Quilts, Quilts, Quilts!: November 2005 Archives

I had to move the lamp that usually sits on the table, to take this picture. This quilt took me several years to piece. I had about a third of it done when I ran into difficulty getting the piecing right at the points. One evening I sewed the row five times and STILL didn't get it right.

A trip to the optometrist helped, and I resumed work a couple of months later. I think I played with it for a year or so before I was willing to send it off to be quilted. The quilt on the wall is a Friendship Star quilt. You can see that I love stars. The quilt thrown over the back of the chair is a star quilt, too.

I was approached after Katrina hit our shores by a woman who had read my blog, and knew I am a quilter. She had developed the idea of pulling together things for quilters who had lost everything in the hurricane, including the material to make a quilt.

I got started on the project, and then asked my Friday Night Quilt Bee if they wanted to participate. We've pulled together a variety of items the average quilter has in her quilt room: pins, needles, a magnetic pin holder, fabric and paper scissors, thread, needle threaders, marking pens, colored pencils, a Pigma pen for signing quilts, a pin cushion, safety pins, a bag of embellishments (buttons, beads, Yo-Yos, floss), two quilting books, a quilting hoop, template material, an Olfa rotary cutter, a mat and a ruler. We also added a package of comfort items like tissues, hand cream, Advil, playing cards, stationary and stamps.

Elegante Mother and I searched our stashes of fabric to find the material for a red, white and blue quilt top that is 68 inches wide and 88 inches long. I cut the blocks, sashing and setting blocks. We supplied fabric for the outer border, and yesterday I bought a wonderful fabric in shades of blue to white in a hydrangea pattern for the quilt backing. (I wish I had purchased a bit o that for my stash!)
We added our favorite batt to the collection, and I gathered scraps for the hearts that are to be appliquéd on the blocks. The only thing missing was a sewing machine.

Everything but the scraps have been packaged up in a wonderful canvas bag, and tomorrow I'll take the canvas bag, and the bag of scraps off to be boxed and mailed. I found a recipient among the people who had been evacuated to the Chicago area, and I'm still looking for one more woman who needs assistance. We want to target women who already quilt, who lost everything.

It would have been even better if we had been able to accomplish this right after the evacuation process had begun, but this way it will seem like an unexpected Christmas gift.

If you have any suggestions as to how I might make contact with a quilter who needs a hand replacing her quilt room, I'd be happy to hear them.