Quickie Donation Quilt

This weekend I dug up two kids' quilts in my studio that I can donate to the Tornado relief effort. I was itching to make another quilt to donate. I wanted to do something fast! I have plenty of fabric (don't we all!), but all my searching turned up no batting. Oh dear.... I didn't want to make a trip to the store. So I kept rooting around and found a brand new mattress pad for a twin bed. Hmm.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that one side of the pad was a decent cotton fabric. The other side is a thin, easily torn material - sort of like an interfacing feel. I decided the cotton fabric side could work fine as the back of a quilt. So essentially, the mattress pad is like batting and backing all in one! This could work!

Using scissors, I cut off the "drop" part of the mattress cover - the part that goes down the sides of the mattress.
I pulled out a jelly roll of blacks and whites that had been in my stash for years. The mattress pad has already been stitched in horizontal lines from side to side. So I placed two strips right sides together along one of the stitching lines.
Then I stitched a quarter inch from the edges, through all layers. The jelly roll strips are long enough to go edge to edge on the mattress pad with a few inches left over. I made a good bit of progress on this yesterday. Once the strips are all in place, all I will have to do is bind it! Easy peasy!

I hadn't appliqued on my BOM projects in over a week, but last night I pulled out my Lollypop Tree block and got back in the swing. I'm a bit behind, but maybe I can catch up this month.

I keep hearing more and more sad stories as a result of the tornadoes. My brother's best friend lost his mother and aunt in the storms. A couple at our church lost their home. A friend's son (a student at the U. of A.) was blown out of his rental house, landing in a field, unconscious. When he came to, covered with bruises and cuts, he had to walk 2 miles for help. He was lucky. The body of a friend of his in the same house was found a few days later.

So much sadness around here.