis for over 11 years, and I like the idea of doing something with a local benefit.  And although I don't have any personal ties to the foster system, my niece was adopted from an orphanage in Russia, so the idea of children not having much (or anything) of their own strikes a chord.  It's the very least I can do to play with fabric, sew up some blocks, and help turn them into quilts to comfort kids in tough situations.

Each month Sarah is posting a color palette to use as a jumping off point for creating blocks. 

Here are the two blocks I made using templates from Vintage Quilt Revival, an awesome quilting book that my sweet sister Emily sent me for my birthday.  The book is a collaboration by Katie Clark Blakesley of Swim Bike Quilt, Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced, and Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts.  Both of the blocks I made are Faith's designs.

exploding star block

tilted star block

Both blocks are 12.5" unfinished.  I think they turned out well and are a pretty close match for the chosen color palette.  I used fabrics from my stash and only purchased the sandy colored neutral.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Sarah chooses for May!