Quilts for a Refugee Family

We just found out today that the Syrian Refugee family which is being sponsored by local Presbyterian churches is arriving on Saturday!  In this post, I am excited to show pictures of the quilts that the London Friendship Quilters' Guild has made for the members of the family of 6.

This quilt is for the parents.  The blocks were made by all the members of the LFQG. We each contributed a few blocks to the pile and two of our members put the quilt together with all of the donated blocks.  I love the way this quilt turned out!

After putting the parents' quilt together, it soon became obvious that there were enough blocks left to make a quilt for one of the children:

A few borders and the quilt was done!

Members of the executive donated red and white fabrics and maple leaf blocks for this quilt for another one of the children.  The backing is truly Canadian... (You can also see the maple leaf quilting in this picture.)

 

This chevron quilt is for another one of the children.  I love how the bright green fabric pops!

 



I made this last quilt at a workshop years ago and decided to quilt it myself for the youngest child--a two year old girl.  Jacqui did the binding for me and gave me the finished quilt tonight. 

I will take the quilts to the welcoming committee sometime this weekend.  I wish the refugee family good health, happiness and a warm welcome to their new home. 

More quilts are in production for a second family, expected to arrive later this year.

Slow Stitching

I spent the morning cleaning up my fabric storage area...I should say that this is a work in progress that is no where near being done.  Today, I went through all of my books and the flannel bin to sort out what was useful and worthy of being kept and what was to be put in to the donation pile for next month's London Friendship Quilters' Guild yard sale.  I have a large bag of donations gathered so far and the flannel scraps have been tamed.  I also put away some new fabrics that were purchased recently. The clean up of the fabric storage area is a long term project!

This afternoon, I did some hand quilting on my wool applique Bertie block.  I am still outlining all of the wool applique and then plan on doing a cross hatch in the background. 

My husband made a pot of chili for supper--it is now simmering away in the crock pot.  He made me a cup of tea to enjoy while I stitch.

The tea is lemon blueberry herbal tea --my favourite--from Santa.

I have a pillow form which will fit this project or I may just make it into a wall hanging.  I will decide later, when I get near the end of the hand quilting.

My friend, Cathy, made me some cozy socks for Christmas and I am wearing them today--perfect for a chilly day.

I might as well do my first stash report for 2016:

Fabric used since my last stash report: 7.6 yards
Total fabric used this year: 7.6 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report:  2.0 yards.
Total fabric added this year: 2.0 yards
Net fabric used this year:  5.6 yards

At least I am in the black so far...

Tonight's Sewing Projects

Tonight was sewing with Christine night.  She worked on a pieced flannel backing for a quilt that will be a gift for her Mom. She has been working on this for 3 sewing nights and tonight she finished it!!!  Onward and upward!

I had a variety of projects to work on...

First, I added the final border to a quilt that will be donated to a Syrian Refugee family--this will be for  the adults in the family. I used stash fabrics for the entire quilt except for the border--I had to buy fabric for the border.

This quilt will be quilted by Cathy at Eagle's Wings Quilts.  Thanks, Cathy!!!

Next, I made two mug blocks to go with the one I made last week.  I plan on making a couple of blocks a week until I have 25 so I can make a little wall hanging.  They are 4" squares finished.

I made this one last week and the next two today.

The Elgin Piecemakers meet next week so I made my block for the monthly charity quilt project--the colours are navy, purple and turquoise.  I have been in a liberated basket mood since my workshop last Saturday.

Next, I made a little house block. I am using my 30's prints for this project.  This block and the mugs are made from patterns by Lori Holt.  I hope to make a whole neighbourhood of houses and make them in to a wall hanging. Again, I hope to do a block a week.  The house block can be made in a 4" or 8" size...I decided to make the 8" blocks. 

Monday night, I finished quilting a child's quilt for a Syrian Refugee family.  My friend, Jacqui, is putting the binding on this quilt.  I made the quilt top a few years ago at a workshop and found it in my sewing room recently and decided to finish it off as a donation quilt. Here, you can see my organic quilting:

Here is the entire quilt (well...almost the entire quilt!), after trimming.

I hope to work on my liberated baskets quilt next week.

Liberated Baskets Workshop

Today, I taught a liberated baskets workshop for a group of 8 quilters from the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. My friend, Christine, was there to help out as well. We started with a short discussion about Liberated Quilting and Christine and I talked about attending the Beaver Island Quilt Retreats where we were converted to liberated quilt making by Gwen Marston. (This is a quilt that Christine, Carol and I made for Gwen and gave to her at the final BIQR in 2013.--note the centre of the quilt is a liberated string basket!)

 

 

We started by learning how to make a simple liberated basket with a machine appliqued bias handle. 

 

Here is Maureen with her basket:

 

 

You can't tell from the picture, but Anne made all of her baskets mini sized. 

 

 

This is Lynsey's basket:

 

 

Striped fabrics are fun for the handles.

 

 

 

After everyone had made one basket, we got back together to talk about the endless possibilities for liberated basket blocks.  I showed lots of pictures of quilts from Gwen Marston's books of Gwen's and other quilters' basket quilts. Then, the magic happened.  Everyone got it!  Dozens of interesting and creative baskets emerged from the sewing machines around the room.

 

A flower pot basket by Anne:

 

 

 

A two handled purse by Pam:

 

 

Mary's Oriental Fabric purse:

 

 

Anne's double handled basket:

 

 

Lorraine's aqua basket on a wild background:

 

At the end of the day, we talked about how to put the blocks together--the blocks were not made all the same size. Each quilter had a chance to show off their blocks.

 

Anne's mini baskets--note that one fell over! She also made a pile of three baskets.

 

 

Lynsey's baskets (she is thinking of embroidering some flowers on the middle white piece.): 

 

Pam's baskets (the top left one is a clutch with a little bow on the top edge.):

 

Christine's blue Civil War fabric baskets:

 

 

Edith's Easter Baskets:

 

 

Susan's baskets (I love the orange handle on the blue basket!):

 

Lorraine's baskets (Love the stripes!)

 

 

Mary's Oriental Purses with fun handles:

 

 

 

Maureen used Wonder Under and machine blanket stitch for her handles. 

 

 

These are my baskets.  I am making a liberated basket sampler. 

 

 

I have another block started but not done yet.  This one will have flowers of some sort on the ends of the stems and I will likely add some leaves as well.

 

 

It was a great day. I was pleased that everyone went outside their usual style and embraced liberated quilt making for the day.

 

 



My Pincushion is DONE and a Couple of WIP's

I finished off my paper pieced pin cushion in time for show and tell at the London Friendship Quilter's guild meeting tonight. I had to make a mad dash to Len's Mills store today between appointments to buy more plastic beads to fill it up. I had 5 minutes after supper tonight to hand stitch the last seam before I put it into my bag to take to the meeting.  It has 72 pieces in the top...and took hours to make but the results are so worth the effort!

I had to hand stitch each of the corners but the rest was sewn by machine. I will add this pincushion to my growing collection!

I am in the process of quilting a quilt for a refugee child from Syria and made some progress this week.  I am a little over half way done.

I also added the final chicken wire fabric border to my chicken coop quilt. I need to purchase some backing for this quilt and then it will be off to the long armer's house for quilting.

I hope to get the child's quilt done this weekend.  The family will be arriving from Syria soon.

London Modern Quilt Guild Meeting--paper pieced pincushion.

This morning was the first meeting of 2016 for the London Modern Quilt Guild.  After a very brief business meeting, Kristin led us in a paper piecing workshop to make these pincushions. This dark gray one is the sample that Kristin made to show us.  She had made up kits for each of us to use, trying to fool herself into thinking that she was reducing her stash...

I sorted out my pieces of fabric from light to dark in colour families.

 

 I started with yellow and worked my way through the colour wheel.

This is the first of 4 sections.

I managed to finish 2 sections before the end of the meeting.

Tonight, I made the last 2 sections and sewed them together. It finishes at 4.5" square.  This looks so cool!!!  (There are 18 pieces in each section of this project!)

This weekend's handwork project is removing all of those little pieces of paper!

A couple of years ago, I received these tweezers with a magnifying glass attached.  They are for removing small pieces of paper when paper piecing.  They are perfect for this job!

I hope to finish this pincushion sometime this week.

We had warm weather today... and some rain.  There is no snow.  Very weird weather for this time of year.

I am linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.  Once I get all that paper removed, maybe I will have time to do some hand quilting on my wool applique squirrel project...