Nicaragua Mission Trip in January

WOW, once again I am blessed to be able to use my skills to help others. In January, I will be traveling to Nicaragua with a group of women including my friends Pauline and Jane and we will be teaching women how to sew and quilt.

The area we are traveling to is called Niquinohomo and it is a remote village in the hills. This area has many agricultural farms producing limes, oranges, mandarins, bananas and avocados. Nicaragua is the second largest country in Central America and the second poorest as well. It's population is just under 6 million people. 48% of the population lives below the poverty line and 80% of the population lives with less than $2 per day.

These women will be learning how to make some items they need within their community such as diapers, crib bedding for the hospital, hats for children, aprons, slings to carry their children and other household items. We will also be teaching them how to hand quilt on Q-Snaps and a large wooden quilt frame.

This sewing program will need all the support they can get and once again I will be collecting sewing and quilting supplies. If you had anything you wished to donate please contact me and I will come and pick it up.

They will need the following:

Pins and Needles

Scissors

Thread

Elastic, Snaps, Buttons and Velcro

Fabric pieces at least 1 metre

Keep watching for more information and thank you again for your support!

August SOLO meeting

SOLO meeting

Satuday Aug. 28, 2010

11:30 – 4:30

Grace United Church

174 Caithness St. E., Caledonia, On.

Hosted by Helen Hubert & Debbie Winn

Pot Luck lunch starting at noon.

Theme: bring your brain. Seriously!! We will have flip charts and/or white boards to show & share quilting ideas. Think specifically about weird blocks you have felt really good about quilting. Personally, I hate Bears Paw blocks, so I’d love ideas on that.

Quilters Dream batting

Just letting everyone know that I am now carrying Quilters Dream Cotton on the 98" roll.

It is a 100% Pure Cotton Batting made with the finest USA natural and environmentally friendly cotton and specially processed Dream Cotton so that you can quilt up to 8" apart. No prewashing necessary!

I have both the select weight and request weight in the natural colour.

HST news

WOW, is there really good news regarding taxes? For me there is! HST will be implemented on July 1st and when doing my inquiring about how Melon Patch Quilts should get ready for it, I found out that the GST rules are the rules they will use for the new HST.

THE GOOD NEWS IS..... businesses that currently do not collect GST are not required to collect HST. PST is being eliminated by the HST therefore I do not have to collect any tax starting July 1st. (HST, PST or GST)

That will be a welcome change for anyone paying for their quilts! And no additional paperwork for me.

WOO HOO

Church Prayer quilts

Well we have had 3 learn to quilt meetings at church and the ladies are doing wonderfully! Everyone is so eager to learn how to cut and piece the prayer quilts. We have 1 quilt almost finished (just needs the binding hand sewn), 1 quilt that needs to be quilted and bound and then enough blocks for a 3rd quilt. I think that everyone wants to continue with our meetings in the fall and hopefully they will all be challenged to make a queen size quilt that we can auction at the Ham and Strawberry Auction in June 2011. Here is a photo of the 1st quilt.

Kansas Troubles Block of the Month

Here are some photos of the Kansas Troubles block of the month that Quilts and Calicos is offering. It is a beautiful quilt with some wool applique flowers and birds.

Vanilla Orchid pattern

Here is one of my newer patterns that I just love. It is a larger flower with some swirls and leaves and looks beautiful on simple fabric or floral fabric.

Painted Quilt Block Murals- from the LFP

Lorna Svendsen of Wardsville paints a quilt in the foreground with Josie Easton in the distance as Wardsville gets ready to display the painted quilts on buildings to celebrate their bicentennial.

A painted quilt up on a credit union in Wardsville, is but the first of many that will be mounted on buildings to celebrate the bicentennial of the town.

Denise Corneil and Bob Davis of Wardsville with the painted quilts that are being painted.

WARDSVILLE - A big old-fashioned quilting bee - only with paintbrushes instead of needle-and-thread - is one of this community's 200th birthday gifts to itself.

As Wardsville celebrates its centennial next month, it is also telling the story of its founder, George Ward, in 30 large murals that will be affixed to buildings in and around town.

They're called "barn quilts" because the squares look like traditional quilting blocks.

And this may be the first such collection in Ontario.

"This is really rural, country folk art," said organizer Denise Corneil.

Painting, taping, and sealing the 8 x 8-foot blocks has taken place for months in the basement of Beattie Haven retirement residence.

When finished, the blocks will go up outside select barns, sheds, stores in a 60-kilometre radius, with a map that will direct drivers to the various sites and explain their meanings.

Volunteers have also stitched a fabric quilt that includes the same blocks.

IPM Quilt Show this weekend

IPM Quilt Show Entry

Well it is the night before I hand in my entry for the IPM Quilt show later this month. I bought the quilt top from Quilts and Calicos and then it was up to me to do the machine quilting! I have clipped threads, picked lint and pressed and starched until I think it is ready to go. Now I have cold feet about the whole entry idea. Each colour of fabric in the star has a different design and the cream corners were the perfect area to do some freehand feathers. I spent about 2 weeks drawing and redrawing the feather areas and then marked them so that I could then quilt. It took me 6 days to quilt the top during the March Break and then a few hours here and there to do the binding, sleeve and finishing touches. Wish me luck and I will keep you posted on the show later in May.

An e-mail from Africa

Just recieved an e-mail today with news from Africa so I wanted to post it and let everyone know how well the program is doing. (I have posted a few photos from a craft fair where the Mzansi Quilt Centre had a booth a few months ago.)

"The quilting program is still on track and it seems as if we are selling more that ever before. Last month was a banner month with sales over 30,000 rand. We have some responses from the web site, and more of the local quilters are bringing their tops in for quilting. The Midlands Meander has attracted many tourists that come here to buy, and since the prices are so reasonable many buy quilts for presents. The local missionary outfits have found that the centre will make table clothes, so we are turning out literally dozens for the price of the fabric plus a small charge for binding. Added to this we have been selling wall hangers that we placed at several of the hotels for décor."

"We were visited by sheep ranchers from the Karoo that are interested in starting a quilting outreach program among the staff on their ranches. They wanted a long arm machine and Linda Taylor helped us become Gammill agents here in Africa. We ordered the machine and after much back and fourth paperwork and questions the new Vision was on the way. The machine and shipping charges came to about 140,000 rand, but customs and vat added another 23,000 rand. OUCH! We will have an interesting time transporting the crates to the Free State, and then Elisabeth has to set the machine up and train the crew."

Double Wedding Ring note pad

My longarm machine quilting friend Jane send me this note pad since I just quilted the Double Wedding Ring quilt a few weeks ago. Isn't that thoughtful? Now I can write notes on fancy paper!

Thanks Jane.

Double Wedding Ring Quilt

I just love quilting feathers and the double wedding ring quilt is the perfect design to showcase MANY, MANY feathers. In the rings I quilted a continuous curve design and then in the white background you can see the feathers. My eyes are going a little buggy as this is the 3rd day of working on this quilt. I think I will be dreaming about feathers tonight again!

Just finished it and posted the photo of the back of the quilt so you can see all of the quilting. LOVE IT!

Daisy quilt pattern

Here are some photos of a Daisy quilt pattern that I just quilted as a shop sample for Quilts and Calicos. It is a really cute children's quilt with bunnies and ducks and daisies of course. It sure makes me think of spring today even if there is a bit of snow coming down.

Learn to Quilt class- April 12th at 7:30PM

Thought I would update everyone on our learn to quilt group after tonight's meeting. There were a bunch of us that brought all our purple fabric so that we could learn to cut tonight. Everyone cut the strips in random widths and then we all divided it among the group so that our blocks would be made of the same fabrics. Everyone will try to do 4 blocks for next month's meeting where we will then square up the blocks and sew those blocks into rows. The ladies all learned so well and enjoy the night out! Keep up the great work and see everyone next month on May 3rd at 7:30PM

On Monday April 12th, I will be helping some ladies from Grace and St. George's Anglican churches learn to quilt. We will be starting at the very beginning by learning how to cut with a rotary cutter and ruler. This night we will be cutting purple fabric strips that will be used to make some sting blocks and then sewn into prayer quilts that we use at church to give to members that are ill.

Anyone can come out and join the group whether you are a member of the churches or not.
St. George's Anglican church: 12656 13 Mile Road just off of the Denfield Road.
April 12th at 7:30PM

Please remember to bring your purple fabric, quilting supplies and sewing machine. Supplies and fabric will be supplied if you do not have them.