Divestiture 1

My local fiber and textile art group does a community service project every year or so in which we make art for some worthwhile agency to decorate its premises.  We have work hanging in a cancer hospital, a forest/nature preserve, a substance abuse treatment center, a hospice and a children's home.  This year we're working with an agency that helps abused children with medical and psychological care and with a facility where children can be interviewed by one person on videotape and then not have to testify and be cross-examined in a courtroom.

The agency has just moved to a new home, with lots of long, long walls totally devoid of artwork.  In fact, their recent accreditation hinged on the promise that we were going to provide plenty of art.  In addition to making the place look more friendly, the staff will use the artwork as a fast way to build rapport with children as they are escorted to the treatment and interview rooms, and to quickly gauge their verbal and emotional states in advance of the actual encounter.

Many of our members did artwork onto canvases, which were provided in two sizes, but anybody with larger works to donate was welcome to do so.  I took the opportunity to go through my piles and piles of old quilts and was able to come up with a baker's dozen that I was willing to part with.

First, I found a stack of little quilts from 2001 and 2002 that don't say anything and don't go with one another, even though they're all exactly the same size, 15 1/2 inches finished.  I seem to recall that the plan was to make a sort of sampler quilt, in which they would be individually quilted, but then sashed together.  I was using bits and pieces from scrap bags, leftovers and wherever, so there was no coherence.  Fortunately I abandoned the idea of putting them together, and put bindings and sleeves on each one.  Whereupon they have sat in a box for more than a decade doing nothing.  I think they'll look fine in the children's facility.

Here are two based on Margaret Miller's great quilt recipe, "Strips That Sizzle."

Here are two where I was experimenting with strip piecing, then cutting the strips sets on the diagonal and re-piecing.

More strip-piecing-then-cutting-again, and leftovers from a baby quilt.

Here are two very traditional patterns.  One block is about as long as I can work with a traditional pattern before getting bored and mixing it up somehow.

I'll show you more of  my donations in a subsequent post.