Siblings Together

I read on Lynne's blog, Lily's Quilts, about a wonderful charity called Siblings Together. The charity runs camps for siblings who have been seperated by the care system where they can spend valuable time with their brothers and sisters. Lynne put out a call for quilts which could be given to the children at the camp as a personal momento to remind them of the wonderful time spent with their siblings. Lynne has written an excellent post here about the quilts etc. and Delma who runs the charity gives a very moving account of the charity and the camps.

I was concerned that there may be a lack of quilts for older boys (the age range is 7-17) and I had limited fabrics to make a whole quilt so I decided to volunteer to make a quilt from donated blocks.
 This is part of the discussion that I posted on the flickr group which explains my reasoning for wanting to make a quilt for a young man.

"Hi, I'm Maria and i would like to make a quilt for a teenage boy. It probably won't be long before some of these boys reach the age when they leave the care system and have to make their own way in the world. I am guessing that many probably don't have much in the way of personal possesions to take with them to their new home which, ( I'm guessing again) may be a bedsit or a room in a hostel. Perhaps his own personal quilt may give some comfort to a young man in his new home."

I thought simple 9 patch blocks would be quick and easy for the volunteers to make. A wonderful bunch of quilters from England, Canada, Holland and Isreal sent fabulous blocks and the lovely Charlotte volunteered to provide the backing and binding and quilt and bind the quilt. Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey fame donated some fabric which I made into blocks. In the end we had enough blocks to make two quilts in two colourways. I put the quilt tops together and Charlotte quilted the blue one and I quilted the brown one. Here are the completed quilts.

I haven't got a picture of the blue quilt quilted but there is one on flickr here...............................I pressed publish and then remembered that I made another quilt! This one is certainly not for an older boy!

Bye for now, Maria.

Starts and Finishes.

A while ago I promised to make a quilt for my parents bed. They left the choice of design up to me but said to choose an easy design which wouldn't take too long, not so they would get their quilt quicker but to make life easier for me. I spent forever looking at quilt designs but couldn't make a decision as to what to choose. It felt that if I chose something too easy I wouldn't be putting enough effort in, I'm sure they wouldn't feel that though. In the end I decided on a medallion style quilt which I would make up as I went along. I know they like this medallion quilt I made a while ago.

This time I went for a storm at sea design for the centre panel. I love how storm at sea blocks create a secondary curved design but you don't sew any curves, admittedly the effect doesn't show up very well in this photo.  I've now added the first border which starts to turn the centre design into a medallion, it's made of  flying geese blocks but I've not taken any photos yet. The fabrics are a really pretty range called Flora by Lauren and Jessi Jung.

I've been delayed in getting on quicker with this by finishing the Siblings Together group charity quilts.

They're now all finished and hopefully will make too young men happy and cosy. Below is the one I've just finished, the other was quilted by Charlotte aka the weepixie and can be seen here.

And finally.......here are some roses from our garden and an attempt at artistic photography!

I'm linking up to Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.
Maria .

Just Playing

I've been playing with picmonkey .........

 These were taken last year at Alderburgh, Suffolk.

Off to sew now.
Maria .

Swapping anticipation.

I've bitten the bullet and signed up to the Brit Quilt Swap 3 over on flickr. This time it's a mini quilt swap. There's some fantastic inspiration mosaics ready to frighten our yet to be allocated  partners. I'm excited to find out who my partner will be, we find out on or around the 1st of July. I hope what I make her won't disappoint, it's a bit scary.

 This is my mosaic of gorgeousness. Sadly I didn't make any of these, credits to the talented makers can be seen here.

Hello to anyone visting from the swap. Are you nervous too?

Maria x

Ballerina Quilt for Siblings Together

As well as the group quilt I am co-ordinating  for the Siblings Together project I am making a very sugary girly quilt. It's made with some yardage of ballerina fabric and some scraps I had left over from when I used to make items to sell. This seemed like the ideal oppurtunity to use the fabrics for a good cause.

 

Now to the quilting but first of all I need to do the basting. My least favourite part of quilt making.

I usually lay the quilt out on the living room floor to baste but this is what it looks like at the moment!

It looks like I'm off to move furniture in the dining room for some floor space.

Maria x

Geese Around the World Mini Quilt

I recently finished a mini quilt taken from the book Quilting From Little Things by Sarah Fielke. The quilt I chose to make was Geese Around The World. It's a paper pieced flying geese design. I found the instructions well written but the only critisism I had was that if you sewed on the printed side of the pattern as the instructions in the section on paper piceing at the back of the book tells you too, the geese would be flying in the opposite direction to the ones on the quilt which does not match with the diagram in the instructions.This confused  my little brain.

I used similar colours as sarah's quilt but didn't have any spotty fabric for the background which was a shame as it looks really cute.
Here's the quilt from the book.

And here's my version.

I don't know what happened to the bottom pink goose, it seems to have lost it's point! I loved the binding Sarah used on her quilt. I would never in a million years have thought to have used that fabric with the colour scheme of the quilt. Luckily I had a similar fabric left over from another project and am really pleased with how it looks. It  reminds me of a wooden picture frame.

Bye for now, Maria

Siblings Together

Yet again I'm starting a blog post with the phrase "It's been a long time since my last post". Never mind it's a free country. I have a couple of small finishes to show but they can wait until another day.

Over the last week I've become inspired by a flickr group called "Siblings Together". A group of quilters are making quilts to give to siblings seperated by the care system who are to attend a summer camp.

If you would like to know more this is the website for the charity and this is the starter post by Lynne of Lily's Quilts who put out the call for quilts.

Some of us are making quilts and some people who may not have the fabric or time to make a whole quilt are making blocks which will be sent to one person who will put the quilt together. I've set myself the task of making a girl's quilt from some ballet fabric I've had for ages and a boy's quilt from truck fabric.

I was concerned that there may be a lack of quilts for older boys (the age range is 7-17) and I have limited fabrics to make a whole quilt so I decided to volunteer to make a quilt from donated blocks. I thought simple 9 patch blocks would be quick and easy and I'm using muted blues, browns, greens and greys. Here is the flickr thread with more details.
 I have had some wonderful volunteers who have already made or are going to make blocks and a hugely generous member of the group has volunteered to supply the backing and wadding and quilt it, she's going to bind it too. How brilliant is that?
Talking of generous the wonderful Katy of I'm a Ginger Monkey fame has donated loads of fabric and she is sending me some fabric for the quilt.

If anyone fancys joining us and making some blocks, that would fantastic as I need about 42 for the quilt, leave a comment and I'll let you know the details.
Here is an example block.

 Sorry about the photo, it's taken with my phone in poor light.

Bye for now, Maria x