Mercy Quilt

My sister recently has affiliated as a volunteer with the local hospice, and mentioned that there is a need for quilts of all sizes for the patients.  I posted earlier about a very, very sad need for tiny quilts for neonates, and made a handful of them last month.  I decided that for the summer, I would have a personal goal of making one hospice quilt per month, of any size.

I need to say that sometimes when I see what people call "charity quilts," I am disappointed in them.  Sometimes they look as though the maker just threw together whatever fabrics were around.  I understand this in situations such as Lutheran World Relief where the quilts aren't used as coverings but rather to create makeshift "walls" in refugee camps.  So I'm thinking that the quilts that we make with particular care and with pride, quilts to give away to folks we don't know who need them, these might be "mercy quilts," rather than "charity quilts."  At least in my garbled mind, there is a difference.

Yesterday afternoon when I was looking for something else (that I still haven't found), I came across a large bag of 9" finished CW CDs on muslin -- I remember when we did that swap and I had something in mind at the time.  Whatever that was is long gone.  There was a kind of masculine look to most of the blocks, just perfect, I thought for a hospice quilt for a man.  I had a jar of 2.5" CW strips from another swap (why do I feel compelled to get into these myriad swaps?) (rhetorical question) and started cutting sashing strips from them and from some muslin left over from a recent backing, got the cornerstones.  I have a bolt of extra-wide muslin that I bought for backs, and will get this all pin-basted together and then I'll begin tying it.  There might be a half-yard piece of brown CW that I could use for binding, but if not, I think scrappy would be just fine.

This is a quilt I'd comfortably give to one of my sons if he needed a quilt.

I believe there are enough pastel CDs left to yield a baby quilt next month.