It was a wonderful spirit-filled weekend at Hope
Quilters. Two speakers inspired us with the work that they do and the
faith journey that led them to cross our path. Barbara, from LSI, told
us about the programs at LSI and how our quilts are used in each one.
What a blessing it was to hear how our quilts provide a little bit of
comfort and love in the work that LSI does. And Kim Ogle's involvement
with Will Keeps and the road she has traveled to help his organization
with these bed quilts is a wonderful story of what happens when you let
God lead you. We are very thankful to be helping her in this mission.
For those coming to retreat, we will have one more bed quilt that we can
work on if you haven't gotten involved yet. We can share more of both
of these stories for anyone who missed it.
We
spent a little time talking about some scrappy block design options.
Examples were shown of some foundation piecing for a scrappy
quilt. Some quicks bags of scraps and some
foundation pieces were put together so people could try this technique. There were mixed
opinions on how much "fun" this was. We are going to continue to try
different block techniques and talk about design options for these
scrappy quilts. We do have lots of scraps that we want to use. While
the bins have filled up more due to several donations in the past
months, we still have a variety of fabrics rather than lots of yardage
of a few fabrics which means scrappy quilt patterns will suit us
better. We'll keep up with design discussions on making patterns more
scrappy.
Some topics worth mentioning:
- We
have had several quilt tops donated. That means they need backing and
need to get on the list to be quilted. We're looking for people to
"Adopt a quilt top" which means taking on the task of finding and making
a back and getting the name on the long arm list.
- There are still a
box full of those small donated quilt tops that we were using for the
altar cloth project. The remaining ones we're using kid prints so we
can make them for many of our agencies. And they are a good size to
practice quilting on your domestic machine! If you are interested in
trying quilting let us know and we can buddy you up with someone to walk
along side you as you learn.
- The bins are very disorganized
with all the new fabrics as well as the scrap projects. There are LOTS
of cool children's fabrics. We have many children's' agencies needing
twin, lap and baby quilts. Let's dig into these fun fabrics! Big
pieces of lots of children's fabrics of the Turning Twenty quilt can be
as neat as an I Spy quilt.
The blog URL is
hopequilters.blogspot.com.
For those who haven't checked it out yet, please do. This is becoming
the best place to get information about our group. If you search for it on your phone's internet, and after you click on the link for the blog, usually you click on the three dots at the top right, and in the drop down it should offer "Add to Home Screen", and then it will be right there on your phone! We're working on
putting an active calendar page on the website to help with all those
questions like "are we meeting this weekend" or "are we going to cancel
because of the snow", etc. I really want to have a place to post our
speakers and field trips too. Possibly establishing a monthly
design talk as well and get back to having topics of interest. Having
this readily available is easier in digital format than on paper. So
check it out and become familiar with the blog site. There is a lot of
old stuff there but the main page and the photo's page are the key
tabs. Ideas and suggestions on improving the blog site are always welcome. We don't really intend it to be for blogging but it was established a
long time ago and is free so we're making it work for us.
We welcomed a few new quilters to the group. Make sure you introduce yourself to them when you see them!
Finally,
January Retreat is coming up on the 22nd. All the details will be sent in an email.
Happy Sewing!
