More tops quilted and returned!

These tops were quilted by Nancy and Sandy.  Thank you, ladies.  You did a great job.  The children will love these quilts.

You know it is a real treat that we who have so much can have this opportunity to have an effect on the lives of children who have so little.  I want to thank all the women and men who donate their time, fabric and shipping costs to enable us to be able to get quilts to the children.

All the fabric donations that we receive are used to make quilts for the orphans, and this is all done with volunteers (there is no paid staff).  When we give out kits at the Houston show, we are hoping that the women who take the kits will honor the mission to make a top or a quilt for the children, or if they find they are unable that they will return the kit to us so we can get it to somebody else to make the quilt or top.  We all have so much there is no need for us to keep something that belongs to orphans in one of the poorest countries in the world.  I just get a little disheartened when what was intended for the orphans is kept by other people, good intentions at the time aside, still after 3-4 years not returned to help provide warmth and comfort to the orphans.

Have a Happy Easter!

Carolyn

How to subscribe?

Carolyn and I have been asked how one can subscribe to the QBB blog.   Hmmmm…. I did some research, and read a whole lot of alphabet soup.   Here’s the very easiest way.

Scroll to the bottom of a post that you like, and click on “Leave a Comment”.  You will be presented with several fields where you can enter the name you’d like us to call you, your email ID (which won’t be shown on our site or in your comment when we receive it) and a place where you can write a comment. We’d love to hear from you if you’d like to spend time writing a comment, and we’ll be happy to respond to questions. Otherwise, it’s ok with me if you just type in, “just subscribing,” or something like that.

After that, there are two check boxes. The first is to be informed of any follow-up comments. The second is the important one to check if you’d like to be notified by e-mail every time we put up a new post. Once you check that second little box, you’ll be subscribed.

Thanks for your interest! Regards,
Carla

Thank you, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Prayer Quilt Ministry

2010 was the year I retired, and I fully expected to be able to devote most of my time to quilting. However, it seems that I’m not very good at retirement, and I’ve spent an awful lot of time out of the country doing some consulting on behalf of my former employer.

As a result, I’ve only reached the bottom of my stack of “QBB Tops to Quilt” in the last week – and I found some wonderful surprises in that stack!

On our blog today I’d like to feature 5 adorable panel quilts from the Prayer Quilt Ministry at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Plano, Texas. These are only 5 of the 60+ quilt tops they made and sent to our longarmers all over the country. We would like to express great thanks to all of the fantastic members of the Prayer Quilt Ministry, especially to the following 3 wonderful people:

• Carolyn McNally, who brought the idea to the Prayer Quilt Ministry that they make these tops for us. Carolyn also coordinated sending the quilt tops (and labels and many backs!) to the dozen or so longarmers who quilted them.

• Nancy LaVerdure, who is one of the women who heads up the Prayer Quilt Ministry, and said “yes” immediately when Carolyn suggested they participate in this project for Quilts Beyond Borders.

•  Susan Combs, who bound many of the quilts as they were completed by longarmers and returned.

The quilts below were quilted by my quilting buddy, Brenda, and myself.  I anticipate taking them to Ethiopia in a trip that is tentatively planned for November.  I know that Carolyn Sower is also taking many of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Prayer Quilt Ministry’s quilts to Ethiopia in May.  Soon over 60 orphans in Ethiopia will be snuggling in these beautiful quilts! Thanks SO MUCH to the quilters of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton!

For more information on the Prayer Quilt Ministry, please see St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s website at this URL: https://www.setonparish.org/index.cfm?load=event&event=1415

I encourage you to click on the pictures of the quilts to see them “up close”.

Regards,
Carla

A couple more tops quilted

Thank you, Grandma Judy, for quilting these tops.  They are just adorable.

Carolyn

More tops quilted

Thanks to Kay for the quilting, and she also made a quilt.  The two tops Kay quilted were made by DeDe.  Thanks ladies, you did a great job.

Carolyn

There is almost no scrap too skinny

I know that we all end up with scraps from our quiltmaking, and many times we think the scraps are just too small.  Or if you are a longarmer, your customer may not want the trimmings from their quilt back.  Or we may send you a top to quilt and there are trimmings left (yes, we want the trimmings sent back to us).

This top isn’t totally pieced yet, but it is made with strips no wider than 2″, except one strip, and as short as about 4″ long.  This is just from the yellow scraps that I have.  When I finish piecing all the other colors, I will have made about 8 tops just out of these throwaway scraps.  Scraps 2 1/4″ and wider are saved for binding (yes I piece all different fabrics in a same colorway to make binding).  Strips 3 1/2″ wider are used to make kits in a modified rail fence pattern.  Strips narrower than about 3/4″ wide are saved for a lady who stuffs dog beds that she donates to the SPCA.  Absolutely nothing goes to waste or in a landfill.

So, if you have these skinny strips, I challenge you to make a top with them and send me a picture to post.  Or, if working with strips that small makes you want to scream, or you just throw them out, send the scraps to me.  I will make beautiful quilts for the orphaned children in Ethiopia with those scraps.  My address is under Pages under Where to send tops…  I will post pictures of the quilts I make with your scraps.

Carolyn

More cute quilts

More quilts came from some longarmers who did a great job quilting them. These quilts were so cute that I didn’t even take the time to bind them because I wanted to share them right away.  I really need to get better at taking pictures because the pictures just aren’t adequately showing how cute all these tops and quilts are.

All the tops were made by Audrey who has a great sense of color and made some really lovely tops, but then I am a sucker for a scrap quilt.  So, these quilts can also give you some ideas for using up those scraps.

Thank you Bea, Gail and Audrey.  These quilts are going to be really appreciated by the lucky children who receive them.

Carolyn

A couple more tops quilted

Thanks to Grandma Judy, we have a couple more tops quilted.  She also donated some scrap fabric which was very, very welcome.  I love working with scraps, plus we need the variety for the kits for tops that we are putting together for International Quilt Festival this fall.  If anybody has scraps that they want out of the way so they can use the space for new and exciting fabric, send it to me (my address is under the Pages tab on Where to send Tops, etc).  We gave out all the kits that we had last year so we are busy making more and we go through a lot of fabric.

Thanks Grandma Judy.

Carolyn

Quilts from Longarmers

The tops that have been sent to the longarmers are coming back quilted!  Thank  you, Debbie, Sue and Shirley.  Here are pictures of some of them.  The ladies did some gorgeous quilting.  These quilts are going to make some children very, very happy.

Carolyn

Tops from Bonita age 94

Bonita has been busy making some more tops.  A pretty awesome lady.  Thanks, Bonita.  Keep up the good work.  We’ll got those tops quilted and off to the orphans in Ethiopia