July 2019 Work Day Recap

What a beautiful weekend of quilting with faithful friends!  Lots of activity as always but also a lot of love.  You may not know that we set aside a "Devotional time" every Hope Quilters Saturday.  We sit in a circle and someone reads a devotional, and then members share any "Joys and Concerns" that they feel comfortable sharing.  Sharing is not required as you attend Hope Quilters, but it's just a really good place to pause in our busyness, meditate on God's word for a moment and give thanks for all He has been doing, and uphold one another in prayer.

This group is so good at helping each other to stay focused on this truth: 

John 16:33: "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

In case we need another reminder of how good God is, let's talk about quilting.  It's a good thing Michelle ordered three more rolls of batting because we had at least 20 queen and twin-sized tops go out for quilting on Friday!!!  This has been a huge answer to several months of prayer!  Thank you to all those gifted long-arm quilters who volunteered to help out with this big need!  

Missions has let us know that there are a few more organizations Hope has partnered with and that Hope Quilters will have more outlets for quilts:

·  Wildwood Hills Ranch of Iowa  wildwoodhillsranch.org

·  Primary Health Care  phcinc.net

·  Waukee Area Christian Services  waukeechristianservices.org

Some of the project ideas that are being discussed and planned for the upcoming months:

JOPPA:  In August, we'll be doing an inventory for our October JOPPA workday.  

Children's quilts:  Many of the new agencies have needs for twin-sized quilts that appeal to children.  We have lots of children's fabrics still but a majority of our fabrics are tailored for adults.  We'll be getting creative on how to use colors (blues, reds, greens) and add kid-like interest (bright colors, applique, focus blocks) to our patterns.  

Overflowing Orphan Block box:  We are going to try some group projects to start using these blocks.  One thought is to "pass around" a quilt = each quilter does a row and then passes it to another quilter.  This can be a very fun project and it will be exciting seeing how the quilts turn out!

The Emoji Quilt:  With all the teenaged twin quilts we have an outlet for we thought it might be fun to do this as a group project.  A pattern book has been provided and we are planning to get this organized to do at the September retreat.  Participation is on a volunteer basis but should prove to be a fun project.

Some of the quilts turned in this month on PHOTOS page.

June 2019 Work Day Recap

"Too hot to be outside!"  said a lot of you this weekend.  What a great weekend we had at Hope Quilters Work Days.  It all started with a wonderful donation of fabric and supplies.  A  fellow quilter with health concerns was unable to quilt anymore and hoped we could put it to good use.  Prayers for this special gal as she has had to give up her sewing hobby, something we all may have to face someday (even though we don't want to think about it!)  But through her generous spirit, these donations will go on to help many other hurting people in our community. 

This sacrificial act of donating all her sewing supplies tied right into our devotion that member Jean brought about sharing our gifts.  And busy, busy, busy we were using those gifts today!  There were 10 finished quilts to give to Missions for delivery to YESS, LSI, Joppa, and Hawthorne Hills.  PHOTOS here. Thanks to Sandy and Doris for organizing the finished quilt tops.  The small and medium-sized tops can easily be done on your domestic machines.  I encourage you to challenge yourself to try one of these if you haven't quilted before.  We'll help you pin and mark it at the next meeting!  We are still in need of some quilters who can do twin /queen-sized quilts.  Mary Helen has been working on some fun ideas for new kits as well as some group projects.  Next month we will be ready to put our Cat Cabins together.  Those fun little log cabins are going to turn into two twin-sized quilts for LSI.  They are going to be adorable.  Just wait till you see some of the new ideas we have for stash busting, skill challenges and other interactive projects.  

In July we are going to donate some time to organize our fabric bins.

Happy Summer to you all!

This little beauty was overlooked in May.  I don't know how, as with all that rain
brings "May" flowers and all!  So because it was so pretty with such cute flowers it gets
it's own special feature here today!  Adorable!