Late for the party...

but not the last dance.

I signed up to participate in this years

H2H Charity Quilt Challenge.

hosted by Sarah

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com.

I started out with a bang, then life happened.

Got back on track and now finished except

for the washing and drying.

This year we could choose between 2 charities.

The youth ministry at Sarah's church, the one that she and the Sewing Sisters

make those beautiful quilts for,

go to New Orleans about three times a year to help

 Hurricane Katrina victims, Project NOLA. 

Yes, there are still some feeling the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

This is the first quilt for the NOLA project.   We were to make a quilt for school age children.  I wanted to make two quilts for this ministry because I have 2 boys.

Love how this one turned out, actually I love how all of them turned out.

I went with my ever famous Trip Around the World.  I thought it would make a good boy quilt.

For some reason when I kept looking at this quilt I thought of the ocean.

So I quilted waves in the borders.

This next quilt is also for the NOLA project.  This was not planned, it just sort of

happened.  I had some strips left over from Stevie's teachers quilt and was trying

to decide what to do with them.  I actually thought of this when I was trying to go to sleep one night.

After I finished piecing the top I noticed I had a rather large blank space.

See it down there at the bottom, oh that's right I cut out some circles and then there was no blank space.  Good cover up.  Originally, I was going to name it Dashes.  It has a new name now

Dots and Dashes.

I quilted an all over meandering on the white and didn't quilt the dashes and dots

so they would be puffy.  Kind of float on the quilt.

Very pleased with the look.  I thought both quilts could be for a girl or a boy.

Next quilt is for Happy Chemo. 

Emily at http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com

is making quilts for Happy Chemo.  Her goal is 1500.  I thought

this would be a cute quilt for a little girl.

This is my second quilt for Emily.  I wanted to make 2 quilts for Emily.

One to honor my father, a cancer survivor.

And one in memory of my MIL, who lost her battle with cancer in 1998.

She would love the yellow quilt.

I hope each one will bring comfort to the new owner.

Check out all of the beautiful quilts at

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com 

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy at http://amyscreativeside.com is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

My sister shared Jonah's story with me. 

Jonah was born without a soft spot, which means his skull fused to early

and his brain and head cannot form properly.

He had surgery to correct the problem but he has to wear a special

helmet.  His family insurance did not cover the cost of the helmets.

I was so touched by his story.  My son, Stevie, who has Down syndrome, had his first surgery

(intestine) when he was 3 days old.  He had open heart surgery when he was 6 months old.

I know about hospital stays, NICU units, and how it feels when you cannot hold your baby and how it feels when you cannot make your baby feel better.

I knew I could not do much (they are in Buffalo, NY, I'm in Nashville TN)

but I knew I could make a quilt for the benefit.  With only 2 weeks I made

Jonah's quilt.

It was raining the day I finished the quilt and had to get it to FedEx so the quilt would be there in time for the benefit.  I didn't get to take pretty outside pictures of the completed quilt.

I did take a few pictures of the quilting

I quilted the very center squares with cross hatching,

CC on the stars and decorative borders.

Most of this was new to me.

Jena, Jonah's mother, cried and cried when she received the quilt.  She couldn't believe

someone who she didn't know, would make a quilt to raffle off to help her son.

As my sister told her.."That's what quilter do, or at least the ones my sister knows"

Such a wonderful feeling to know I help in a small way to help Jonah and his family.

They raised enough money that night to purchase two helmets.

I'm waiting to hear when the next benefit will be, so that I can do the same thing again.

The lady that won the quilt thought it was just beautiful and wanted to win it to give to her mother who has ovarian cancer.

One quilt helped two people, how wonderful is that.

Check out all the beautiful entries for The Blogger's Quilt Festival and vote for your favorite.

http://amyscreativeside.com

Whoop Whoop it's Friday!!!!

Seems like the days go by faster and faster.

My to do list gets longer and longer.

Didn't get a lot done this week in the quilting dept.

This weekend I have to really buckle down and finish

my H2H quilts..

I do have two quilts in the works.

Mornings are my favorite time to sew and quilt,

so hopefully this weekend I will

accomplish something, even if it is at 6:00 a.m.

This is one quilt I would like to finish this weekend.  I had a hard time coming up with something to make with this fabric.  Everything I thought of needed background fabric, which I didn't have at the time or needed more yardage or more fat quarters.  This will be one of the male H2H quilts.  Love the bright colors. 

 On the floor because this is on the design wall.

These are left over from Stevie's teacher quilt.  This layout is just not speaking to me.     I had a idea today at work and sketched it out.  I will have to work on this one too. 

Something not so quilty.

 

  For my Mother's Day dinner, I received a rack of baby back ribs, which I love.

My baby loves ribs too!

You might not be able to tell from the cell phone pictures, but he had BBQ sauce from ear to ear, almost in his eyes..
He couldn't figure out why I was taking his picture, he just kept saying "What?"

Share what you've been working on.....

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

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Teacher Appreciation Day

I worked all week on Stevie's teachers quilt for Teacher Appreciation Day.

  Finally, at 2:00a.m. Friday morning I finished, except

 for washing and drying.

I did that when I got up 4 hours later.

Needless to say, Friday was a loooong day

at work.  Most fellow workers know not to mess with Mama

when she hasn't had her 8 hours of sleep.

Mrs Laura loved her quilt and showed it off to all the other teachers.

Mrs. Sonja, the assistant, secretly had all the children

make a block.

This is Luke's fish block made with his hand print.

They used their hands and finger to make a design for each month.

I quilted a loopy design around each block.

Then quilted a different design on each block.

February had hearts made from finger prints.

I have to show Stevie's with his little reindeer made with his fingerprints.  First time for me to quilt pebbles.  You see I waited to the last block in case I messed up, but no they turned out great.  It's real hard to see, but the sashing is quiltied in diamonds.

Just one more...

I cut off part of it ( the wind blew) but it's a werewolf paw, hand.. whatever you call it.

Mrs. Laura opening her quilt, with Stevie assisting.   I bought the border and backing fabric in Paducah, I thought it would be perfect.  I also bought Hobbs wool batting while I was at the Paducah Quilt Show and I really wished I hadn't, cause I love it!!!  Hobbs had a great deal on it so I picked up a couple of packs.  Wish now I had bought more. 

I think it turned out great.  I tried a lot of new quilting techs on it and was very pleased with how each one turned out.  I marked the quilt more and it was so much easier to quilt.  Learned a lot in the classes I took at Paducah and was glad I used some of what I learned on this quilt.

Now on to the next one. 

 Missed some Friday linky parties

 but still have time to link up with Sarah

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

busy, busy

I have been gone so long blogger has changed. 

 What's up with that?

Where to even start.....

last week my sister landscaper came down.

We shoveled 8 pickup truck loads of dirt,

6 pickup truck loads of mulch

and laid 122 rock wall blocks.

I just love to take vacation.

I did take off three days and headed to Paducah.

I drove 1320 miles.  I had to drive back and forth everyday because

of Stevie but it was totally worth it.

I took a few classes and learned so much in each class.

I met some wonderful people and it was so nice to be around people that I could talk quilting with.

I also helped the economy as much as I possible could.

The quilts were absolutely beautiful.  I took quite a few picture, mostly of the quilting, but the Show stated not to post.

I finished Jonah's quilt just in time to FedEx it to his mother for the Benefit. Jena, Jonah's mother, said there were a lot of nice comments and a lot of people wanted to win.  The lady that won the quilt had told Jena when she was filling out her raffle tickets that she wanted to win it for her mother who has ovarian cancer.  Her mother stays cold and she said it was the perfect size. The quilt and the other items they raffled off raised enough money to buy two helmets.  They were shocked and surprised to raise that much money.

Thank you everyone that bought raffle tickets and made a donation.

I never got to take a really good picture because it was always raining.  Pictures do not do justice.  It was so pretty and very hard to give up, so I am glad that the quilt helped raise the money that it did.

I did get one picture of some of the quilting. 

I also managed to finish up another quilt.  Some of you may remember last year I made a friend of mine a quilt out of his fathers shirts who had passed on.

I had wanted to use the scraps to make his daughter, son and mother a quilt also.

His daughter is graduating tomorrow from a local university with a nursing degree.

She has helped me through the years raise money for Stevie's BuddyWalk so I wanted to do something special for her.  

Ta Da!

 another quilt from her Paw's shirts.  I sent it to her today but she won't get to open it until tomorrow.  She is receiving her pin tonight.

On the design wall tonight is a quilt for Teacher Appreciation Day.

This is going to be a quick one also.  Stevie's teacher assistant secretly helped the

children paint a block.

I bought some really cute fabric in Paducah for the borders and sashing.

Got to run and start working on it, has to be finished by Wednesday.

I love stress!!

Check out what everyone else have been working on

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

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