Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Our group's charity, and the local quilt show!

I've mentioned before that I go to a Wednesday night quilt group at our town office.  We started it just over a year ago, and we meet twice a month.  And I love our little group.  Most times there are just 4 or 5 of us, and we talk and hand stitch and look at quilt magazines, and for 3 hours, it's all about quilts!  Yay!

So a few meetings back, I told the girls that I was wanting to do something with the group as a form of a charity.  Most of us have huge stashes, and there is no reason not to use up some of that fabric!  But there are all sorts of 'quilt charities' out there, and I wanted to do something a little different, and for our own community.  We live out here in the sticks.....and it's Maine.....so in the winter, nearly every year, someone gets burned out of their house.  Whether it's the faulty space heater, or a chimney fire that gets out of control....the whole darned place will burn to the ground!  All I can think is that it must be quite terrifying while it's happening, and then the reality hits, that you have nothing left!  How awful!

So I asked the girls at our meeting if they wanted to start 'stockpiling' a collection of quilts that we could give as the need arises......so the next time someone has just been burned out......we would be ready with a quilt or two to help them get started on putting there 'home' back together!

They liked that idea, so we started it last meeting.  It was very impromtu, in fact, we hadn't really put together an idea for a quilt yet, so since I had brought my 2.5" strip bin (it was way too full!), and Pat brought several bags of scraps, and I had my machine......we started sewing up strips!  Everything in blue!  I left the meeting with a ton of strip pieces connected in long strings of about 65" long.....and yesterday I sewed all the strings together!  Yippee!


Here it is, on a queen bed.  We had made so many strings, and I had just kept sewing, that when I trimmed it up, it was 64 by 98!  Sheesh!  So I took off several rows, and now it's 64 x 84.  And tonight is our group meeting, so we can decide if it's getting borders, or just quilt and bind it!  I love how it turned out, and with the extra rows that I took off, we can start another one, maybe with several different color sections, blue (done!), yellow, green, red, orange.....whatever we have an abundance of in our scraps!  And I'm hoping to get a little more organized tonight, and we can 'plan' the next quilt we work on!

Last Saturday, I went to a local quilt show, and got several pics of some really nice quilts!  I hadn't made this show in about 6 years, so I was quite surprised at how much it's grown, and the variety of quilts.  (I remember the last time I went, it seems they had all worked on the same pattern, cuz there were way too many of the same quilt.....kindof silly!)

I loved the colors in this quilt, and her piecing was really accurate!

 This was a stunner.....I love it!

 Great border design!

I just loved this block from it.....I think I need to make it!

Love all the colors in this quilt.....it's so fresh and happy!

This one screams Autumn.....but I love that!

A very sweet little wall hanging!  I love tumblers!

The upper right corner block really caught me eye.....I love the two-toned background.  I've been wanting to do a quilt with that idea, using one of my antique hooked rugs as my pattern.....it's gorgeous!

I guess I'm loving anything with flying geese since I've just done one with a bunch.....I can really appreciate them now!  And this quilt just pops!  And I just noticed that the double red line border and the fat green border don't go all the way around!  Huh!  I didn't even notice that when I was looking right at it!  Guess all the colors were distracting me!  But I like that.....it's so different!

This was probably my favorite quilt there.....it's so lovely, and my friend Rita (she just turned 85!) just made a quilt like this using just the applique blocks.....hers is a stunner, too!  I really like the alternate block on this quilt, as well.....I like to keep pics of 'good alternate block effects' for when I'm trying to put something together!  It always helps to see it, before I draw the whole dang thing out!

Ok......that's the show.....hope you enjoyed it!

Have a wonderful day!

regan

5 comments:

  1. the blue (1st one) reminds me of my new tile. Funny huh?

    I would love to watch you gals do this.
    I can't sew a lick but I find it all so interesting and well, it's just damn pretty!

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  2. Thanks for the show! Really nice quilts. I love blue one-color quilts...nice job!

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  3. That strip quilt looks amazing!! I've been thinking I'd like to sew up some simple quilts ready to give for charity as the need arises.It's great that you're doing it in a group. The quilt show photos were a treat too!! I love all of those quilts!

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  4. You're off to a good start with charity quilts. I love making quilts for others and most people are so very appreciative.
    Some lovely quilts at that show! I always love a pineapple and the one with all the flying geese is stunning. Would be fun to make lots and lots of geese and then just play around with them on the design wall.

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  5. What a great use for your strips and scraps! I'm sure they'll lend a lot of comfort to those in need. Enjoyed the quilt show pics. I hope I'm still creating beautiful quilts at 85 like Rita!

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