Quilts for Looked After Children

Paula and I had a lovely ride out to Bingham yesterday to meet Judy from Fostering Futures.  (There is currently a vacancy for a Linus rep in Nottingham, so I was her nearest coordinator.)  Bingham is a delightful market town, and as you can see, the weather was lovely, and so were the quilts!  This one was made from a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabrics and professionally longarmed!  What generous people there are out there!  Judy gave me a list of ages of the children fostered by her group, and there are several teenagers, so this big quilt will find a suitable home. 

 

 

 

Judy has two children with her at the moment, and they were lucky enough to be able to choose for themselves from the 31 quilts we took.  Judy reports that they were delighted with their quilts, and apart from putting them straight onto their beds, have great plans for future play, starting with a tea party on quilts.  Perfect!

2014!

Here we are in another new year, and it'll have to do well to match the year we had for Linus last year!  Apart from our regular monthly sessions in the Methodist Hall in Lutterworth, we branched out into a pub - The Western in Leicester - an old folks' home - Brook House in Husbands Bosworth  - and the U3A - Hinckley Craft Group - for quilting sessions.  The pub was great fun, and we went to the upstairs theatre production too!  We have photos here if you missed it. Quilting in Brook House was a sobering experience.  Some of the residents were very frail, but they all enjoyed our visit, and loved the bright colours of the quilts.  Sewing for Linus has become a bit of a regular fixture for the U3A group (we're already booked in for this year!) and they made plenty of gorgeous blocks for a Linus quilt. Click here for the evidence.
I would like to say a big thank you to all the people who have supported Project Linus during 2013 – a massive 236 quilts were donated for Leicestershire children ‘in need of a hug’!  They have been given to Looked After Children in Kettering and Leicester, ADAPT (a charity working with premature babies and their families), Surestart, the Paediatric Oncology Ward at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, the Diana Service for Children with Life-Limiting Conditions, Fostering Futures, teenaged mums and their babies in sheltered housing run by ASRA and Catch 22.  So whether you made quilts, made tops, finished quilts, donated UFOs, orphans, fabric or sewing related items, please continue the good work! 
Feel free to come along to our regular sessions in Lutterworth, or just drop in for a cuppa and a chat if you haven't got a whole afternoon to spare.  Look out for other Linus quilting opportunities too - it's always fun to sew with others!

Tractors away!

The year couldn't end without a meeting to hand over some quilts in a windy car park!  Rosemary who works for the Diana Service for Children with Life-limiting Conditions had asked whether there was any chance of three specific requests for some children who were going through a particularly tough time.  They were 'butterflies' (easy), 'tractors' (fairly easy') and 'Peppa Pig' (tricky, as copyrighted fabric is hard to find and expensive).  I said I'd do what I could and here I was with a gorgeous tractor quilt made by Paula with blocks donated by Debbie and backing fabric by Jenny. 

 

 

Here is the butterfly quilt which I made from a Fons and Porter pattern,

 

 

and the Peppa Pig quilt using some squares I bought off ebay for an extortionate price (well, £ 7.50 for 16 six inch squares, which considering they are poly, I consider extortionate!) 

 

Still, I'm sure the recipient will be delighted.  I also took another 12 beautiful quilts for Rosemary, which had all been donated by 'Quilting Together' in Shepshed.  I think some children are going to have a great Christmas! 

 

Quilting together!

At least once a year I have the pleasure to be invited to join the ladies at 'Quilting Together' in Shepshed at their weekly meeting.  The deal is that I take boxes of fabric and orphans, they act like it's Harrods' sale and take home bags of fabric, I take away half empty boxes and then the next time I see them they have a huge pile of Linus quilts for me!  Excellent!  Oh, and they have cake, and are full of fun and great ideas.  This time Paula came with me, and shared the laughs.

 

 

 

Sorry the pictures are slightly blurred, but I forgot my camera so had to use my phone.  They had had a workshop on this technique for making stacks of rectangles - they look like piles of books to me.

 

 

This is a cute cot quilt.

 

Mile a minute (or wonky log cabin) with fabulous blue sashing and borders.

 

This set of blocks had been taken by Anne last year.  They had been donated by someone who had made them at a workshop, then decided she didn't like the colours.  What a great job, Anne!  I hope the donor sees the blocks and wishes she'd kept them!

 

 Another cot quilt in beautiful bright colours.  I love the stripes in the final border.

 

This is a real orphan quilt - lots of interest here!

 

A pretty quilt, with diagonal stripes for the border.  Very effective.

 

A good way to use up some animal print fabric and some panels.

 

Four patches on point.

 

Monochromatic quilts always look good, especially blue ones.

 

The red blocks make this quilt very striking.

 

A Chinese coin strippy with little appliqued pictures.  Colourful and with a sense of fun. 

 

Another book pile - bright and funky.

 

I recognise the centre of this medallion quilt.  It was an orphan from my box, and how stunning it looks in this quilt.  Orphan no more!

 

Scrappy log cabin - so much to look at.

 

Delicate fabrics in a simple yet effective design.

 

Some more orphans, hexagons which have been appliqued onto pastel squares.  Lovely.

 

Colourful and fun - you can't beat a good scrap quilt!

 

Another mile a minute - so much movement in these blocks!  Altogether I brought back 43 quilts - and I'll post photos of the rest soon.  Thank you so much ladies for the quilts, and for a lovely afternoon!

Looked After Children

The quilts were starting to pile up again, so I contacted Debbie, who works with Looked After Children with Special Needs to see if she needed any quilts.  She was so happy, that we met and handed over the very next day! 

 

 

Here we are in Sainsbury's car park with one of the quilts, a jazzy scrappy one.  These will make some children very hugged!.

Busy few days

It has been a busy few days for Linus in Leicestershire, as we have been out and about spreading the word.  First we went to Brook House Care Home to do some sewing as a kind of stimulus session for the residents there.  unfortunately they weren't really up to participating, but they loved seeing the quilts and enjoyed the activity we caused.  Here are the blocks we made, which are a Kathy Doughty design called 'Fractured'.  It's a very simple design, just rectangles joined with a slanting seam, but the putting together of the blocks was a bit taxing, although I'm sure you'll agree it was well worth the head scratching!

 

 

Many thanks to the staff and residents of Brook House for their hospitality.

Then we went to a new local quilt show,

 

 

They had kindly offered us a free stall for the weekend, and we had a lovely time.  Paula and I were there most of the time, and Julie helped out on Sunday.

 

Here they are sewing labels onto completed quilts.  We met old friends and new, and offered ideas, stimulation and advice.  Fifty people took a leaflet with our contact details on, so we were very happy.  

 

 

I was even happier this morning to receive a big squishy parcel in the post.  It was this lovely double quilt from Margaret who came up trumps when I told her that we were particularly looking for 'big quilts'.  Wonderful!  Thank you so much, Margaret.

 

Sewing with the U3A

This week I was invited again (note the again!) to the Hinckley U3A Craft Group to do some patchwork.  Last year they made a beautiful pink strippy for Linus, and they were all raring to make another Linus quilt.  This time we had blue fabric and were making a differnet design.

 

 

It was a very hot day, but there were 18 ladies ready with their sewing kit. 

 

They sat round several tables and worked steadily.

 

The blocks quickly mounted up on my 'design wall'.  (It's really a fleece-backed tablecloth from a pound shop, but it does the job!)  Here's Paula (on the left) helping people to steady the wall - it was a bit precarious!

 

Here I am with the loads and loads of blocks which these wonderful ladies made.

 

This is a better view of the blocks - plenty to make a Linus quilt.  Many thanks to the talented ladies of the U3A and I've been invited back again in 2014!  Watch this space!