Both auction quilts are done.  Same pattern, very different quilts!  (The link for the pattern we used is here:)  I thought it was really interesting how the secondary,  diagonal design comes through more with the citrus-colored one than the pind-and-red one.  I also really liked how our quilter, Sonja, rounded the corners on that one. 

The auction is Thursday.  Hoping they bring in a lot of money.  (Or at least what we spent.  Which is always a challenge with quilts, y'know?)

Near my city, women have been seen sleeping in dumpsters.   Yes, even here, in Seattle's suburbs.

And so Sophia Way was born for this.  I believe it's the Seattle Eastside's first (and I think only?) shelter for single, homeless women. 

They're doing a charity auction this month.  This is one of the two quilts our little quilt group is donating.  I've pieced probably 2/3 of this one, so it kind of feels like my baby.  And now baby is ready to head off to the house of the longarm quilter. 

Pray with me that it will bless Sophia Way and the women they serve.

(The little things in the snowball blocks are jelly beans.)  :-)

This is what I've been playing with this week -- a crumb and string quilt mosaic, original pattern. (Yes, the non-parallel lines are part of the design!  It will look much more pulled-together when it's finished.  I promise!) 

It's been very mindless and tons of fun, especially going through my string/crumb bag and thinking, "Oh, I remember this fabric!  I used it in my daughter's quilt 14 years ago!" 

I'm having to spend today putting borders on one of my quilt show quilts so I can take it to the quilter on Wednesday.  HATE putting on  borders.  I have about six quilt tops that need them, and I keep procrastinating.  I should probably do a border maratho.  You know.  Kind of like the desensitization process for people with phobias.  Because if I made myself do all six quilt borders in one week, I would no longer have border phobia, right?

(Except...  Not gonna happen.  I hate borders.  Have I  mentioned that?)   

I am not a joiner.  Joining groups with regular meeting times just isn't in  my introvert personality, with a few exceptions, namely 1) Bell Choir, and, since last summer, 2) my church charity quilt group.

I've realized that getting together with people is a lot more fun for introverts when we're actually, y'know, DOING something.  Like making music.  Or quilts.

This is our first charity quilt, made by the gang of us of mostly donated fabrics.  It's a Disapearing Nine Patch, which was more fun to make that it looked when I saw the pattern online.  Each of us made three or four blocks, the group leader put it together, we all tied it, et voilà!  A quilt, soon bound for a good home. 

Amazing how much more you can accomplish together than you can working alone.  

Happy New Year, fellow quilters. 

I have been merrily quilting along.  If by "merrily quilting along," we mean "Trying to create a perfect quilt for an auction when I'm actually not very good at that perfectionist thing." 

My little church quilt group (there are about ten of us) have signed on to create two baby/lap quilts (45 x 60) for an auction to benefit homeless women.  (The organization is Sophia Way here in Seattle.)  Both quilts have to be done by Feb. 10.  Which shouldn't be a problem, since they're just simple framed nine-patches alternating with snowball blocks.

 And since I'm one of the more experienced quilters (note that I did not say "best") I volunteered to cut the fabric and sew the strips for strip piecing, to make it easy for the other quilters to make the blocks the same size. 

Uh-huh. 

Whipped through the first set of strips, cut enough for a block, and...  Yeah.  Even though I SWEAR the strips were all the right size, and the seams were a quarter inch, the block was a quarter inch too big.  So I went back to the parts that measured off and re-sewed a few seams, and... 

Now it's too small.  I'm starting to identify with Goldilocks. 

So, after avoiding the quilt all week, I'm back at it and being a perfectionist, cutting pieces from only the strips that measure perfect, and resewing all the ones that don't.  (Have I mentioned that perfectionism does NOT come naturally to me?)

Goal is to have all the strips sewn and cut perfectly into little block kits for both quilts by meeting time at 10 on Saturday.  I'll post photos when I find my camera. 

Caritas, caritas, caritas, rah rah rah.  :-)

Oh, and while we're here, check out these lovely charity quilts from Del Jeanne!  She sent me the photos before the new year.  I actually added them to the site a few weeks back, but I'm only now getting around to pointing you in that direction.  I especially love this Woven Hearts quilt!

And...here we go! I am so happy to have a site devoted to charity quilts up and running, since this is a subject close to my heart.

I decided to go live with the site without being actually, y'know, done with everything. So I hope you'll put this blog on your blogroll or feed and keep checking back.  The more I got into this, the more I realized how much there is to do!  Eventually, I'm imagining lots of patterns and tips and photos...  But for the moment I have a few, just to get things started. 

Here's the post from my other, only-occasionally-quilting-related blog, about how this site came about.  (And please remember, like I say on my main page, I am NOT the quilt police!  I just want to try to make things easier for charity quilters, who tend to have hearts full of love to begin with.)  :-)

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For the past few months, an idea has been germinating in my mind.

It all started with this blog post from my online quilting friend Nancy: "Quilts for Friends We Haven't Met Yet," about quilters who were troubled that quilts made for injured members of the armed services were referred to as "charity quilts." Here's a quote (but you should click on the link, because the entire post is worth a read):

The problem, as I understand it, is that quilts made for [a very worthy organization] were referred to as "charity quilts" and, as such, carried an inference -- for some people -- of shoddy workmanship and/or inferior quality fabric. I didn't quite get it.

I make quilts to give to people I know and quilts to keep. I also sometimes make quilts to give away to people that I do not know, people who have had some sort of life-altering event and could use a little extra comfort. I think of those quilts as charity quilts, to differentiate from those I give to people I know. I use the same quality of fabric and degree of care in my work for all of my quilts. I wrote to a friend who was among the incensed and asked for clarification. I asked her, "What language would you suggest for quilts that are given away to needy individuals, to people we don't know, or to special causes? Charity means kindness, love, that kind of thing, doesn't it? When I hear "charity quilt" I don't assume inferior workmanship and cheap fabric. I think it is a quilt made for an unknown recipient out of love."

[...]isn't it a shame that such a fine word [charity] has morphed into something so shabby?

This post, of course, activated a lot of circuitry in my brain, both the quilting parts and the word nerd parts. Part of my response in her post's comments:

I see it both ways. "Charity" in our society has taken on a bad connotation -- it's bad to receive, and it implies the givers are somehow "better than."

Which is too bad, because as you said, the roots pf the word are beautiful. It come from the latin "caritas" which originally meant "preciousness, dearness, high price." Far from the "castoffs from the rich" meaning it's come to have. I believe there are also places in Bible translations where it has been used interchangeably with "love," right? (Hasn't 1 Cor 13:13 sometimes been translated as "faith, hope and charity"?)

Because yes, [the recipients of quilts from this charity] definitely deserve appealing quilts made with love and care. But so do the abused wives. And the foster kids. And the people undergoing chemo. And the folks in nursing homes. And I think the vast majority of quilters are loving, caring people who would agree with me.

But...

A few months ago, our church started a little quilting group. There are about ten or so of us. And one of the things we do is make "charity quilts." And I have seen first-hand how difficult it can be to make quilts with eye appeal from donated fabrics that weren't originally selected to go together and frequently wouldn't have been my own first choice for a quilt. (Not that they're bad fabrics. It's just that my taste for my own quilts runs to pure, bright colors, and our donated fabric is generally a lot more grayed and muted.) I look at these fabrics and my mind blanks on how best to use them.

That's when the idea arrived: Wouldn't it be fun to create a website with tips and ideas for creating nice quilts for charity from donated fabric? A site to help quilters restore the good name of "charity," helping to push it back towards its original "caritas," or love?

My nephew-in-law introduced me to Weebly, the web design site for complete amateurs, over Thanksgiving. I registered my domain name last night. Since then I've been busily constructing my "Caritas Quilts" site.

It currently has a lot of blank pages and details to be filled in later, but it's coming along. Expect to see it go live later this week.

I'm so excited!

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And now we're live.  So..welcome!  Glad you're here!  Come back!  And be sure to fill your quilts with the ultimate fabric softener, caritas, both the ones made for the people you already love, and the ones made for the friends you haven't met yet. 

Laurie