Quilts for Project Linus
 

I've decide to make about a dozen baby quilts for Project Linus to be donated. Of course I wanted to use nice panels and add borders and pieced blocks to them and then hopefully backing from my stash. An additional plus is that they are small projects to practice FMQ on. When searching on line for panels, so many listed were 20 to 30 years old....a heck of a lot of Teddy Bears!! Searched Missouri Star, Thousands of Bolts, Marshal Dry Goods, E-Bay and Etsy plus a few more. Managed to find a few panels for little boys with space ships, hero's (firemen and policemen), some under water scene's and a Mermaid panel for girls. The really adorable one's were from England and Australia, but were so expensive and would take over a month to get through the mail.....didn't order those.
So where do you buy your panels at that are reasonably priced? Or do you make pieced tops for baby gift donations?

There are lots of adorable prints that can be used as panels. Some so cute they are hard to cut up so this is what I use. This also allows you to make the quilt a size that works for you for adding borders, etc.

Local quilt shop has a lot. Quilting etc in Yorkville, Illinois. I think you can reach her at Quiltingetc.com. I know she sells on line. I am just a customer there but if you go there tell her Sharon sent you. I want her to succeed. Before she opened it was impossible to find a spool of thread in this town!��

I've bought panels from eQuilter. Not sure if there are many for children. Worth a look-see. Just type 'panels' in the
search bar.
https://www.equilter.com/

Try quiltgirls.com. They carry a lot of panels

Panels are common at garage and estate sales. People think they are cute when they see them originally and then never get around to sewing them.

Ebay is another good source -- sometimes sold in lots.

I agree that they are perfect for Project Linus quilts, and we see a lot of them come in at our chapter.

Fabric.com, BearPaw quilt company, fabric depot, fat quarter shop, Hancock’s
pare ones I’ve purchased panels from, and of course my local quilt shop who always has the newest kids collection

I've found Elizabeth's Studio does some good panels. They are sold lots of places. It's kind of hard to look at them on the site, as there is no way to isolate panels from the rest of the fabric line. You can google Elizabethsstudio panels and get some hits on several sites that carry them. There are pages and pages of panels on Amazon.com and also on fabric.com.

Don't overlook using the fabric books as a basis for a child's quilt. They make darling quilts. You just have to sash the pages.

bkay

Here you go. Lots of panels for children. Excellent prices -$5 shipping. I haven't ordered from here yet, so I can't speak to the quality, but if the 'regular' price is valid, then it should be decent fabric.
https://www.quiltedtwins.com/panels

Another suggestion - I Spy quilts. There are some great designs and child friendly quilts based on the travel game, "I spy with my little eye a______". Trading the charms is interesting. There are several venues for trading the charms, including one on the quilting board. We just completed a swap a couple of weeks ago. RBWiese hosts the swaps.

I contributed 8 sets of ten different fabric charms and received back 80 (mostly) different fabric charms. I've participated in swaps of ABC fabrics, which you not only play "I spy", but you also play "find the charm that starts with Y". On the yahoo group, we just did a swap where you sent in matching sets. On that one, you have two charms that picture a particular object. An example is penguins on icebergs and penguins singing. The child has to find the matching ones. Some were the same image in two colors.

Just google I spy quilts, and you will get some great samples.

bkay

You might search for Eric Carlyle if you are shopping online. I recently found two of these on sale at a LQS with some of the coordinating fabrics. Eric Carlyle, name may be misspelled, is the author of the Hungry Caterpillar, etc, books. One that I found is the Angry Ladybug. Very cute fabric line. Just thought it might help you to have a specific name to do your search.

Wanted to add that I liked using panel quilts when I was learning FMQ. Fast to put together and nice to donate.

I have gotten some from Marshall Dry goods. I do Quilts For Kids and I so often just use my left over scraps to make scrappy quilts.. they turn out nice and I use up scraps :)

I make quilts for babies and children all the time. Sometimes a use a panel, but most of the time I use scraps. It's also great to find the kids print fabric. Sometimes I fussy-cut and applique. The ideas are endless and each one is an original. They are great fun to do and the moms and kids love them. Enjoy!

I agree with this post. There are some really cute yardages that beg to be used as panels instead of being cut up. Simply border and then crosshatch the quilting and you are done!

Thank you Irishrose2....I did purchase one from them at a very reasonable price!

Wow! Thank you for this link, Irish. This site has LOTS of amazing free quilt patterns too!

I make baby quilts and have used panels but I like the "super-sized nine patch" pattern. It uses 3 one yard cuts to make 3 baby quilt tops. with just 2 rotary cuts. However, sometimes I have been known to use just the cut sizes for the nine patch from three different fabrics to make one top if I don't have a full yard of fabric of each different color. I hope that makes sense! I think you can google Super-Sized nine patch and find it. Anita Grossman Solomon published it in Quiltmaker May/June '06. It is super easy and super quick. I just made 3 for my friend whose three grown children were all having a baby this year and she will be a first time grandma this year times 3!. I forgot to take a picture before gifting them last week!

cjsews...thank you so much for this link! This site has so many adorable panels that I want to order that I've saved it to my desktop with the words YES! YES! behind the name.

Melinda's Fabric Shop has some Suzy Bee panels for about $10.00 that are good quality and really nice. Quick shipping. Here's one but there are lots of different ones. https://melindasfabricshop.com/F1001...e-fabrics.html

There are even tutorials on line if you want to FMQ them.

Watson

I would go to JoAnn’s store or online. You can use your coupons.

What are the patterns using your scraps. Sure would like to use up my scraps making donations quilts. Almost all my gathered fabrics are florals.

I have made the giant bento box baby quilt and it only takes 4 fabrics and the best part is it only takes 2.5 hours to finish the top. Plenty of space for practicing your FMQ. I have made several and they look different according to the fabric you use.

JoAnns has some really cute ones at a very reasonable price.