It got so cold here in Texas this week that entire electrical grid failed, which led to city water supply failing. Which led to two days without power or water. Houses in Texas are built to stay cool – it never really gets or stays truly cold. But it gets over 100 degrees F every summer, so we need breezeways and open spaces so the heat can rise and escape, which it did rapidly as our temperatures dropped inside after hours without power. This led to cooking what was thawing in the powerless freezer outside over a fire, keeping a pot out there constantly full of what water we had previously collected when we heard the water system might fail, and just trying to stay warm. What I realized as a maker was that I had NOT made enough bedding. We don’t camp, so we don’t have sleeping bags like others might. Everyone has a comforter and a few little decorative blankets, but they aren’t real blankets. Primarily cotton or single layer fleece blankets – more for fun and snuggling than much else!
Well, a mom who’s a maker has to fix that pronto. While I had light, i sandwiched a few quilt tops that were pieced and ready, prepped bindings for a blanket and a whole-cloth quilt that was ready for quilting, and double checked that everything would be ready to stitch as soon as power was restored and food and other nutritional necessities were consumed by everyone. And then I started working through my stack. I went easiest to hardest, or so I thought.
The first blanket I put together was a simple “stitch and flip” style strip quilt made from Luxe Cuddle with a printed cuddle focal strip. You start with laying down the backing, then the batting, and then you add the strips for the accents on the front one at a time from the middle section out.
You can see here that I used wide strips of coordinating fabrics. These were part of a “Sweet Strips” set in the Lagoon colorway. I used all the strips except for a light aqua strip, which I’ll use for another project. And I added a smaller strip of another lighter Luxe Cuddle to the top edge for balance. The binding was the last darker strip from the sweet strips pack that I had cut into 1.75” strips and pieced together.
After it was done it was claimed by a kid right away. And a cat, who often sneaks her way onto whatever project I’m doing with minky.
I’ll talk about the others in a different post. Putting fabric into service for comforting use is definitely a worthwhile project.
whole:cloth 