Fall Deliveries from the Northeast

QBB’s Northeast team has been BUSY!! Over the summer I received 180 quilts from you and many have already been sent to our partners for distribution to three different initiatives described below.  As always I am astounded by the talent, the dedication, the time and effort you put forward to support the children and families served by Quilts Beyond Borders.  Heartfelt thanks to all of you!

-Karen Matheson, QBB Northeast Region Coordinator

Special shout-outs with gold stars attached goes to :  Vermont’s Judith Nuno, who sent 30 quilts, (which is a typical and frequent box-full from her);  The Dunns Corners Community Church Presbyterian in Westerly, Rhode Island whose quilting group made 70 quilts; Diane Carlson and Sue Sweeney from Connecticut who have given of themselves to create beautiful quilts out of the 48 gorgeous tops donated by Kim Bennett; and Sadie Yancey, age 11, from Texas, our youngest quilter who, with a little help from her grandmother made a stunning quilt:

Below are the quilts we sent to Comfort Cases, a national organization headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. A backpack full of essential and fun stuff is given to kids entering foster care.  One of our quilts is included in each pack. 

Many thanks to these quilters and piecers:

Judith Nuno – Vermont; Mary Gibbons – Wisconsin; Sadie Yancey (my grand niece, age 11), Lynne Aldrich (Sadie’s grandma), Marsha W. – Texas ; Alice Aldrich White – (Sadie’s other great aunt) – Oklahoma ; Lois Gardner, Linda Ferraro, Yvette Drurey, Jane Reardon, Linda Chaffee, Barbara Chojnacki – Rhode Island; Diane Carlson, Sue Sweeney, Donna Motyl, Kim Bennett, Rita Gladych – Connecticut; Ellen Coburn – Massachusetts

Grateful thanks to the quilters and piecers whose beautiful quilts below have been delivered to Guardian Light Family Services in Sidney, Nebraska. This organization works with abused children. 

Paula Place, Estelle Gallagher, Kim Bennett, Diane Carlson, Angie Church, Sue Sweeney, Rita Gladych – Connecticut; Judith Nuno – Vermont; Joanne Wortman – New York; Bonnie Salt, Sheila Hughes, Barbara Mroz – Massachusetts; Yvette Drurey, Lois Gardner, Linda Chaffee,  Linda Ferraro – Rhode Island; Lynne Aldrich – Texas; Alice Aldrich White – Oklahoma; Sue Holden – Colorado; Nancy Kane – New Hampshire

Maasay Yahdav is a new initiative for the Northeast Team although QBB sent quilts to them in past years.  Maasay Yahdav is a group that takes quilts to needy children and orphans living in children’s homes in Israel. We sent 79 quilts, shown below. You are all amazing! 

Many thanks to these quilters and piecers:

Judith Nuno – Vermont; Fran Fink, Madeline Browning, Barbara Mroz – Massachusetts; Jane Reardon, Julie Eberly (a first-time volunteer!), Linda Ferraro, Dunns Corners Community Church Presbyterian, Lois Gardner, Barbara Chojnacki – Rhode Island Paula Place, Donna Motyl, Kim Bennett, Diane Carlson, Sue Sweeney – Connecticut; Bonnie Salt, Shelly and Liz – Massachusetts; Mary Gibbons – Wisconsin; Marsha W., Lynne Aldrich – Texas; Nancy Kane – New Hampshire ; Alice White, Kathryn Wortz – Oklahoma

Much Fun and Friends at IQF Houston 2022!

The world’s newest superheroes – The Granny Squad! Front row are Karisa, Carla, Ann.  Back row are Mary, Penny and Sherree

After several years on hiatus due to Covid, we were thrilled to be at the IQF show in Houston again this year! We loved seeing so many friends and volunteers and we were overwhelmed by the support you showed us in the form of smiling faces and generous donations – donations of money for shipping costs, donations of quilts and quilt tops, and offers to donate your time long-arming quilt tops. Thanks go out to so many folks who helped with storage and planning, set up, tear down, and many hours meeting visitors at the booth. Enjoy the fun photos below, and you can click on each one to see it larger and the file names have more info about who is in each picture.

The quilt show competed with the Houston Astro’s World Series games and then victory parade so the convention area was busy, to say the least! Happily our booth was busy too – we received more than 100 completed quilts or tops from kits we gave out in previous years and we also had an unprecedented number of longarmers sign up to work with us.   The Greater Houston Quilt Guild was located across from us; They had machines set up and rotating members worked on our kits during the day, several pictures of them at work are below also.

We gave out a LOT of kits — over 300, and had over 40 Fat Quarter Challenge sign-ups, which will keep all of you sewists and quilters very busy over the neat year – we can’t wait to do it again next fall! If you met us for the first time in Houston and want to get involved, here are some helpful links:

Join the Fat Quarter Challenge and Win!

Quilt Dimensions & Criteria

Information for Longarmers

Quilt Distribution for Refugees in Lebanon

Recently, we shared this blog post about sending over 100 quilts to Lebanon to share warmth with Syrian refugees and victims of the 2020 Beirut explosion. We are so happy to share these photos of a distribution event where families received quilts and other humanitarian supplies. Grateful thanks go to Rita and our long-term partner, Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM), for making these deliveries possible and for sharing these photos with us.

QBB Is Coming to the International Quilt Festival in Houston!

Quilts Beyond Borders will be at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas November 2-6, 2022! You can find us in the Interactive Booth Section, #161!

We hope you will stop by and see us if you’re coming to the show and if you’re able to drop off a quilt it would be greatly appreciated!!

Our booth always has a fun selection of handmade items, including quilts of course, for sale and we will have quilt top kits to take home and work on before next year’s IQF! Any funds we raise through sales and donations at our booth go directly to offset our shipping costs for sending quilts around the world.

2022 has been a record year so far for sending quilts to children in need. We have sent over 1000 quilts overseas just to the Ukrainian refugee children in Ukraine, Poland and Croatia.  We have also sent hundreds of quilts to refugee children here in the U.S. from Syria, Afghanistan & Ukraine and to needy children and orphans in Israel.

From coast to coast in the U.S. we have sent quilts to needy children including programs and camps for foster children and abused children. Comfort Cases is just one of the  programs that have received hundreds of quilts from our quilters who share their time and talents with us. We couldn’t do this without you!

Check out our website for Quilt specifications and learn how to make a donation at: quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com
Hope to see you in Houston!!!

Trilogy Quilters send love to Ukraine Refugees

These 11 beautiful quilts in blue and yellow themes were made by the Trilogy Quilters of Redmond, WA and sent to Jeremiah’s Hope in Texas recently to be sent to displaced Ukrainians. Since the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, many generous quilters and guilds across the US have focused their efforts towards making patriotic and meaningful quilts for Ukrainian refugees and victims in Ukraine, and we have been happy to help through our partnership with Jeremiah’s Hope.

Fat Quarter Challenge – May & June

In May we received one quilt donation in the Fat Quarter Challenge. This was made by Lynn B. of California. She has sent in 4 quilts for this challenge so far! This picture shows what she donated in May.

The winner of the May monthly drawing – a $25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop – was Beth H. of Minnesota. Here is one of Beth’s donated quilts:

In June we received two quilt donations, both from Emily L. of California. Here are her two recent donations. Emily has donated three quilts so far!

The June monthly drawing winner of a $25 gift certificate at Fat Quarter Shop was Cathy L. of Iowa. Here is one of her donations:

We thank everyone who has donated quilts to QBB through the Fat Quarter Challenge. Numbers are down a little this year, but we think everyone has been busy focusing on quilts for Ukraine and other areas struck by disasters. Quilters are such generous people! The children in need are lucky to have quilters helping them. The only limitation is that there are only 24 hours in a day. Right?

There is still time to participate in the FQ Challenge. Just make a child-friendly quilt (about 40” x 60”) using a fat quarter and other fabrics you add. Send it to Carol E. (Leave a note at our email (addressquiltsbeyondborders@gmail.com), and we will send you Carol’s address.) The “season” of the challenge runs until September 30, so you can still get a quilt or two made.

Sew on!

Carol Egan

Fat Quarter Challenge Coordinator

More Quilts for Comfort Cases

While we have adapted to the Ukraine refugee crisis by sending hundreds of quilts to new partners helping these children, as we have shared with you in recent blog posts, we continue to serve our other long-time partners including Comfort Cases with monthly deliveries of quilts. We are so grateful to our very busy supporters for stepping up your sewing, quilting, donating efforts to support all the needy and deserving children around the world and in the US! These more than 120 quilts were delivered to Comfort Cases earlier this year and are surely giving comfort to children entering the foster case system around the US.

These quilts came from many generous supporters, including the Sunshine Quilt Guild and from Carolyn O’Conner. You can click on each quilt to see it larger and to see the maker’s names.

Thank you! Linda S.

From the Northwest and Beyond – Quilts for Jeremiah’s Hope

When the war in Ukraine began and we saw children and women fleeing the country we had many quilters wondering whether we would get quilts to the children there. We are so happy to report that we found Jeremiah’s Hope. You can read more information on this partner organization here – they have been helping Ukraine for years with funds, relief efforts, housing and other types of assistance, and more recently they have been sending over container ships with supplies and our quilts. 

 We have sent 250 quilts from our NW group through Jeremiah’s Hope that have gone to the Ukrainian Refugees in neighboring countries. Below are the pictures of the beautiful and colorful quilts sent by our group. Thanks to all the quilters for sharing their talents to help provide comfort to children going through this difficult and heartbreaking situation. 

You can click on each picture to see who made each quilt.

Susan Schmidt – Northwest Regional Coordinator

From the Northwest and Beyond – Quilts for Quilted Twins

We were so happy to provide 50 quilts to go to the Ukrainian Refugees through the Quilted Twins project. You can read more about their project in the 6/28 blog post and on their website. 

Thank you to all the quilters who are helping to provide quilts to children who are suffering so much! You can click on each picture to see who the piecer and quilter are. 

There is a picture of a single quilt that was made by a 2nd grade class in Gresham Oregon. Each child drew a picture and colored the block and their teacher helped sew it together. What a beautiful quilt and we are so grateful to the children who helped make this and wanted to help a Ukrainian child, I’m sure it will be cherished!

Susan Schmidt –  Northwest Regional Coordinator

From the Northwest and Beyond – Quilts for Lebanon Refugees

 After a lengthy journey by container ship to Lebanon and then getting stuck in customs for 6 weeks these 105 quilts have made it to the refugee children in Lebanon.  People remain homeless there after the explosion in Beirut in August 2020. There are also over 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon since the war began in Syria 11 years ago. 

Thank you to the many quilters who made these beautiful quilts to comfort children in great need across the world. You can click on each picture to see it larger and to read who made each quilt.

Susan Schmidt – Northwest Regional Coordinator