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.

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.

 

 

Pre-May mtg

Well, we've gotten a few quilts to the done stage since our last mtg.

1. "Geisha's Fan-fare"- My name for it, anyway. We added a fabric to the back that looks like a map, and it seemed to fit the Oriental front.

2. "Peachy Cream"- We chose a nice dark brown for the binding and my mom sewed that to it. Looks nice.
I have a few more that need to be finished to the top stage and then maybe put together at the June mtg (all day event).

I have three thoughts for the June event...
   1. Orphan blocks
   2. New blocks ideas
   3. tying marathon again (seemed to work fine last time).

We did give a few quilts away this month. "Where's My Shirt?" went to Nadine B. in OH, just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The quilt was requested by her daughter in Toronto. We sent it out UPS ($23) to the daughter so she could have the kids sign the blocks (hopefully, it will be subtle, although it's Nadine's quilt now, so she can do what she wants with it).

We also gave Edith B a quilt for her Aunt Sally in CO. She has carcoma. We gave her the "Purple Batik HS/Aqua" quilt. Edith will get it to her aunt.

One of our youth in the church will be going to Mexico for a mission (2nd yr) and asked to bring a quilt with her. We have no problems with it as long as it isn't used as a gift to the padre that is in charge of their mission. It needs to be used for a family in need. Until next mtg...

April meeting- Massage Therapy

Well, not actually massages, but the backs ARE being worked on. lol. Just not OURS....

I really wasn't sure how many would be at this meeting, as our UConn mens game would be tonight (that's what I'd heard- I don't watch it). Our March and April meetings are always a little dice-y because of March madness. However, we ended up with 9 women there and we really got a lot done.

Hazel was there VERY early, so I got her started on some leftover Project Linus quilts that I took from the weekend's 'quilt-a-thon'. Four PL quilts, done! (They just needed tying).

 I had also come over very early yesterday and set up the tables and set out the quilts that we had bought backings for in Maine, and made sure that the backs actually 'fit' the tops (some needed to be altered/divided). I split and divided three. So, when the ladies got there, we had a brief show-n-tell of a few of the projects in the works, then heard of the recipients that quilts were being requested for.

One recipient contacted us (actually the daughter did) after finding us online, googling the type of cancer her mom was diagnosed with.After finding out a little about the mom and her family, the ladies and I decided to send her the quilt she requested- (that's my favorite) with a suggestion of how to include her grandchildren in it. I had thought of 'pocket prayers' for each of the family members, but the ladies suggested that, because the fabric on "Where's My Shirt?" is so light, maybe the family can trace their hands on some of the blocks and sign their names. We'll suggest that (as it's much quicker than waiting for us to make the minis).

Here are the ladies tying one that we finished (I'm doing the binding at home).

We also have two others to contact to see if they would like to have us send their requests out at this point (we have been finishing a lot of adult quilts... something we were short on). As we finish them, we are posting them on the sidebar, by year. Once they have a home, we post that too, so you get to see where they reside (the quilts, not the recipients! lol).
Our Rectangle Sudoku quilt needs to get blessed this coming Sunday... Mom finished the binding on that.

 These two shots, showed how close we came to the edge of the backing- we'd already widened it. We wanted to roll this over to make the binding, so I guess I'll have to trim off an inch from the edges.

I have three to finish at home. One above, to just machine-stitch the binding on (was gonna give it to my mom, but it's a rolled edge, so machine quilting is easy and fast), and two - see the peach quilt that Marilyn made and donated) to machine quilt (I have an idea that this will be nicer than tying- the quilts 'told me' that's what they'd like, too). No, I'm not that crazy, but the quilts do tend to let us know what works and what doesn't work on them. This one I'd like to call "Peachy Cream", but I'll check with Marilyn to see if it already has a name.

 
We also planned to meet in May, but have our 'summer event on June 4th, not sure what we'll work on yet, but it will get planned soon. Then we won't meet again until Sept. (unless they convince me otherwise...grin).