Marcy's Quintet, Kaleidoscope, and Jesus Loves Me Quilts

In mid-November, I finished three baby doll quilts for Operation Christmas Child. I get so much pleasure out of making these, imagining the little girls who will receive them and pretend to be mommies. 

This first one of five butterflies I have named Marcy's Quintet.  My husband is one of five kids (all boys) and their mother's name was Marcella. People close to her called her Marcy.

One night I just wanted to sew mindlessly for the thrill of the humming machine. No pattern, I started sewing brightly colored strips together. I used the popsicle fabric colors as a color palette. Once I finished making five random sets, it was time to make a template. Sure, I could've used the internet to download an image, but I can draw--or so I thought. I wasn't getting the look I wanted. So what do I do when I'm stuck? I call one of my resident artists.

 My son free-handed a butterfly template for me. He's so funny; it took him five seconds to draw one and then he tossed the pencil down and said, "Bam! Done!" 

 I machine appliqued the butterflies onto a blue-sky fabric background. I used echoing for the quilting with a few random hearts in the blank areas. I didn't want the quilting too dense because that will stiffen the quilt. Puffy and fluffy is how I like them. 

The second one, a bit smaller, is simply called "Jesus Loves Me."  Though the smallest, 

it gave me the most problems. I don't remember all of them, but the plaid fabric kept wanting to stretch, and I couldn't find a backing I loved. Yes, I know it's "just a doll quilt" and shouldn't matter, but it does. Every design decision is important to me. 

While trying to decide, I happened to see a contest on a quilting forum. 

The lady was giving away fabric bundles from her stash,  under one condition: that you really wanted or needed the fabric and would pay it forward. If your name was picked, it was yours. I took one look at the butterfly fabric with all the same colors as the front of the Jesus Love Me quilt, and entered my name. Winning was such a thrill! To have 

an immediate place to "pay it forward" felt like  a God thing. 

To quilt it, I did some meandering and also FMQ'ed (free motion quilted) some 

daisies . Far from perfect, but that's the point of these little quilts. They are my 

practice fields.

This string quilt was a lot of fun to make. But when it was finished, I had a hard time thinking of a name. Normally that's the easy part. So I posted it on Facebook and immediately had

several people say "Kaleidoscope." So, that's what it is.  I  did more meandering for this one .

                         I used a longish strip and made a label which I sewed into the binding.
                                         John 3:16 is the reference I always include on my labels.

 Ultimately the doll quilts went into shoeboxes as gifts through Operation Christmas Child. I bought Hispanic baby dolls from Discount School Supply.

Since I used the "track it" option with Samaritan's Purse, I'll be able to see where these three boxes end up. I can hardly wait.