California here we come...

I have been missing in action the last few days.  Things have been rather busy and I have spent my time trying to get quilt tops done, bindings done, and quilts delivered to the hospital.  My sister Susan is here and we have spent a good part of the afternoon and evening playing in my quilt room.  Well, make that quilt rooms.  My basement quilting room has expanded into two rooms with this project going.  You just can't be creative without spreading out.  Susan had the opportunity to help deliver quilts to the hospital today.  This was the first time she has had the chance to do that.  I think she enjoyed meeting everyone and hearing how much the quilts are appreciated. 

Susan and I are leaving tomorrow and heading out on an adventure.  We are flying from Kansas City to Oakland, California.  We are having a "sister's get away" but it is one with a purpose.  Some of you know I have multiple sclerosis.  For the past 4 years I have been participating in a drug study for the first medication for MS that is not an injection.  It is a capsule you take once a day.  It has been approved by the FDA and is now on the market.  The drug company has asked me to be a spokesperson for the company and share my experiences with the medication.  I am flying to California for a "photo shoot".  I am allowed to bring a traveling companion and while normally my husband Greg would travel with me, he is unable to go this time.  I asked Susan if she would be willing to go and happily she said yes.  Now for those of you who have ever been around us, that is a good thing and a bad thing.  Let's just say we have a lot of fun when we are together.  Maybe too much fun!  There is just something that comes over us and we start laughing and get out of control. Our husbands just shake their heads and run for cover.    Susan and I are quite excited.  We haven't really traveled together just the two of us as adults.  Yes, one of the first things we did is check to see if there are quilt stores close.  And woohoo!!!  There are two of them.  Although we will be quite busy, we are planning on sneaking in a trip to the shops.

I am hoping to be able to post at least a quick note to let everyone know how the trip is going.  At least it will reassure our mom that we have not been arrested.

I am very excited to have this experience.  I firmly believe in this new drug.  It has been very beneficial to me and I am looking forward to sharing that with people across the nation.

For those of you who I have been able to share my plans, thank you for your interest and your concern.  As Susan and I travel tomorrow, we will take a piece of you with us.

It is in the Giving

Does this look like a wild and crazy bunch of women?  They certainly are a fun bunch! (I am the goofy looking one not in scrubs.)  We delivered a stack of quilts this week and the nurses had a fun time looking at them.  They needed a quilt for an eight year old boy and we just happened to have one with soccer balls on it!  Perfect!!  The nurses said this was one family that was going to be extremely appreciative due to their current circumstances.  If that doesn't warm your heart, I'm not sure what will.  We are now in the mid fifties with more quilts to be delivered this week. 

Someone has asked how to contact us if they would like to donate to our cause.  You can email me at the email address on the right hand side of the page.  There are lots of ways you can be involved.  We use 100% cotton fabric and quilt batting.  We will use any that you might have in your stash that you are willing to part with.  Maybe there is that piece of fabric that you just had to have and now don't really like as well as you thought.  Maybe you have a basket of scraps you don't have a plan for.  We can use them.  Thread?  We use alot.  Maybe you would enjoy making some blocks that we can put with some we already have.  There are lots of choices to be a part of a great thing.  Regardless of how you choose to get involved you will find you get much more than you give.  I have a framed cross stitch hanging in my living room that states "It is in the giving that we receive."  We are putting in a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of expense to make this all work, but we get much more out of it than we put in.   Please consider what you might be able to do.  We can do great things together.

 Sometimes the colors in the quilts don't show as well as I would like.  This quilt is a bright blue with lots of crayons on it.  The quilter put a bright yellow backing that has dots on it.

We love choosing the fabrics when we start making a quilt. Putting together different color combinations gives you a great feeling of creativity.  Sometimes we think we get a little too bright on those combinations, but the nurses tell us the brighter they are, the more the kids like them.

For some reason this quilt insists on being sideways.  I keep turning it, but it just refuses to show up right side up.  Sometimes quilts have a mind of their own.

I hope you enjoyed see the nurses from Lawrence Memorial Hospital and a couple of our quilts.  Thanks to all of you who have chosen to help Pieces make a difference for a child.

More Quilts, Quilters, Friends

I have bindings to make today!  I received four quilts from my friends who are helping quilt the hospital quilts. They are so gorgeous I hate to give them away.  The quality of quilting on them is outstanding.  We all tend to think our own work may not be as good as the work of others, but I am here to tell you these quilts are wonderful.  I dream of being able to quilt that well some day.  Also, one of the quilters is becoming a wonderful recruiter for us.  She had three ladies volunteer to each take a quilt top and quilt it for us.  Hopefully they will feel the joy that we feel and jump in with both feet.  I was asked how long it took us to get to the 50 quilts donated mark.  Our first donation was eleven quilts on May 28th.  We hit fifty in October.  Now with the help of these generous quilters, our next fifty is going to be much faster.  I am so excited at the thought of that.  I never dreamed I could do so much with this when I started.  And I couldn't.  Fortunately I have had friends jump in to help.  And then friends of friends have jumped in.  We've made great quilts and I've made new friends.  That is the best of both worlds!

We keep trying to make different quilts.  We love doing a variety of patterns with many different fabrics.  That keeps our interest and creativity flowing.  All those bits of fabric large and small can be a challenge to incorporate in a quilt.  The great thing is we are making it happen due to the inspiration the ladies who do the piecing find--wherever they find it!  We have had some exciting tops finished lately and wait till you see them quilted.  You will have a hard time deciding on a favorite just like we have.

And then there are the backings. With so many fabric choices out there it is fun to choose what to put on the back.  We want to the front of the quilt to be fun or pretty but the back can be just as interesting.  The choices are endless.

There is such a camaraderie between quilters.  You don't even have to know each other but when you say I am a quilter you become instant friends.  It is almost like you both speak a foreign language--I guess you do...quilt-speak!

This is such a sweet little quilt for a girly-girl.  With the soft blues and mauves it is sure to win some little girls heart!


That's all of the quilts for today.  I have to save some so you'll check back with us to see what else we have in store!

Opportunities

Opportunities.  There are those who think opportunties magically happen--something that comes along once in a lifetime.  I happen to think they are waiting out there for us.  But the trick is, you have to look for them.  You aren't going to just stumble across them.  Sometimes you have to nudge them, cradle them and nourish them.  An opportunity may come out of something good or it may come out of something less.  But an opportunity is only what we make it. Making quilts for the pediatric unit was an opportunity that I made happen.  I certainly haven't made it happen alone.  I have lots of help and encouragement.  But even if I didn't, I still could seize the opportunity to make a difference for someone.  I certainly wouldn't be at the 50 quilts donated mark, but I still would have been able to do something.  In the letter that we give to the parents of a child receiving a quilt, I wrote, "Out of difficult situations come pieces of unexpected joy."   Indeed it is true. We all go through difficult situations in our life.  It is what we choose to do with those situations that matters.  You can choose to find a piece of unexpected joy. I have and I wish the same for you.

Never Ending Saga

This has been a wild and crazy week.  The quilting fairies gave me back a stack of quilts they had finished.  That meant I had lots of bindings to make.  Once I finished those, the quilts went to Beth to sew the bindings on, add labels, and hand stitch the binding down.  The quilts traveled to Carrol next and she washed them for us.  I delivered a nice stack of them to the hospital on Thursday and still have three to pick up from Carrol.  Our system is working quite well. Shelly is working on some paperwork for us and Susan has been taking a vacation to see her son at the naval base in Groton, Connecticut.  She finished up a large number of quilt tops before she left and says she can't wait to get back to her machine.  I think that catches you up on all of us.  I hope you have had a fun and productive week too.

Isn't this a bright and fun quilt.  The squares have all kinds of animals.

And here is the quilt backing our quilter chose.  Very fitting for this loveable quilt.

This is a bright quilt that would work for a girl or boy.  It makes me think of a boy's quilt, but lots of girls like soccer so they would be happy with it too.

 





Of course the perfect backing is patriotic stars. They compliment the national flags in the blocks on the front of the quilt.

And last, here is a picture of some blocks I am playing with.  They are commonly referred to as strings.  You take strips and randomly sew them on some type of foundation.  I made these blocks awhile back and decided to use some of them in a children's quilt. It is just another step in my never ending saga to use scraps!  They are lots of fun to make and are somewhat addictive.  Stay tuned for the final product!

Parts are Parts

I didn't get much sewing done yesterday, but I felt like I accomplished alot.  I met my sister to exchange quilt stuff.  She had a stack of tops sewn and I gave her lots of parts to put together!  Remember the old Wendy's commercial about chicken?  "Parts are parts?"  I think I stopped liking chicken a little about then.  Anyway, I gave her parts to put together for quilt tops.  I am really excited about the ones she brought me and can"t wait for them to be quilted to show to you.

We have added another quilter to our group.  Sandy just got a new HQ quilting machine and is willing to quilt a few tops for us. A big thank you to Sandy.  Also yesterday when Susan and I were in a quilt shop we had a few ladies offer to piece a quilt top or two.  Any help we get is so appreciated.  The more help we have, the more kids we can help.

While we were in the quilt shop we were talking with the staff and a few customers about scraps.  That is always a favorite topic for quilters!  When I told them I saved one inch scraps I think they were slightly appalled.  One lady commented that one inch was just too small to mess with.  I thought I would show you what can be done.  First of all, you start with this...

You do a little pressing, a little cutting....

And you end up with this.

All you have to do after you get them cut is put them in a sack and give them to your sister.  She'll sew them into log cabin blocks!  One inch strips are too small to mess with?  These blocks start with a 1 inch by 1 inch square.  It is hard to get much smaller.  Don't have a sister?  Your sister won't sew those little strips?  You can give them to my sister.  She's known for doing some crazy things!  Making these blocks isn't one of them however.  These are going to show up in an awesome quilt that we'll show you on this blog.  Keep watching for that.

I Want It!!!!!

Let's face it.  We want it all.  We may say we don't, but we really do.  When my children were about 3 years old, we were in a store when Joshua found something that caught his eye.  He asked if he could have it and his dad explained that maybe sometime but not this day.  He  promptly replied, "But I need it!"  Before either of us could open our mouth to respond, his brother, Joel, wise beyond his years, stated quite emphatically, "Josh, you don't need it, you just want it."  While I am hiding my giggle behind my hand, Greg, using this as a what he refers to as a "teachable moment" expanded on Joel's insight.  We left the store with the shiny object in the store, still on the shelf.  Of course, I didn't realize at the time we had just set the tone for years to come.  We have used Joel's unexpected adult reasoning in many situations, both serious and in fun.  Years later find Greg with little need and very little wants.  Joshua has found what he wants in what he has and Joel has discovered it is okay to want something once in awhile.  Me???  Uhh, well, when it comes to fabric, I still want it all.  But I have made one change.  I want it all, but I really want what I can use for a children's quilt. 



This fun frog fabric is the back of the quilt at the top.



 

Every good story has a moral. I guess the moral of this one is...

All we really need is a roof over our head, some food, and a good quilt.

(A little bit of fabric doesn't hurt either)