Charity quilts

The whole culture of charity quilts is huge within quilt making.  Reading some of the various "link up"  sites would seem to indicate that there are those who appear to dedicate most of their work toward charity, and that's a wonderful thing--for both the maker and the person ultimately receiving the gift.

I make quilts for charity, mainly smaller ones aimed at children's  charities.  I have several simple scrappy patterns that I use.  I love the almost mindless process of putting together the pieces, choosing the colours, and planning the machine quilting.  The effort helps me reduce my "stash" of older fabrics, which pleases my family.  Many of the older fabrics are dark in value, so most of my charity quilts are intended for little boys. I sometimes think I could cheerfully putter along making these, until the "stash" runs out.

But--my deepest pleasure comes from my art.  The challenge of solving technical problems, and the joy of endless FMQ'g and constantly creating new designs for it.  The serendipity of LWI dyeing, and Shibori.  

This week I realized, not for the first time, that, for me, the process of producing traditionally based charity quilts, can sabotage the deeper challenge of producing true art quilts.  For some reason I find it too easy to slip into the much less difficult more traditional process.  Maybe, I'm basically a very lazy person.  ( Not a new thought.  lol)

So, is there any way I can do both?  Not in any inter-mingled way.  I think I'm going to have the schedule a 4 week period, about 1X yearly for a marathon of charity work, and strictly discipline myself the rest of the time.

Here is the traditional charity quilt top I finished yesterday.  It will be quilted within the next month, but not before I design the 3 small art quilts that are on my "to do" list.

I hope the link this with The Needle and Thread Network