Sad day

 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. 

Here she is at The Big Textile Show.  She was always happy to spend time promoting Project Linus, and was an asset at any event.

Of course, there was coffee and chat included too, and we all enjoyed going out and meeting new people.

Here we are at a sewing day in Coalville.  

Maria’s involvement with Linus illustrates well the bonuses that belonging to such a group has.  She put a lot of work and time into the quilts she made, but she also benefited from the pleasures of creating and giving, plus the friendships she made.  As a quilter and friend, she will be sorely missed. 

More goodies!

 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! 

Happy days

 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? 

Quick trip to Glenfield

 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. 

Here we are with one of the quilts.  It was lovely to meet Jessica, and also lovely to have no queue for the car park.  Amazing! 

Busy afternoon

 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! 

Visit to Leicestershire Quilters

 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. 

I started by showing the rosette I got for winning the Silver Thimble competition in 2003!  It was a sew a row quilt, called ‘Does my pumpkin look big in this?’ and is giving cuddles at the moment. I had a big pile of quilts to show, as well as giving information about Linus. Everyone likes seeing quilts, and the LQ members were no exception! 

Here is one of the quilts, before I passed it round for more examination.   

 

Here is a rainbow one.  Great use of scraps.  

The group kindly gave me a donation, 9 quilts as well as some fabric and UFOs.  It was lovely to see some old friends and make new ones. 

2025

 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. 

She chose a quilt that I had actually made, from the bagful of HSTs which Jacquie gave me.  I find they work better if arranged by colour.  Heather kindly spent a couple of hours sorting the triangles into colours and then into groups of the same design, so that made it a lot easier.  Thank you, Heather!

Then we had a celebration at February’s Knit and Stitch.  This group was founded 14 years ago! 

Here I am with cake for all who wanted it.  Most people did and the few pieces leftover I offered to the Leisure Centre staff, who are so obliging. 

Here are some of the members of the group busy chatting!  They get a lot done as well as making friendships!  

Here’s to another successful quilting year!