06/13/2026
At our June meeting, Janet Winkler made an announcement on behalf of charity bee that the guild is in need of wheelchair quilts for some of our charitable partners. At today’s meet and greet, Janet was kind enough to bring a selection of completed quilts and tops for us to see. I took pictures to share with everyone and get our members energized about contributing to this need.
Do you have any of the following:
*orphan blocks
*panels or panel components
*pretty large scale prints that you don’t want to cut up
*blocks or components for a quilt that you started and don’t want to finish
*sample blocks from a class that are languishing
If you have any of these items or just regular quilt fabric, then you can help is with the wheelchair quilt project!
The instruction page is in the last picture.
Please remember that our charitable partners serve a wide variety of people. There are children and adults of all ages.
Many times, we are drawn to beautiful floral fabrics and bright colors, but we also need to make quilts that are more subdued and quilts that will be suitable for men.
You don’t have to do the entire quilt from start to finish! You can just make the top, if desired, and turn it in at a guild meeting or at the charity bee monthly work day. Please write your name on a note card or piece of paper and safety pin it to the top, so that when you turn it in we will have those details documented.
If you want to take the next step and quilt it, that would be amazing! We ask that you use flannel for the backing, so that the quilt will more easily stay on the lap of the recipient. You don’t have to be a professional quilter. You can definitely quilt a wheelchair quilt on your domestic machine and straight lines with a walking foot are perfectly acceptable. If you have a longarm machine and want to practice on some charity quilts, that would be wonderful.
For the binding, you can do that yourself, if desired, or leave that to another volunteer. We are very accommodating and understand that not everyone wants to do every step in the process.
Please review the details on the instruction page regarding the additional fabric needed for the pocket. That is the last step of the process for the wheelchair quilts. The pockets are backed with flannel, quilted and bound and then stitched to the quilt. After a label is added, they are ready to be distributed to our partners.
On a prior post, some people commented that some wheelchair quilts are made with angled bottom corners to keep them from getting into the wheels. If you want to do that, please do.
We look forward to seeing a bunch of amazing wheelchair quilts coming in to charity bee over the coming months. Thank you to everyone that is willing to help with this project.
