A Quilt-Along with Crazy Mom Quilts

Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts is offering a quilt-along. Check out her details here. All the quilts will be sent to Margaret's Hope Chest.

Want to join us? It will be a lot of fun to work "together," and making quilts for Margaret's Hope Chest is always a good thing. It's one of my favorite places to donate. They do great work.

I am starting on some easy 4-patches. They want Boy Quilts!! So I bought some sports stuff, and I'm off and running. (Amanda Jean is offering instructions/discussion on how to do rail fence, but you don't have to do that pattern.)

My purple irises have already bloomed and gone, but now I have my yellow ones. So pretty, and I didn't have to do a lick of work to get them to bloom.

A Quilt for Margaret's Hope Chest

This quilt is going to Margaret's Hope Chest, to the program for women overcoming post-partum depression. It was a long time in coming.... I saved floral fabrics for a couple years, then about two years ago I made this top. Then I eventually had it quilted by Diane S. who volunteered to do some of my charity quilts for free. Then it sat around for another many months, and I finally got the binding on it this week. I promised it to Margaret's Hope Chest for November, and I barely have days left in November in which to get it posted in the mail. Sometimes a deadline is a good thing! Hoping whoever gets this quilt loves it up.

A Quilt for MHC

Margaret's Hope Chest asked for a few baby quilts for a project in Kenya. They only needed about 8 quilts. I volunteered this one.

Off it goes, soon to be cuddling a sweet baby in Kenya.

Yes, the orange is some of my own dyed fabric!

Backing: animals driving cars

Decisions Made

Today I made some decisions about where to send some of my quilts. This is one of my harder decisions; I make a lot of quilts, and there are so many deserving places to whom I would love to send quilts. I just can't donate to them all, so decide I must. This is what I decided:





I announced recently that this quilt (above) was going to Bundles of Love. I changed my mind. I decided to send it to Margaret's Hope Chest for the mothers and babies in the post-partum depression program.





This is a lap-size quilt (above) for a mother in the Margaret's Hope Chest program. I wish I had a bigger one to send, but the closer-to-twin sizes that I have are all pretty juvenile, using fabric with pictures of dinosaurs, fishies, bicycles, etc... too kid-friendly and not enough adult-friendly. This quilt was put together in 2008. One of the blocks shows the date. It has never been used, however. I hope the mother who gets it doesn't think it's someone's cast-off.



This quilt has a destination in mind, but for now that destination remains a secret!

It feels good to have decided. Now I just need to find a box to send these two to Margaret's Hope Chest.

Raggedy Quilt by Moi

I made this quilt for Margaret's Hope Chest. It's my first made-entirely-by-me raggy quilt. After working on them for MHC in Grand Rapids, MI last month, I decided I could do one on my own. This one is all flannels (except for the little picture square inside each block).I posted this last week, too, before it was assembled and made raggy. The current block pattern says the quilts will go to girls. I figure they'll get plenty of pinks, and there may be a girl out there who prefers blue.

I love how this one turned out! I like the colors, the softness, and the raggy part which some kid will enjoy playing with. I even love the stripey binding. It's a very cuddly quilt.

the back.. I ran out of blue flannel and had to use pink.. so it's a bit "girly" after all

I also made five blocks to send in for the project's general collection. They're due by November 15. I had to make sure I got a giraffe design in one of my blocks!

Quilt Guild Sewing

Saturday was a guild sewing day. We have certain Saturdays set aside to get together and work on quilts for the two community service projects we support. Only six people showed up, but we got a lot done. Maybe I should say THEY got a lot done. I worked on my own thing.... a kit that was a leftover from last year. I made OK progress, too.

This picture is the six of us, holding up part of the quilt I worked on.

This is the larger quilt that the other five worked on. See the magazine to the left? It shows a pattern in the current Quilt Sampler magazine (Fall/Winter 2012). That's what they worked on. It is turning out so pretty!

In that same magazine, be sure to read about the quilt shop Scottie Dog Quilts located in Eureka, California. The shop owner, BrendaLou, is a friend of mine! She is a great lady, and she and her daughter work hard to run a classy shop!

I have added a button to my side bar: Bloggers' Block of the Month at Peach Patch Quilts. I must admit, I'm not even 100% sure what it is. But the September block is for Margaret's Hope Chest, which I like to support, so I grabbed the button while I was at it and will see how things play out as the months go along.

How many readers noticed that I placed the apostrophe differently from how Peach Patch Quilts placed it. Which use do you think is correct?

Road Trip Report

I'm back home after four quick days through five states! Whew! My head is still spinning. It was a whole lot of fun.

Thurs., Aug 23, we left Minnesota and headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've been to Wisc many times, but never before to Milwaukee. Not sure what I was expecting, but it is a beautiful city with lots of nice, old architecture and things going on. We had dinner at a delicious Greek restaurant, walked around exploring, found a Jazz in the Park event, saw sailboats on Lake Michigan, and lots of interesting people.

This is the main reason we wanted to stop in Milwaukee: the beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum. Wow! It's the coolest building, inside and out. Really nice. We toured it on Fri., Aug 24, our 37th wedding anniversary.

Next on the itinerary was continuing our journey on the ferry that crosses Lake Michigan. It was probably our only time to experience this as it is quite expensive, but worth it for an anniversary treat; we relaxed, napped, ate lunch, and watched the lake and sailboats for 2.5 hours instead of sitting in Chicago traffic. Nice, eh??

After landing in Muskegon, Michigan, we drove on to Grand Rapids. There we settled into our hotel, walked around a bit and then ate a nice anniversary dinner at TGIF's. We had a very friendly and helpful server and had a good old time.

Saturday, Aug 25 was the original impetus for taking this trip: a quilting work day for Margaret's Hope Chest. I have participated in this charity before and love what they do and their passion for making a good thing come out of a bad. It was really fun to meet the MHC creators, Carol, Carin, and Amy. Special guest was Amanda Jean, author of Crazy Mom Quilts blog and the new book, Sunday Morning Quilts. What a neat bunch of people!!

There were about 15 people in attendance: from Minnesota, Cincinnati, Chicago, various other places in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Several were bloggers. How fun to meet in person the author of a blog one reads! We were crowded but very productive. Look at all the beauty!

Sun., Aug 26 was our long day on the road. With stops for breaks it took us 12 hours to drive from Grand Rapids, Mich to home in Minnesota. No luxurious ferry ride for us this time. It was all on the road! We hit Mich, Indiana, Illinois, Wisc and Minnesota all in one day.

"Are you going to behave this time, so I can get in and drive?!"

We had a great time. No regrets! I'm grateful to my wonderful, supportive husband who is willing to jump in the car and drive 1100 miles so I can make some quilts (something I can easily do in my own house), and he manages to have a good time, too. What a treasure he is!

Oh, in case you are wondering, Yes, I was in Grand Rapids during the AQS quilt show but did not manage to get there. I could have, if I'd pushed, but I didn't want to make every minute of the trip all about me and my quilting. We needed some relaxing time to enjoy our anniversary, after all. So I missed the special exhibits I would have liked to see, but I'm content with the trip and how it all played out.

Quilt = Love

I have been sewing like mad! What fun! My tendency to bounce between projects means it's hard to get things done and show you pictures of completed quilts. But I have been having fun, and I trust that everything will eventually get done. (I may be 100 years old, but I'll get'em done by hook or by crook.)


Here is one (above) that I made recently and decided to send to Margaret's Hope Chest (MHC). One of the projects MHC does is quilts for kids whose parent is in prison. I like helping out with that project; I hope a quilt is helpful to the child (and the parent) in some way. Maybe it makes them feel loved or appreciated. I don't know about you, but I feel like the prison system in this country is really messed up. I hope my quilt will, in some tiny way, make someone's life a tiny bit better at least briefly... it's better than doing nothing, I guess. (Some problems are so big, I feel they are too huge to tackle. But giving away a quilt? I can do that and am happy to do it.)


This quilt top is also on its way to Margaret's Hope Chest. It was made and donated by someone in my local guild. She was not happy with it and wanted it out of her house! I gladly took it, and I think it is very cute. It's flannel, so it'll be really snuggly. I just know some child will love this one.


This is a quilt top I made and sent to MHC several months ago. MHC got it quilted, and it was given to a child..... isn't helping someone you will never know a great thing? I make the quilts with love, give them away, and I hope the quilts are loved, but I can't dictate that. I just enjoy knowing that at least someone is warm because of something I did. If they cuddle and love it, that's an extra bonus. The quilt can be a symbol of someone, somewhere, loving them. What could be better?