Last year, we had a lovely sewing day at the Leicestershire Craft Centre in Market Harborough, hosted by Katharine. Unfortunately she’s too busy to hold one this year - perfectly understandable - but has donated a large bag of offcuts, panels, strips, orphans and wadding for us to use!
I know it’s not really the time for quilts, but Linus quilts provide more than physical warmth. I contacted the Diana Service, and found that Aimee has taken on Rosie’s place as Linus contact. We arranged to meet at our usual handover point, Wigston Tesco, but as I arrived there were lots of people milling about. I couldn’t work out what was happening, was it a demonstration, a celebration or flashmob? Then I heard the siren. There had obviously been an incident which meant they had to evacuate the shop! Luckily it didn’t affect me, and I easily found Aimee and passed over the quilts.
Here is Aimee, with the back of a quilt. She liked this one “as Halloween will be here soon” so I didn’t insist she turned it over. It is indeed lovely orange fabric, but actually Star Wars!
Then today, I went over to Jay Fostering to take quilts for the welcome boxes they prepare for their looked after children. Valentina interrupted her lunch to receive them and be photoed.
She actually chose a quilt which Maria started and I finished recently. She asked whether it was possible for them to have some larger quilts as playmats to use in the centre. As it happened there was at least one larger quilt in the batch, so I said that could be one, and I would get a couple more for them soon. I’m really pleased that my quilt cupboard is now manageable, but I don’t have to worry, as Knit and Stitch is tomorrow and I’m sure there will be more coming!
I had a call from Sue in Ward 12 that they needed more quilts. No problem. My husband and I set off to the LRI wondering how long we would spend in the car park queue. Would it be half an hour or three quarters or more? Well, unbelievable as it is, we spent a mere 5 minutes in the queue and easily found a parking slot! This is unheard of - but very welcome!
Then our reception on the ward was fabulous. Everyone was oohing and aching over the beautiful quilts and the young man at the back with Paula’s penguin quilt was hoping that staff could choose a quilt too, with his eye firmly fixed on that one! Unfortunately that was not to be, but we enjoyed the admiration!
Since Hinckley Tangent Group donated some money to Project Linus, we decided to hire a hall and hold a sewing day. Lutterworth Piecemakers kindly booked Walcote Village Hall for us (they are regular users, so we got it for ‘mates’ rates’) and I wanted it to be available to anyone, so it was a free event! Julie works at Tesco and she asked if they were prepared to make a donation towards our refreshments cost - and they did! They funded it completely, which was wonderful of them. Julie bought all kinds of treats from cans of coke to bananas to keep us going! Here she is with the Project Linus sign outside.
The quilts are piling up (hooray!) and I thought I would ring Piper on Ward 10 to see if she needed any quilts. I thought she might, as I haven’t been over to Ward 10 this year so far! Before I could contact her, I had a phone call from Muntaz on Ward 11 to see if I could bring some quilts to her patients! Coincidence! Muntaz said that while they had a lot of babies, they didn’t want any of the very small (cushion sized ) quilts, as while they were very cute, a larger one could be equally cute and more useful in the long run. I thoroughly agree, so packed up 25 quilts of assorted sizes. Then I rang Pip and of course she said they would love some quilts. Today husband and I braved the car park queue and delivered quilts to Ward 11.
Last week, I had a request from Ward 12 at the LRI to take 30 quilts. Fabulous! Jane kindly offered to go with me which was very pleasant.
Here are a couple of staff members and Jane displaying just a couple of the beautiful quilts!
Always a pleasure.
Yesterday was a sad day, as we celebrated the life of Maria Haslewood, one of our most prolific and talented quilters. Maria had been ill for a while, and died after a fall at her house. Paula, Julie and I went to her funeral, and she will be sorely missed.
A final order of fabric and wadding! Two very large rolls of wadding (80/20 no less!) and lots of plains and almost plains for borders etc.
The roll at the top is little white stars, and I’m sure everyone will be delighted to use them up! We have spent half the money given to us by Hinckley Tangent Club, so will wait a while before we spend the rest. Lucky us!
Recently we were delighted to hear that Hinckley Tangent Club had chosen Project Linus for their charity of the year. We were even more delighted to find that they are generous fund raisers, and have given us over £1,000! Wow! We discussed how to spend it, and since wadding and backings are our most difficult items to source, we decided to start with those. Julie was kind enough to deal with the purchasing, and here is the first load.
Twelve 10 metre bolts of fabric - enough to back about 100 quilts! Julie knows the kind of designs we like, ones which are bright and colourful, gender neutral and busy designs (to hide any wobbly quilting!)
My favourite is the one on the back row with the globes on it. I have a quilt top in my drawer waiting for a backing like this! Which is your favourite?
I have had several larger quilts donated recently, and thought these would be most suitable for teenagers. I searched online and found that there is a in-patient provision for 13-18 year olds with mental health difficulties on the Glenfield Hospital site. It’s called The Beacon. I contacted them, and the lovely Jessica said they would love some quilts for their young people. Fortunately for them they only have about half a dozen patients at the moment, so we headed off to Glenfield to deliver them.
Since the last couple of times we’ve been to the LRI in the afternoon we have had a short wait in the car park queue, we thought we’d cracked it. Alas, no. Today we went up in the afternoon and spent 40 minutes in the queue! Never mind, Paula and I had a lovely time putting the world to rights!
We took 50 quilts to Ward 27 and Chandni managed to gather plenty of people willing to have their photos taken.
Everyone was grateful and appreciative, and it took us less than 40 minutes to get home!
The first quilt group I belonged to was Leicestershire Quilters, who meet monthly in Leicester. We thoroughly enjoyed their meetings, although it was sometimes a bit of a scramble to get to Leicester for 7pm after work. I can’t explain why we stopped going, but maybe it was after Piecemakers and Rocheberie started up, with a much shorter journey. But I was delighted to be invited to their meeting to talk about Project Linus.
This new year has been galloping along for me. I usually organise/make/buy the costumes for our local drama group’s panto in January, so it generally goes by in a blur! This year was no exception, but it was very much enjoyed by audience and cast.
Now back to important stuff! Last years final Linus total was 378 quilts, which while not quite as many as recent years (we have been topping 400) is still a lot of hugs and a lots of happy children and families. Well done everyone! The first delivery of the year has also happened, and it’s to Ward 12 of the LRI again! Great to see Sue and other staff members to take 50 quilts.
