Project Linus Quilts

These are quilts and flannel blankies that went to Project Linus last fall, and the photos have been sitting on my desktop waiting, and waiting, and waiting for me to post them!  

First up, 6 flannel blankies.  Some of these have fun Nemo binding:

A small (approximately 36" square) quilt made with leftovers, tied during our annual Linus work weekend by Sis:

The next four were made with squares leftover from the first grade quilts project.  I gave the kids the squares and let them each design two tops.  They also got to select their border color.  I particularly like the last one, the way the border and the center square on each edge are the same color (and the multi-color binding, which used up a bunch of smaller pieces).  The backs are a square print - we decided it wasn't a great fabric to use on the tops as the squares weren't printed squarely on the grain!

I'm impressed with both the symmetry and creativity they used!  These were also tied at last year's Linus work weekend, by Sis.

Next up is a leftover from a Linus work weekend a couple years ago, also tied by Sis:

This is a cool pattern, but took a LOT of work to make compared to some of our other patterns.  I don't think we would pick the zigzag again for our Linus pattern as it just took too long to get the top together.

Each year, Mom and I assemble several tops over the Linus weekend, and Sis ties.  She ties so much faster than we assemble that I have to bring several tops that are already made just to keep her busy while we get the first top done.  This works well, because I can use up some stash, and she ties them (which I dislike doing) and we all get to hang out together!

We sort of alternate between boy and girl themed quilts, partly depending on what fabrics we find each year that we like.  Last summer, we made boy themed quilts using some of the leopard fabrics I'd gotten for the school quilt (here).  These came out to about 40" x 56", hopefully just right for a little older boy.

Each of the 4 is slightly different - can you spot what makes each one unique?

And all four together (please excuse the shoes, and the rather crumpled top):

A nice compliment - when I dropped these off at the Linus office near my parents and Sis, they gave me a tour of their (terrific) facility.  Before I left, they already had tags on these four and were loading them on some rather empty older boy shelves.  Seeing what they had in stock, I know that any future purchases should lean towards older kids and slightly larger quilts - but given what I already have in stock, and some of what is fun, that won't be the only thing I'll be making!