Visit to Shepshed

 I always look forward to seeing the talented quilters at Quilting Together in Shepshed.  Once a year I go over and collect their beautiful quilts and take donated fabric for them to make more!  It usually goes very well, but this time I was a bit preoccupied and completely omitted to take any boxes!  The ladies were very understanding, and let me have delicious cake and 37 lovely quilts.  

This is a quilt made from tumblers cut by Julie. 

Bright and cheerful is what we like. 

Interesting arrangement of squares. 

Quilts don’t have to be complex to be stunning. This one is stunning. 

Lots of transport on this quilt. 

Wonky stars make a great centre for this quilt. 

A great central panel framed. 

Here is a great collection of orphans who are playing very nicely together. 

This is an unusual quilt for Anne.  She’s a very scrappy quilter normally, but must have been seduced by these gorgeous panels.  A clever use of hexagons for the border. 

The hexagons are offset.  I haven’t worked out how they’re done.  Clever. 

This is a four corner half jelly roll quilt.  Eileen made it, but wasn’t convinced about the method!  Looks great to me. 

A delicate quilt in soft colours. 

Another great boys’ quilt. 

All the quilts were lovely and I’ve made a promise to return with fabric soon. 

 

Autumn

 Quilt donations have been a little more steady this year - thank goodness, and I have been able to keep up with quilts in and quilts out.  Yesterday I had a call from Hannah, at Jay Fostering, to say that she was down to her last two quilts and could they have some more!  I was delighted to pop over and bring her 30 quilts, and she was equally delighted to replenish her stock.  

Here she is outside the office, and you can just see one of the bags of quilts through the door.  

Project Linus UK usually have a theme for quilt donations every year, and this year it is Disappearing 9- patch.  I found a very good tutorial by Leah Day which makes a lovely ‘controlled scrappy’ look. 

This design was made by ladies at Knit and Stitch.  Looking good! 

Fabric donation

 Today I went up to Leicester to visit Crafty Sew and Sew.  They are a sewing workshop near the Curve Theatre.  Freya had contacted me to say they had some scraps left over from their recent sewing classes, and was I interested in having them.  Of course the answer was yes!  

Here are Freya and partner in their studio, and you can see there were several bags of scraps for me to take away!  There were all types of fabrics in the bags, and some pieces which I would definitely call ‘fabric’ rather than scraps, plus one or two garment pieces which obviously weren’t up to scratch, but will cut up beautifully!  Thank you so much for thinking of Project Linus, and be assured we will make good use of it! 

Reaching children in need of comfort

I have been delighted recently to be contacted by several school learning assistants, play therapists and nurture room coordinators who have heard about Project Linus and are keen to bring extra security and comfort to the young people they come in contact with.  I’m so heartwarmed by the fact that they are prepared to go the extra mile and contact me in their spare time to make a difference!  Shout out to these amazing ladies!  

Here is Kelly who was amazed to be able to take two quilts for her nurture room and three more for some Ukrainian refugees who have recently arrived in her school. 

This photo was taken in the fabulous play therapy room at Rushy Mead School in Leicester. 

Karen is the Play Therapist and she was generous enough to alert a member of staff from the specialist autism provision to take the quilts she hadn’t chosen!  Luckily, all the quilts are gorgeous!  

Then today we had Donna (and her lovely husband Darren) from Braunstone who popped by for a cuppa and took three quilts for her family room.  Donna has just started a new job and is very enthusiastic about bringing as much colour and comfort into her charges’ surroundings as possible.  She’s even promised to invite me round to see the quilts in situ later in the year. 

Here is Deborah who took the time to come over from Wigston to collect quilts for her youngsters. 

 

Emily is in Loughborough and her quiet room is called ‘The Glade’.  You can see why.  We had arranged to meet my brother for lunch in Loughborough, so I was lucky enough to be able to visit Emily’s little den! 

Here she is -tickled pink - with a hedgehog quilt!  Perfect for her room. 

Busy May

 We were delighted to be invited back to Barwell U3A Craft Group to do some sewing.  This group is very friendly and hard working, and we were pleased to see them again. Unfortunately they have lost some members over the last two years, which seems to be true for many groups.  I think some people have become comfortable in staying at home, and there have been no new members, because there have been no meetings! Well, the ladies who came were lovely! 

We were making hexagon sheep, which proved to be achievable in the time. 

Julie and Paula came with me, and here are the results of our labours.  Great work.  

 

Then today we went along to Ward 27 at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, where Chandni was ready to receive some more quilts.  Here are some nurses, Paula and I ‘smiling’ for the camera! 

Quilts out and in!

 This month I was contacted by Lily from The Kite Trust (an LGBT+ charity) to see if I had any larger quilts for a group of teenagers who were going on a residential.  As it happened, I had some larger quilts donated recently, and I had put them to one side for just such a purpose.  

Lily came over to collect them, and chose this lovely scrappy quilt for the photo.  The residential is this weekend, and I hope they don’t get inconvenienced by Storm Eunice! 

Earlier this week we were invited to a sewing day by the lovely Quilt Together group in Shepshed.  We always love visiting this group as they are all lovely (and talented) ladies. 

Here are some of them having a well earned rest, except for Lesley who is beavering away. 

Julie, Caroline and Paula joined us.  I think it’s the lunch they particularly like! 

Marion, Eileen, Ann and friend struggled somewhat with my kits.  Marion eventually enjoyed making this tumbler quilt! 

I took lots of kits and a box of backing fabrics.  People usually have bits and pieces to add to the mix, but yardage for backing is always appreciated. 

And here are some of the results of all that hard work.  Caroline proved to be a master at choosing orphan blocks to go together.  These were from the 12” bag. 

This tumbler quilt went together well. 

This is another quilt put together by Caroline.  She actually emptied the 6” orphan bag completely! 

Log cabin blocks put together beautifully. 

Another set of orphans finally get a family. 

Julie had made some kits from 2,5” strips for this 4-corner jelly roll quilt.  Quick, bright and cheerful! 

More orphans get to play nicely together. 

Finally, some red and white HSTs find a great design.  

Thank you so much Quilt Together ladies for a lovely day.  Lots of tops made up, several kits taken away, and a lot of fun as a by product!  See you again later in the year. 

First donation of the year

 The quilts were starting to pile up, so I looked in my records to see who was next for a donation.  I realised that it was December 2020 since I had seen Asha and she had taken quilts for the Health Visiting Team In the Saffron Lane area to distribute, so I gave her a ring.  It turns out that she is on secondment from her job, heading up a team recruiting foreign nurses to the NHS, but still keeps in contact with her health visiting colleagues and was keen to come over. 

Here we are, in my hall, with some of the bags containing a wonderful 80 quilts!  That’s a lots of hugs!