Preparing for our Jan Quilting Event

One of our most active quilters, Kathy S had taken a quilt home last time that we'd met and returned with the doll pattern #2 quilt. She got it quilted and bound.

She also put together these two pinwheel quilts. The top one I'm calling "Scattered Pinwheels"...

 While this one I think should be named "Pinwheels in the Grass". Just lovely.

 Dolly Dinkle #2...

 

This one is called "Psycedelic Butterflies" and the interesting thing about this quilt is the two blocks that were used, have NOTHING in common with each other!

 But even the back is beautiful.

 

 

 This panel was purchased in Natick MA, at the Fabric Place Basement. I added the red piping, the dark green borders and the red cornerstones. We have a second panel just like it. I'll be curious to see what we do to that one.

 Kathy dropped off several blocks that she'd made. These blocks are 16", all pieced around a blue center square. (This was sent to the ladies via email to try and duplicate).

 These are mine... Only got 6 done, but they are large so we don't need many for a quilt.

 These are ones Kathy S put together. They may be too long, unless we add to the sides.....or remove one row on the bottom.

Kathy also made 16 blocks of fall fabrics. We may make them assorted or do something completely different with these....

 

I had these strips from some panels that were leftovers. Found some grass in my stash, pieced it together and added a pieced turquoise frame. Just needs a backing....May call it, "Stop it, Cars!"

 These piece I've been playing with for a few years. Just added the black sides to it. The rust prairie points in the center are not tacked down (they open up). Not sure where to go from here, but this may be a work in progress.

Kathy also included 48 plaid heartstring (HS) blocks. I tried to play around with them into different designs...

 Added a 6th row at the bottom...

 Not sure how we'll choose to go, but I can always refer to these designs for the final quilts.

I can't wait to show the ladies these ....

Pillowcases for Sandy Hook children

Becky at the Quilter's Corner in New Milford, CT has requested pillowcases for all the children in the Sandy Hook Elementary school, approzimately 600. That plee was put out the day after their terrible shooting and she has received 1,689 and 5 quilts!!! They are still taking in more as they'd like to give them to all the other elementary schools, first responders and teachers. Marilyn and I went to Fabric Place Basement in Natick, MA to see what bargains we could scoff up and we have quilte a bunch to make with what we came home with. They even gave us 10% off what we bought.

The call was put out to our group to make some and bring them to the Jan 5th event, We'll send them down on the 7th. How wonderful the response has been. They've been coming from all over the country. I'll post how many we end up sending, with photos!! (I may even deliver them in person on the 6th!!)

Hurricane Sandy quilts delivered!

Oh, how I wish I had a photo of Ed Johnetta's face when she heard how many quilts we were donating! She was such a love to come and pick up the quilts we had for her chapter (Quilts for Kids). She was so excited to see it was me that she was dealing with (we'd just been emailing back and forth to set this up), and then to hear we had 30 quilts...., well, you'd have thought she died and went to heaven! She said the girls in her chapter usually make a pickup of a few quilts, maybe 5, but 30??!! Never!

After we got them loaded into her car, we discussed how important it was for both of us to make sure they got to help those in CT first (if possible), since we had such horrible devastation to our shoreline. Once she got them home, she sent us the email she sent to the regional chapter of Q4K, and a thank you to our group. Oh, Ed Johnetta, you have no idea how much we thank YOU. I only wish I could actually go with the quilts to see where they end up residing....

October Preparation

It's two days before our meeting and I want to prepare the ladies for it. Yes, we'll be doing our normal tying of any remaining quilt tops, but I want to have some things put aside for the January quilting event (6 hrs).

We need 'manly' quilts.

I have some great ideas and plans, but may send you all home with homework!! Notice that the date it will be due is JANUARY 2013. Gives a lot of time to play...and you won't have too many blocks to make, so it should be relatively easy.

If you are wondering about our "Canning quilt", it hasn't been forgotten. I know it's a very involved quilt, because we have no 'pattern' to go by (THIS is what is called 'flying by the seat of your pants') so I want to wait until April (our next 6 hr event) to put this top together.

We have given a few quits away since our last meeting, and I'll catch you up on those recipients.

See you Monday!

September Photos!

I hadn't figured the way to get the photos to you, as they have to go through Picassa albums first, I guess. Here are some of the quilts the ladies finished and brought in...

Carpenter's Star by MaryEllen. She did the quilting on them too.

Front...

 and back...

 These two are so cute....

 This one will have to go back as the 'pre-quilted fabric' didn't have any fabric on the backing, so Kathy will adjust it. (So nice to have talented sewers in our midst)

 This one below has "Lazy Leopards" on it.... so relaxing

 These two are 'sister quilts.....with Dogs and Chicks

 This one I had Kathy donate to an Alzheimer's group. It has different shaped buttons in the centers.

 "Cows in the Pasture" is the perfect name, since the cow fabric is framed, and framed and .... (I almost had a moment where I named this "Corral Crazy", but I didn't.)

 This cute Lime Centered Heartstring quilt has fun and bright fabrics for any kid!

 This we're still working on. It has a name though,..... "Cotton Candy Pink"

Wowwy, KaZowwy!!

That's all I can say......

We had a great turnout this month, it was so surprising! Two reasons, really.
First, it was the first meeting of the year (school year) and although we usually meet on the first Monday of the month, this being Sept, we met on the SECOND Monday of the month and that will sometimes screw up people's schedules, so we usually have very little people remember that it's even on this month.

Second, I didn't advertise much (in the church bulletin, or any other way). I'll get better at this one someday soon, I promise.

Well, the ladies surely surprised me this month, in any event. You can always tell who has air-conditioning in their sewing rooms. This summer was exceptionally hot and my sewing room faces the south side and is on the second floot, so I wasn't in there ALL summer! But Mary Ellen and Kathy were phenomenal with what they put out.

This is one of the last of the lasagna quilts, which I'm calling Lasagna Leftovers. We finished it that night and as soon as we had it blessed on the following Sunday, someone requested it for a friend (Rebeckah M) in VA who was having a very hard time with "Pots Syndrome".  She also requested one with motorcycles for the husband who has been ill for some time.

We had another one similar to the one above, that went to Jessica T's uncle in WA who is suffering with stage 4 Pancreatic cancer. I sent that out from work last week.

I also had one called "Enid's Black Beauty" that Lynn K requested for a former roommate who has been having difficulty after surgery (ovarian). She's already had breast cancer, and now this. Lynn said she's a bit of a wild one, a rebel, so I pray that she fights hard on this one. Lynn took it home to deliver to her friend.

 

This cute little one was made by Mary Ellen. I called it Baby Blue bubbles, since the fabric on the backing is soft little blue bubbles. These are adorable.

 

See the next post for photos.....

 

We did discuss that we haven't very many 'manly' quilts, so I think I'm planning to have them work on 'homework pieces to bring to the Jan. mtg. I did pick up some beautiful fabirc with leaves and birch branches on it (greens, grays, browns) that may be great for a border and/or center strips for more heartstring quilts. I pulled all the fabrics we had in the cabinets at church that would go with it and I think it will be beautiful!.

 

We also have some plaids still (LOTS!) that we can use with a dark center strip to make some HS blocks for Jan. 2013.

 

The nice thing was, some people who haven't been able to come to the meetings lately, were able to show up (Pat, Dot, etc)... nice to see you ladies. We did miss Janet. Will see you in Oct., I hope.

 

 

Deli Sandwiches in June

Our June meeting was actually one of our two 6 hr quilting events of the year. "Making sandwiches at the Deli" almost looked like it wasn't gonna be too well attended with only three of us there. Slowly one more appeared, with another to come after bringing her cat to the vet. With a phone call to one more (who wasn't coming because of work--that got postponed until Sunday), we ended up with six ladies who were so excited to be there!

We had quite a few tops to 'sandwich' and a couple of backings needed to be adjusted, done.
More were taken home to be bound, and quilted, but we got 5 quilts almost to the done stage. These three came in from the last meeting, finished.

Tooling Around was from a panel that was made from a Quilting by the Yard quilt kit that was given to one of our members (MEZ) by one of her quilting friends.

Same with these happy squares. They were leftovers from a previous meeting/homework assignment.

Enid was playing with some batiks and had fun with this. I call it "Enid's Black Beauty". Thanks, Enid!
The Frog quilt is a great kid one. That one got to the binding stage, but Marilyn took it home to finish that part.We got the binding for this (and the backing) up in Maine at Marden's. We had the top from 2009 and just couldn't find the right material to make it bigger until this last trip to Maine. It's made with Happy blocks, so I call it "Frog Hoppy". This one is really done, just not in these photos.

We were playing around with Kathy's latest Quilt of Valor blocks and came up with this configuration. Nice I think.... We sent this to Alycia in CO who is our QOV go-to person.

I took this home to quilt it and bind it. We'll roll the backing over to the front to use it as the binding. This great red backing (you'll see it next post) was also gotten in Maine at Marden's.

 And it's always nice to see our member's projects that they are working on....Margaret brought this one in... It's lovely!! I love black, white and brights.

Well, we are off for the summer (too hot to quilt), so enjoy the blog until Sept. (2nd Monday).

Quilt in the shade!

Another shipment off-Tornado Quilts

Today I sent off another shipment of quilts (actually, they were donated from the quilt-a-thon we had at church in March for Project Linus) to Sarah B in KY. She will see that they get to the victims of the tornadoes in the midwest. I'm including four pillowcases to wrap up the adult ones for delivery.

We sent off 10 baby/child quilts along with a good assortment of stuffed animals. We can't see sending a quilt to a little kid who's lost all their toys (or had the ones they found to be dirty/damaged), without also giving them something to cuddle up to.

Thanks to Jane who is in charge of the Project Linus event for donating these quilts.

Thanks to Ruth who donated some of her cherished teddy bears. There were only two that couldn't fit in the box of quilts, so we donated them to the church's annual May Fair (if we couldn't use them, that's were they were headed anyway).

We couldn't do it without the support of our family at church!!

April mtg

The April meeting went really well. Since it was on April 9th and we were heading to Marden's (discount fabric store in Maine) on the 17th, we needed to organize which quilt tops needed to go with us to find a complimentary backing for.This one was started at our Log cabin 6-hr event (Cabin Fever) years ago, but never finished. I took it home and added the outer border and cornerstones so we'd know how large the top would be. We found a vibrant red print (with black) that I'm hoping to sandwich to it, in June, and wrap the edges around to be the binding. It should be stunning! I'm naming it, "When I get old, I'll wear purple".

This adorable one by Mary Ellen (gray center strip-vintage material) was taken home last month and bordered with Dick and Jane material. It is so old-fashioned!

 I name it, "Look Dick, See Jane Quilt"

This one Enid made using a black batik print for the center strips. She was gonna take it home and add a border (thin) using a similar black batick print, then we'll see where we go from there.

Mary Ellen made this one completely during this past month. Cute fish fabric on the back!! Some little boy will love it... Name: "Boys a-Fishin' "

This is the back of one Marilyn made, but  I forgot to take a photo of the front. Name: "Double Brown Derby".

Thsese are some of the pillowcases that will be going to Alycia in CO, who handles our QOV quilts. Kathy S did them in honor of her son being in Afghanistan.

 We had a total of 7 quilts that went to Maine with us for backings, although I didn't take photos of them before we went. We'll put them together in June. Great accomplishments!

Urgent needs

One of our parishioners, Barb W., was brought to my attention. Her daughter's friend Kim, had been diagnosed with breast cancer, that matastized into pelvic, back and shoulder cancers. She could desparately need some comfort by our quilts.

Barb picked out "Peachy Cream" to have us give to her.
This is the message from Barb after giving the quilt to Kim.

She really loved the quilt and immediatey hugged it. She couldn't believe people who didn't even know her would do such a wonderful thing.

Kim......... it's what God wants us to do.

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We also had an urgent request for a quilt to send to "Tank" (in Louisville, KY), who is going through kidnet dialysis. He's 71 and this is very difficult for him.

We sent him "Homespun Warmth". Actually, we sent the top to Sarah B (tornado victim distributor in KY) with a backing and she'll get it put together.