Charity Donation Quilt

Today I have been working on a donation quilt that our guild is giving to a local organization. They will raffle it off to raise money for their work.

We ask our guild members to make parts of the blocks and try to stay with pieces that can be made too big and then cut down to size. We have found that 4 patches and half-square triangle squares work the best for this process.

For this quilt, we didn’t set a color way and instead just went for “all-out scraps”.

I was worried that there were too many colors in the pieces, but as you can see the pattern carries the diverse colors……

and it actually looks better in person….the camera doesn’t give it much depth of field. In person you really see the squares formed by the triangles…..

So we just have to add borders, get it quilted and send it off to Interfaith Hospitality!!!!

A fun surprise

Today, I was driving through my local town of Watkinsville……one main street with the courthouse and a few stores. I glanced to one side and saw the window of the Oconee County Tourist Bureau and noticed that there was a wonderful quilt displayed in the window.

Then I did a double take and realized that “I made that quilt!!!!!”……at least I pieced the top.

It is the one that is being raffled for the Oconee Relay for Life event and they are selling tickets at the Welcome Center.

Naturally I had to stop and take a photo!!!!

Finished Charity Quilts

At our last guild meeting, the Charity Bee presented two quilts that are being donated to the local Relay For Life programs.

As I mentioned in this post, these started out as a way for me to use some scraps and fondle some fabric back during the Christmas rush.

I finished the inside parts and handed them off to the bee. They chose and added the borders and then two of our wonderful members completed the quilting.

They were handed off to the American Cancer Society last Wednesday and I am looking forward to hearing how much money was raised from them…..

Decorating the Senior Center

Our county built a new, wonderful Senior Center a couple of years ago. It is an excellent facility but the main meeting room has vaulted ceilings and is painted white. The result is that it tends to be boring and the sounds echo around in it. This is how it looked……

So, enter the Charity Bee from our local guild, and a few months later……

We made these six quilts using traditional patterns and various fabrics that have been donated to the Charity Bee. I wrote about designing these quilts back in July….here is the post…..

Here are close-ups of the 6 quilts……

I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear what the Seniors say in the morning!!!! I hope that they enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed the making of them!!!!

Power Piecing

Back before New Year’s I started a scrap quilt using a “Split Nine Patch” design from Bonnie Hunter (check out her blog here). In her description of the block she talked about a standard Split Nine Patch that looks like this……

She thought that this was a bit boring, so she turned the Half-square triangle around so that it looks like this……

This makes for a MUCH more exciting block!!!!

ANYWAY, I had been piecing on these blocks, intending to make a Queen size quilt from them.

But then an opportunity arose….. our Guild Charity Bee provides quilts to the two local Relay for Life programs each year. They use these quilts to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Well, this year we were running a bit late in the planning and execution of these two quilts, so I offered to use my blocks and make two tops.

SO, this past week I spent many hours sewing “as fast as the wind” to get these finished by this week. When I am in this mode, I have termed it “Power Piecing”….you dont think, you dont plan, you just sew and iron!!!!!

Here are the two tops…..

Now someone else will add borders, our wonderful friend, Ellen will quilt them and they will hopefully be ready to deliver by the first of February.

My hope is that they raise TONS of money for cancer research!!!!