Prep for First meeting of 2015

Hey Gang!

We are meeting in a week, so get your sewing bags (personal) ready, pack a lunch and see you at church 9am-3pm... Let's see what we can get accomplished!

Tally for 2014

We made 34 quilts/projects (completed) and found a home for 30 of them! I include 'projects' as some of these are our pocket quilts (counted them as a whole) and some of them were tops that were sent to be finished by the Heartstrings Quilt group in WI.

Thank you for all the hard work and love and prayers that were put into all we made.... I love you ladies.

Keep stitching.....

Finishing the quilt that will go to the cancer center

This one I had to finish before Christmas as it was being delivered to the Hartford Hospital's Cancer center on the 26th. One of our parishioners who is undergoing treatment there, asked for two quilts for some other patients. She is hand-delivering them for us.

I did get a chance to set up my sewing station so I could hibernate... good sustanance!

Attaching the binding so I can hand stitch it later (in front of a good movie)

Would help if I stitched in on correctly, not backwards... (rip, rip, rip.)

 This quilt is being enjoyed by one of our recipients who was hit by a car in Boston, while trying to catch her train! So glad it's being enjoyed... That's it's purpose.

Smallest to Tallest

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I had a variety of requests for quilts.... one is not even finished, but it will be by the time we need to send it 'home'.

If you're wondering about the post title, it's really simple. One request came in the form of an email from a parishioner about her friend who had a papercut on her finger on Monday. I thought it was her, pulling my leg, but then as I kept reading, I realized this was more than what it seemed!  This little papercut, turned into an infection, that wasn't seen as anything drastic, until two days later, it turned her finger black and the finger actually DIED!! She has since had it operated on, and amputated to below her knuckle, removing tendons too. Now her fingers are moved over to fill the space in, but she feels lots of pain (phantom) where her finger used to be! We're sending her this one...

Royal Strip Twist

The second request was more me pushing the quilt in the direction of my daughter's best friend, who was crossing the street in Boston to catch the train, and was hit by a car! She has a few metal plates in her leg now and they think she also broke a few ribs. She has to pass the "walker' test before she can leave the hospital (but she had to eat Thanksgiving dinner there---boo). Hopefully, she'll be home before the end of the weekend. I sent her a quilt that I'd made, but was struggling with to 'let go'. I hadn't decided to donate it (yet), but when we were here after the holiday dinner visiting, I knew it was either go to church and pick out a large one, or give her this one (which was upstairs)... Triptophan won out. Ironically, the name of the quilt had her last name in it!

This one is going to my sister-in-law's BFF who is battling breast cancer for the third time.

American Farmer

This one is one of the quilts requested by a parishioner who has been going through chemo treatments and wanted to offer some warmth and comfort to two other people she sees at her cancer center in Hartford Hosp. I'll send this one and finish the binding on another at my house. It will be blessed when it's done.

Early Snowflakes

Amazing what these ladies do when I'm sick

I had to cancel October's meeting, but came back with a vengance (kind of, lol) for Nov, because I knew were wouldn't meet in December (church's schedule is crazy). Mary Ellen brought it two beautiful quilts, one in my favorite colors/Purple and batiks, no less (I'm calling "Royal StripTwist")... and a beautiful paper pieced block of the month quilt (I'm calling "Early Snowflakes", since it came to us in November and looks like snowflakes- each one different). These both need labels.

"Shifting into Gear"

Kathy brought in a cute jungle-y one and a shifted pattern (which I'm calling "Shifting into Gear"). The jungle-y one, I'm calling "Wild Thing" will go with the quilt "Wild Fences" to my grandson Felix, who was hospitalized and brought into surgery for a Diaphramatic Hernia at the age of 4 days old. His twin sister, Phoebe and big brother Finn will be getting one also (have to contact Jane P for a Project Linus Quilt for Finn). We worked on three quilts and got one to the point of the binding on it before we left. I pinned the binding to the other side and had my mom (who doesn't make the meetings anymore- 86 yrs old with Alzheimers) sew the binding on it. All it needs now is a label. I'm calling it "American Farmer", since the backing on it looks like hay.

"Wild Thing"

center of "Wild Thing"

"Royal StripTwist"

Beautiful border on "Royal StripTwist"

Backing was perfect

Paper-pieced by Mary Ellen, called "Early Snowflakes"

backing for "Early Snowflakes"

"American Farmer HS" quilt

backing for "American Farmer HS" quilt

Lots of ladies attended this meeting, Jane P, Kathy S, Mary Ellen, Margaret M, Anna R, me, AND Jane G- been missing you , but glad you're feeling goo enough to attend...and Lee made an appearance to help set up tables. Thanks to all the ladies.

Sad news.

I always hate to post these types of posts.

One of our recipients passed away. She had had a stroke while in the hospital for a virus of some kind. Then went to rehab and had another stroke there.

Her funeral service is tomorrow. RIP Shirley.

Oct mtg cancelled.

Alas,.... I have dragged my behind out of bed (actually off the couch) to let you all know I'm cancelling this month's meeting.

I've been so sick this weekend, that even if I felt better today, I wouldn't want to get anyone else sick. I even stayed home from work (UNpaid sick day)...

See you all next month (I hope).

Keep on quilting,,,,, Nancy

First meeting was grand!

These are the quilts being worked on and some that Kathy S made during the summer.... I'll edit this post and give more details, but I'm off to work at the moment. Someone has to support this crazy group somehow. LOL

The top three are ones we worked on during the meeting. The ones at the bottom are Kathy's creations. Thanks so much for being as active as you are.

This one is called "Cozy Memories".

This one with to a lady with pancreatic cancer... She was the sisterinlaw to one of our member's family.

"Flying Solo"

Wild Fences...made by Kathy S.

Secret Fliers.... Four butterflies hidden in the colors. Also made by Kathy S.

Back to Business

Well, you know we are getting ready to start the new "year" (for us) when I set up the meetings. We will go back to meeting on the 1st Monday of the month, however, Sept (it's the 2nd Mon) and we don't meet for Dec, AND (lol) in Jan, Apr, and June we meet on the first Sat (skip the Monday for those months), but because of Holy week, we'll meet on the 2nd Sat in April,  then 'retire' for the summer. Have I confused you yet?  See the dates on the side bar to the right of this blog... lol.

Can't wait to see everyone and hear/see what they've done over the summer and where we will go this year.

How about an annual report for our group for the church's annual meeting? Do we have time to put one together? Let's really try this year.

I delivered a few quilts this summer. I think the child sized quilts we have we'll bring to the CT Children's Medical Center. I'll see what we have in the next week or two.
"Go Fish" went to my sister-in-law's mom, a 92 yr old woman who fell and broke her hip. She had had surgery Aug 8th, so I sent one to her.

 One of our parishioner's was in the hospital and had a stroke while there... she got to pick hers out. Chose "Snowballs at the Beach" - perfect wheelchair sized. Delivered it to her at the rehab center.

These two went to WI- to the Heartstrings sew-in to be finished and sent to their local hospice center for a couple of veterans. Here is the note I recieved from Kathy who will get them finished. 

Thanks so much for the great quilt, tops and pillowcase that arrived 

today.  Here I am sitting in the middle of the country and you two are 
about as far apart from each other as any two people could get in the 
US.  Marsha is from Los Angeles and Nancy is from Connecticut.  I so 
appreciate your willingness to help out our local hospice service and I 
know they and the veterans and their families appreciate your work too,

Please take care and we will be thinking about you July 26 when we have 
our next sew-in.Kathy in WI 

Mountain Waves

 American Leftover Diamonds

I  hope to finish the quilt tops we have organized... We'll probably need batting this year. That will be our "donation request" for the year. Goodness knows we don't need fabric!! 

I have been using up a few things to create some tops, but I don't DARE bring them in until we finish up what we have in stages. I'll be in there (the cupboards) this weekend, hopefully to see where we stand. 

Can't wait until we meet in a couple of weeks, ladies!!

Longest Event Ever!

Okay, maybe it's because I just got back to work, then just took a vacation, THEN planned this event, but it was the longest 6 hours ever! (Actually, I think we left early). BUT. We did get a lot done....

Kathy brought in a few finished baby quilts. This first one, I think is named "Go Fish!", very bright and perky.
 This next one she did, has snowball blocks in it, but they are all beach scenes, so I named it" Snowballs at the Beach"... There is a closeup of it too.

 I had forgotten she'd taken all the red, white and blue fabrics home to use them up. She made two Quilt of Valor quilt tops to send to Alycia Carmins in CO (also made a pillowcase for each one). I'll send them off this coming week. This one looks like "American Leftover Diamonds"-- very sparkley.
 This one I'll call "Mountain Waves" .

 This one was set up, but we didn't have enough time to work on it. We did decide it needs the deep blue 2" border around the outside and them the purple print (bottom right) for the outer border.
 Nice to see Janet G back !!! AND in remission! (The jar quilt is in the back)

 Mom loves to hand sew the bindings on, so she did that while Lynn and Nancy talked "business' for a while.

 These quilts are all set with batting, but just needed the backings widened. These will be tied at the next meeting.

 This quilt needs the backing widened (which we did) so it's ready to go for the next stage. The pink is for the binding, I think.

 Removing pins is important.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the Jar quilt.... We did get the edges of the rows widened, but haven't made them all even yet. I have that one at home for the summer. Hope to work on it once my air conditioner is installed...(Honey?)...Off for the summer.... see you in Sept!

quilts blessed in May

Lime Green Surprise

Just a few of the quilts we had blessed after Easter... enjoy the eye candy

This one has a unique name, formed from the fact that it matches the tiles in the area of the church's floor plan that shape the top of the cross.

Top of the Cross

 This area above the quilt IS the top of the cross.... below the stairs  underneath the quilt, is the horizontal walkway that forms the arms of the cross, and behind the photographer is the bottom of the cross (all the way to the Narthex). It was donated by Donna Indeminico.

Wine by Moonlight

Kathy calls this one Knick knack paddy whack (dog prints on the backing)

Another one from Kathy S....

Smile Tweetie

Why did we name this one what we did?
Because it's black and white and read (red) all over.... get it?

Newspaper Strings

This was made from Happy blocks that the group made a few years ago.

Halloween

spider blocks

This is the most we've ever gotten finished at one time, but we DID have a 6 hr Sat day to get them done in. Nice job ladies!!!

Mary Ellen's Mountain Majesties.