Allie's in Stitches: Quilt for Oso: Layers of Hope 9/11

I've spent the last 5 days making a bed quilt to be donated to someone needing comfort and support--and warmth--in the community hit by the mudslide in Northern Washington state. I'm just calling it the Oso quilt.

It went together very quickly...it helps when you've got a stash of vintage blocks to put to work. Another speedy technique is to quilt it right onto polar fleece...you get a cozy quilt, and it is much simpler when there are not those two layers to keep from wrinkling as you sew. There is much less basting involved.
I got my fleece at my local discount store for ten dollars: a good price for what is essentially both backing and batting.

The blocks are to the right; the fabrics I pulled are to the left. This quilt came entirely from my stash.

The first thing I did was lay the blocks out on the fleece, up on the design wall. The small blocks are the "Crown and Thorns" pattern.

To cut my long sashing strips, I used my new Quilt Cut 2, by Alto's.

It's a very neat system.

It holds the fabric layers securely and you can set the ruler to any angle. (This is 90 degrees.) I went through design school using a T square, so this comes very naturally to me and it was fun, too.

I hung my strips between the rows of blocks. I liked the look, so sewed them up and then made the sashing strips between the small blocks.

Do you notice that small strip of white along the bottom of the right hand block? I had to do a little fudging to get them to fit...

As always, quilting was a dream on my HandiQuilter Sweet 16. And see the trim I had appliqued onto the big blocks in the center row? That was fun...

I reused the binding that was on the fleece blanket to make my smaller quilt binding.