Placemat Quilt Swap Arrived!

I decided to sign up for Placemat Quilt Swap 5 a few weeks ago, and got the mini quilt I made for my partner sent off this week. I'll show a picture of it here as soon as I hear that it's arrived safely...but meanwhile, the one she made for me arrived today!

It was made by Julie aka jgmehlin on flickr. I like it a lot! My main request (I think my only request) was that she use some white in it. I love how bright and cheerful it is. I love those different-sized triangles and the rainbow strips too. Thank you Julie! (I can't wait to show the one I sent to her...)

I also finished up my quilt for the We Love Jenny Auction, which is taking place on February 14-15. The auction will be raising funds to help Jenny Reeder with her medical and housing expenses while she is fighting leukemia. Check out the donated items at the auction blog and see if there's anything you're interested.

Here's the heart quilt front:

and the back:

I had fun with the quilting inside the heart--I got some good ideas from Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project blog. If you are a quilter and are at all interested in improving your free motion quilting skills, you should subscribe to this blog.

I hope you're having a good weekend! I have 4 quilt blocks for my boy's monkey quilt cut out and ready to sew so I might do that tonight. I also helped my 6-year-old set up a blog. He hasn't written his first post yet but I think it might be really cool (and fun and funny) when he does.

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

Back in July, I made a couple quilting bee blocks for Natalie of beyond the reef patterns. She requested that we use the scraps to make a quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I made the quilt top but didn't finish it right away.

Fast forward to 2011--a few days ago I got an email from Rene' at Rene' Creates, asking for help in getting the word out about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Rene' has come up with a challenge and will be hosting monthly drawings for those who make and submit quilts to AAQI.

So the other day I was feeling the need to finish one of my many UFOs... and here it is!

I just got it registered on the AAQI blog and am awaiting shipping instructions. It didn't take too long to finish and the binding fabric is kind of special. It's from one of my husband's grandpa's shirts, that I used to make the shirt quilt for his grandma. I couldn't find any other fabric that matched, and I'm glad I remembered one of the shirts was a dark blueish green fabric.

If you're interested in making (or buying) a quilt to benefit Alzheimer's research, visit the AAQI website. The quilts must be 9x12 inches or smaller, so it can be a quick project if you want (and if you're not a procrastinator). I tried out a new free motion quilting design on this quilt, and I think these quilts would be a great use for scraps, too. The most difficult thing for me is that you must give the quilt a name--I'm not good at naming my quilts.

I'm going to make another one--this time I'll plan on having it done by the end of February. What do you think? Will you make one too?

charity quilts delivered!

charity quilts and my 2-year-old girl

These quilts are going to babies who are in the NICU where my daughter stayed for her first 12 days when she was born 6 1/2 weeks early in October, 2008. My family and I took the quilts to the March of Dimes activity at the hospital today and got them ready for parents to choose their favorites:

The March of Dimes coordinator told me that there are 18 babies in the NICU right now so our contribution of 27 quilts will be enough for everyone there now and they will distribute the rest of the quilts as new babies come in.

During the time we were there, only a few moms came in and picked out their quilts, but the March of Dimes volunteers will make sure that all the families get quilts for their babies over the next few days.

Thanks again, so much, to the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild for agreeing to take on this project and working so hard to create all these beautiful quilts. Also, thanks to my mom and my friends Kim and Barbara who are not members of the guild (yet?!) but helped with the project as well. I am so happy this project went as well as it did and I'm grateful for everyone's generosity with their time, energy, skills, and fabric!

The flickr group with all the quilts made for this project is here.

last five charity quilts

Lavender/brown quilt made by Jaime.

Purple/aqua quilt made by Shea and came in today's mail!

Pure quilt made by Alex 

Vehicle quilt made by Paula
 

Orange and blue quilt made by Nikki and Claudia (no blog?) and one other person

These will be delivered to the babies and their families at the NICU at St. Luke's tomorrow!
Here's the flickr set of all the donated quilts made by KCMQG members. Thanks so much to everyone who helped with this huge project!

more charity quilts

Here are 10 more of the charity quilts made by KC Modern Quilt Guild members. Again, these will be going to families who have babies in a local NICU in a few days. I had a couple of helpers available to hold up quilts shortly before the sun went down this evening.

This panda one has a super soft minky backing that gives the quilt a really nice drape and weight.

This one's kind of super-size compared to the rest. :)

This is the back of the dinosaur quilt--cute!

This one has a special back:

Such a fun surprise to see this little appliqued rocket ship! I never noticed it before today, when we were taking pictures!

and here is one of the labels that will be sewn onto each quilt:

I have 5 of them done--must do at least 10 tomorrow.

More of the quilts for this project can be seen here and here. I will do one more photo post with the last few quilts later this week. 

Charity Quilts--KCMQG 2010

Here are photos of 10 of the charity quilts made by KC Modern Quilt Guild members this year. They will be delivered to parents at a local NICU later this month. I will have pictures of more quilts later this week, too!