From the Sewing Room – Project 70273 and a Destash Challenge

Second month into 2108, and I’m still committed to destashing some of my fabrics. 🙂 It definitely helps to have a little motivation from Megan at C’mon Get Crafty and her Monthly Destash Challenge.  In fact, my destashing has become even more important, now that I have had a significant influx of fabrics from Island Batik. If you missed the opening of my first Ambassador box yesterday, you might want to take a squiz. I am over the moon with the collection of quilting supplies they sent me to play with!

Anyway, back to the destashing….. For last month’s challenge I used up most of my red fabric scraps making appliqué hearts. I also made a quilt top for these hearts to go onto, all out of stash. So I have actually used a measurable amount of stash so far. Great!

The hearts quilt project is on the backburner for now, but I must admit, I am very pleased with it. I expect I will progress it along again soon. However, for this month’s destash I am showing you something different. A much smaller project that is also part of a much bigger project – one that you might like to think about getting involved with too. 

Project 70273

Project 70273 is a huge undertaking started and managed by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers. You can read all about it on Jeanne’s Project 70273 site here. In summary, Jeanne’s aim is to create a collection of quilts that will collectively display 70,273 pairs of red crosses. The reason for this is that in 1940 and 1941, 70,273 mentally and physically disabled people were murdered by the Nazis simply because they were an unwanted burden. If two doctors placed a red cross on a person’s medical record (without ever even having seen the person), that was their death sentence. To commemorate all of these people who were so callously disposed of, Jeanne is collating a collection of quilts covered in pairs of red crosses. For each person killed, there will be one pair of red crosses.

How to participate

The quilts that Jeanne is collecting vary in size from postcard to huge. Anyone can participate by making single blocks, participating in the construction of quilts from those blocks or by making whole quilts.  I have chosen to participate by making a fat quarter sized quilt – which Jeanne calls a middling. My motivation is simple and not particularly attached to this one cause…. It’s more that I believe that collectively us humans should never forget past atrocities. To forget is to invite such things to eventually happen again.  So here I am, in a very small way, helping society remember. You can find out everything you need to know about Project 70273 here and you can request to join their facebook page here.

My 70273 Project project

The main guidelines for making a 70273 Project block or quilt are: a white or off-white background with pairs of red crosses. Middlings can have their pairs of crosses arranged in secondary designs if you wish but no words or numbers except 70273. I decided to design my middling out of scraps….. white strips left over from my Regatta quilt and red scraps left over from the heart appliqués from last month’s destashing exercise.

If you have ever thought you might like to do some art quilting, this is a great small project to start with. Simple in that you only have to make pairs of red crosses. But also plenty of scope to play because you can arrange your pairs of crosses however you like. You can make your crosses from whatever you like: using piecing, appliqué, embroidery, embellishment, paint, crayon…… whatever you can think of and have at hand. People have also been very creative in their choice of background…. wedding dresses, vintage embroideries, textured fabrics, old clean sheets….. There is a ton of scope for you here, as long as you stick to white. Check out the guidelines for middlings before you start and art-quilt away!

If you would like to make a similar project to my Project 70273 middling, this is how to do it:

1. Prepare a background

I sewed my leftover 2.5″ white strips into a fat quarter-sized background. I had the strips go horizontally….. like lines on a page of a medical record.

2. Add some batting

I layered my background sewing over some pre-quilted polyester that I had in my craft room. Uninspiring stuff. I guess I was given this before I was seriously into quilting. Probably from someone who also got it before they got a taste for good batting. I don’t remember.

Anyway, it is cot-sized, so big enough to “seem useful”. So, I have never quite been able to ditch it, even though I would never use it for a baby quilt. So this project was a great opportunity to use some of it. It actually stitched up really well, so I will be using the rest of it on another wall quilt sometime soon. Definitely a destash win!

Create a design from pairs of red crosses

I used my scrappy red heart scraps to create pairs of crosses on my middling quilt.

For my design, I chose to represent life through the shape of an ECG trace of normal heartbeats. And to represent the lives cut short by the flatline that follows.

Then to  illustrate that the story doesn’t end there, after a time, the crosses return. While we cannot give people back their lives, we can give them a voice. A voice that won’t be silenced, but instead steadily becomes louder and bigger and stronger. A voice to protect the future.

Stitch the design onto the background and batting

I traced the ECG lines onto grease-proof paper (or you could use tracing paper or quilters’ paper) and pinned this over my white background fabric.   

Then I stitched over the ECG lines and carefully tore away the paper.

Secure the red crosses to the quilt

Then I added the crosses. These quilts are for display purposes only, so they don’t have to be constructed to withstand constant use or washing. So, I secured my crosses to the quilt with freemotion stitching and left the untidy raw edges for all to see. A nod to the cold-blooded, definitely unpretty way by which so many people’s fates were decided.

I don’t want this quilt to be perfect and pretty, although making it this way does mess with my perfectionist quilter nature a little! It’s probably good for me.

Here’s all my crosses stitched on:

Finish the edges and the back of the quilt by Bagging Out

I seized another opportunity with this project – I have wanted to try bagging out a quilt for a while. Bagging out is a means of finishing a quilt without binding.

To do this, first attach the batting to the front of the quilt without a backing (which I did when I sewed all the crosses down). Then, lay the front and of the quilt onto the backing, right-sides together. Sew a quarter-inch seam around the edge, leaving a small gap in the seam to allow you to turn the quilt out the right way.

Clip the corners to reduce bulk and turn the quilt out the right way. Press the corners and edges flat and ladder stitch the opening closed by hand.

Top stitch around the edge of the quilt. Then add any further quilting desired. I did a small stipple in every second section to give the piece some texture.

I also added a few more small crosses with some simple hand embroidery. And  that’s it, finished.  Of course, this sequence works for any small wall quilt that you care to make, not just middlings for the 70273 Project.

Now all I need to do is get this quilt labelled, attach a hanging sleeve and send it to Jeanne. Perhaps you have a heart to commemorate a few of these victims too, and put some scraps to good use? Time to wander over to the Project 70273 site then.

Or perhaps you have other projects you’d like to share to help us all decrease the size of our craft room stashes. In that case, why not…..

Join us in Destashing your Craft Room!

Every month a group of bloggers are challenged by C’mon Get Crafty to create a new craft or project from their own stash of goodies! Check out some awesome creations you might be able to make from your own stash! 

If you’d like to join in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge, you can request to join our Facebook group here!

And don’t forget to have a look at what everyone else has made! Perhaps there is the perfect project here for you to use up some stash…..

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