Jennifer of Glinda Quilts did what so many kind hearted quilters do when she came across a charity that struck a chord, she thought what quilty thing can I do to make a difference. This particular  charity welcomes children from parts of Belarus and the Ukraine badly impacted by  the Chernobyl disaster for a months holiday staying with host families across the UK. These children live in an area which suffers ongoing contamination and have to live with the consequences and health risks of that.

Well together with the charity organisers,  Jennifer asked for quilters to help with making tote bags for each child  and a table topper as a gift they can take back to their families. And best of all, other than a few loose guidelines on sizing etc, Jennifer gave us complete creative freedom

I’d like to say signing up to this was a completely  altruistic gesture on my part but of course it wasn’t. These sort of projects fire the imagination, are satisfying, quickish makes and a chance  to play with fabric in ways you haven’t before. I also had as always a load of scraps that I didn’t want to sort into the scrap jars as they are full enough already so the stage was set.

First  off was this denim bag. I was keen to try and recycled fabrics from an old pair of my jeans. With the right needle and Teflon sewing machine foot, sewing with denim was a doddle. It also makes for a robust bag with no need for pesky interfacing which always gets on my iron, just some wadding. I even managed to get my 13 year old daughter to model it for me. Well you didn’t think that super slim body was mine – sadly not!!

I was really pleased with how it turned out. I need another Market Bag from Anna Graham’s Handmade Style book and I think this will be another venture into denim. I’ve wrested off my eldest son an unwanted pair of jeans so watch this space.

Next were two table toppers.

I’ve wanted to have a go at paper pieced curves so drew up the roughest of patterns using the largest mixing bowl I possess and away I went. I’m torn between which is my favourite. This would make a great scrap quilt as my scraps tend to be strips not squares so suited to string style blocks. Easy peasy  quilting and then help from Skye, as she critically reviews my possible binding choices.

Linking up to Nicky and Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday