Dignity Quilt & Jelly Roll Race Variation

This is the Dignity Quilt that my quilt guild - the Crocus Quilters in Dauphin, MB made to donate to our local funeral home.  What is a Dignity Quilt?  The purpose of this quilt is to be used in places like nursing homes, when the deceased makes a public exit leaving the building on the way to the Funeral Home.  The quilt can be used to cover the stretcher, so instead of seeing a body bag being wheeled out, residents and staff can see the stretcher covered in a quilt instead.

We wanted the design to be non-denominational and to reflect our surroundings - fields, lakes and rolling hills.  We found inspiration in the book "Lovely Landscape Quilts" by Cathy Geier.

Guild members were asked to bring in 2" batik fabric strips that we would combine for the project.   Many hand were involved in the donations, cutting, layout, and sewing.  The quilt is about 55"' x 96."

I offered to quilt the final product, and the Zephyr pantograph that to me resembles wind seemed to be the perfect choice.

We didn't want any of the donated strips to go to waste, so  we came up with a creative way to use them up.  A fun variation on a Jelly Roll Race quilt.

Strips of all sizes were sewn together like you would for a jelly roll race quilt.  We don't know exactly how much fabric we started with!  It was ending up to be kind of an odd shape so we got creative.

At this point the top is twice as long as it is wide.  We first cut it in half horizontally.

Then we cut each half on the diagonal.

Rearrange the triangles and Voila!

A border was added to contain all the bias edges before quilting.

I quilted this one with the Plush pantograph.  It will make another great addition to have on hand for our guild's comfort quilt program.  Hopefully there won't be a need for it to be given out too soon.