2014 Update in General

I thought I'd post an update of where we are with the quilts in stock and ones that recently left to find new homes.

The following are some of the ones sent to Quilts of Compassion in OH (to comfort midwest tornado victims)

Sail Away

Spinning Blocks

Cherries on Top

Spin out!

4-Patch Hopscotch

Pastel 4-patch baby

 How green Was my Valley

Then there are some that are in the works....this is just a few of them.

"Flutterbys"--Since it needs the borders straightened out, the creator took it home to straighten out.

Finished now. Vintage Purple Diamonds

 This is done and ready for someone to love. Perfect wheelchair sized.

American Log Cabin- another wheelchair sized

Lime I Spy HS quilt-lap quilt

Pinwheels in the Grass-baby

Purple HS Batik-lap quilt

Number the Animals-lap quilt

Framed Leaves-couch size

Green Mountain Majesties (recently taken to Harry Grey Cancer center for Shirl- a woman with ovarian cancer. She is being helped by another of our quilt recipients).

 These are in the process of getting finished....

This is another 'wonky border'. to be fixed....

Green D9P

Clean Sweep Quilting Event 2013

What a great day to have a quilting event! So much better than 95 degrees and humid (predicted for our original meeting last Sat). We did have some funny hiccups to start with...one person got the email switching the date but breezed over it and didn't realize it was starting an hour late until she showed up at 9am, left and went home to re-read the email. Good thing she showed up, as she had worked on so many of our quilts between meetings.

 

The ladies that showed were, Muriel (our oldest member at 85 yrs old), Margaret, Jane, Janet, Marilyn, Anna, Kathy, Mary Ellen, Nancy (me), Deanna, Delaney and Brenda. Hope I didn't forget anyone...

 

Mary Ellen brought back a quilt she finished binding. I think I'm calling it "Bow Ties and Borders". The center of the Bow Ties is made so it's 3-D... you can stick your fingers under it. Cute striped fabric from the back became the binding. Just needs a label.

This is a sweet one from Kathy's donated ones (that she did at home). She machine quilted it with a decorative stitch. We're calling it "Cherries on Top". Very Cute.

This is such a cutie... Little panel blocks with numbers and animals on it. Made and machine-quilted by Kathy. I wanna call this one "Counting the Animals".

 This one is a mish-mash of heartstring blocks. Some are put together as 4-patch, some are 16-patch separated by plain blocks. All machine-quilted with a decorative stitch. (Also by Kathy)

 

 Mary Ellen made this heartstring quilt as part of a Memorial day challenge on a yahoo group's site, Heartstrings Quilt Project. The challenge was to use brown strips for the center strings. I call this one "Line 'em Up, Hearstrings!" Makes me think of our bingo quilt blocks we made for a quilt several years ago.


The Cool thing about it is the back!! She used a really unusual fabric to 'spread it's wings' (to widen it). We made a gold label for it and it's looks super!! Great job, Mary Ellen!

 

 Here is Muriel doing her favorite thing.... binding quilts. She got this little one finished and then headed home after lunch. Good job, Muriel.










 Finished.... "Spinning Blocks".

 

 Mary Ellen worked on "Delaney's Decision", tying a soft yellow into it. This one we used our noodle method to sandwich the front to the back. Dee (below) finished the trimming of the ties. It got trimmed (batting) and backing and was taken home to have the backing rolled over for the binding.

 Anna spent some time ironing and sewing on labels.

 

 Everyone kept quite busy.... Margaret, Kathy and Janet are working on one that they were soooo nervous about; didn't think the backing would be long/wide enough to meet the edges of the front. It did (1/4" in a place or two). This one is made from various heartstring blocks that were leftovers from other projects. Not sure what we'll name this one.

 

 "Road to Oklahoma" is one Mary Ellen worked on and donated to the group. We had issues with the borders, but once they were fixed, Delaney and Jane (and Dee below) tied this one....So pretty, but you have to stand back to see the 'stars'.  We'll roll the backing around to the front.

 

 Janet and Margaret also did the tying on this Red.white and blue log cabin. The blocks came from various members of a quilt guild project years ago. It will be a nice wheelchair sized quilt for someone.












Then there are the various tops that Kathy made.... We'll call them Blue Belly #1

 Blue Belly #2

 and Blue Belly #3, since all the strips center around a blue square. These were made by Kathy (in her spare time, LOL).

 

 This is a nice little quilt that I may name, "Fall in the Box" since the fabrics are fall fabrics inside a 'box/frame'. I believe this one ended up getting tied and someone took home to finish tying (probably my mom, Muriel).







Here are some other tops that were made at home and brought in (by Kathy)

 

 This one I think would look great with a 2.5" black border, and a wide outer red border. Very striking!















Another finish by Kathy....  "Maps in Blue".

 This one will eventually go to Alycia in CO for the quilts of valor quilts. It has a pillowcase to go with it. Nice job, everyone!

February mtg-- Can you say... "productive'?

Well, we had a good turn-out and boy, were the girls productive!! Marilyn brought another basket full of pillowcases and Margaret brought in the seven that she took home the 'parts' for. I tried to separate them into kids and non kids, as the non-kids will be going to a local shelter and Alycia's QOV NSF project. The kids ones will go to Conn-Kerr Cancer (drop-off at the CT Children's Medical Center in Hartford).

This group is for the kids...

Here are more for the kids (think we have 29 so far)....

These are the more adult ones for the shelter and Alycia.... I think how we talked about dividing them was to bring all the adult ones to the shelter and have them choose, since they would know how many women and men they usually have stay there....

I found a few more for photos..... I think we ended up with close to 60 pillowcases.

I, originally, thought I'd get the Gold/Purple HS quilt sandwiched, but I realized the ladies were diving into making a back for Chandler's quilt (this is a little girl with Leukemia, who loves the turtle across the street from her house-lives in a pond. Her mom and one of our members know each other from a book club). ... And they were having such a good time with it, I let them go. They found a great block and added a border around it, but then I had to tell them they needed the back to be slightly bigger (at least 2-3" a side) than the front. I should haven't taken a picture of their faces.... :-( We had plenty of the back's border material, so we divided the center panel into quarters.... It worked out fine! And we have a wonderful quilt shop owner, Laura McCarrick, who will be quilting Angel Wings design into it.

And THEN we tossed around a few ideas for our Strips and Strings Log Cabin blocks, pattern from Mary's Heartstring blog. This was one idea...

Or we could do furrows...(is that the name of this pattern?)

Here is Janet's Purple Log cabin.... I'd love to call it Lilac Garden or Lilac Logs. Not sure what it will be til we're done. Isn't it a beauty???

We figured out we have enough to make a 4x6 block purple, a 5x7 block size scrappy and more scrappy blocks for a smaller size, maybe 4x6 blocks (we always add some borders to it to expand them). Works for us!!