Siblings Together Block Drive Quilts - The Big Reveal

Ok folks, here they are at last.  Two finished churn dash quilts for Siblings Together. Hooray!

Wavy line quilted and orange basket weave print binding.

Wavy line quilted with tiny red gingham binding.

In case you don't know the story, I'll quickly recap how these quilts came to be.

Back in May 2013 I noticed a thread on the Siblings Together Flickr group seeking members for a new Bee to spend a year making quilts for the charity.  Reading the discussion thread I noted that many of those commenting loved the idea of contributing to the charity quilts but weren't in a position to be able to commit to blocks every month.  Seemed a shame to me to waste so much enthusiasm and so I added my own little discussion thread and posted on my blog inviting those who would like to make a one off block contribution to a quilt for an older boy to sign up to my Siblings Together Block Drive.

Of course, you folks were amazing and pretty quickly I had offers of more blocks than I needed to make the one quilt I'd planned.  There was nothing else for it but to go for two quilts!!  So, several months of block collecting later I had a pile of 57 funky churn dash blocks from 17 different volunteers to turn into these fun, colourful quilts which I am sure will be loved by their recipients at the summer camps this year.

I cannot thank the amazing ladies who contributed these blocks enough.  They flew in from all corners of the UK, the USA, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia.  It was entirely my pleasure and privilege to co-ordinate these quilts and to allow many of you the opportunity to be part of this year's Siblings Together quilt spree.  I think we did a good job ladies!!

All that remains is for me to package these up and send them on to Siblings Together HQ and to say one final, huge THANK YOU to all of you!


These two quilts also make up the first finishes from my FAL 2014 Qtr 1 list - yay!

At last...

... my real life To Do list is back to the normal 101 things instead of a squillion.

... I've had some sewing hours in my wee room and sanity is slowly being restored.

... I'm working on putting together those Siblings Together quilts!  (Not before time, I can hear the Block Drive Peeps murmur.  Sorry folks, but I am on the case now, promise.)

 From the 57 blocks that the generous Siblings Block drive ladies stitched up I laid out 2 quilt tops.  One 5 x 5 blocks

 
and a larger 5 x 6 one.  There was much switching and swapping of the blocks to try to balance the colours and look of these two quilts.  I could still be sitting there swapping blocks around, but finally made a decision that these were good enough.  I'm hoping that these will work for older boys at this summer's Siblings Together camps.  What do you think?

While I had a lengthy spell behind the sewing machine I went ahead and pieced two quilt backs as well.

The two remaining churn dash blocks were pieced into a red gingham panel and added to some lovely navy, red, green plaid yardage as a backing for the smaller quilt.  It's hard to see in this photo but it is actually very nice (and not pink as it appears here).

The larger quilt backing was pieced from an Ikea print that I call "the wanderers" (no idea what it's really called) and a piece of green/blue tiles print that I've had for yonks and yonks.

I'm so pleased that I'm finally making progress with these two quilts. Bit of a quilting marathon next though!

Siblings Together Block Drive - more blocks

I have one more set of Siblings Together churn dash blocks from the lovely Betty to show you.  In spite of the angle of the photograph, I assure you these blocks are all the same size!  These will now join the others that have been gathering over the past few months and after Christmas (bit later than I had planned, sorry ladies!) I will set to laying out quilts for pre-teen/teen boys.  I wonder what all of the blocks will look like together?

As I say, I am sorry that I haven't been able to get to these before now, but with 55 blocks from all your generous donations I will have two lovely quilts to keep me busy in the darker months of January and February.  Looking forward to sharing pics with you as I go.

Thanks again for the great blocks Betty!

Siblings Together Block Drive Updates

I have been a bit slow to post the latest arrivals for the Siblings Together Block Drive so it is with apologies particularly to Rhonda and Frances that I show you these today.  I did have the pics all ready to post just before my hols and hoped to use Blogsy while I was away to share them with you all.  But  in a stunningly dim move, I left the little lead that connects my camera to my ipad at home so the photos were here but I was not!

So, here are the lovelies sent by Rhonda all the way from Tennessee -

from Rhonda

more from Rhonda

 and these gorgeous zigzag blocks are from Frances in the Netherlands -

from Frances

again from Frances

Arriving home from our holiday last night, two of the parcels in my mountain of post contained these yummies from Audrey

from Audrey

who thought she had made a mistake making a yellow block , so she made another blue one for the quilt

Audrey's apology block

I'm secretly a bit glad she thought the yellow was a mistake (which it isn't) because I love the navy print she has included in this one!  But ssshhh, don't tell I said that.


And then the very generous Anne B sent me some extra blocks from Down Under -

from Anne B - the bottom print is a great wee design
 of little motifs from around the world

So, thanks to all your very generous block donations I now have 33 blocks in this little pile, with a number of pledged blocks still to arrive before the end of October.  

I think there will be two amazing international quilt tops from all of these wonderful churn dashes you ladies have stitched up for the Siblings Together project.

As always, I cannot thank you enough - you are stars!!

Siblings Together Churn Dashes

Last month I posted a wee call out for churn dash blocks to make a Siblings Together Quilt for a boy for next summer (2014).

You folks were brilliant and have pledged me more than enough blocks to make a quilt and a half (almost) already. Although I was intending to make just one quilt, I didn't want to say "no" when you were all so eager to help out and I reckon I could manage a second quilt to allow the Siblings Together charity to bless a young boy in the care system.  This means that I still have some spaces (for 18 blocks) if there's anyone else out there who would like to contribute a block or two.  If you are interested, all the details and specs are here and the block tutorial is here.

Anyway, some eager beavers have already sent me their yummy churn dashes and I thought I'd let you see how great they are.

from AnnieB

from Karen, Quilty Creations

from Judith, Just Jude

from Kirstie, Miranda and Lu

from Joan, Quilting Times

Told you they were great!

Big, big thanks to Karen, AnnieB, Judith, Kirstie and Joan - they're all smashing and I really, genuinely appreciate your help on this project.

Siblings Together Quilt Block Drive

Towards the end of last week you may have noticed that Lynne invited folks to join a Siblings Together Quilting Bee making twelve quilts over the course of a year for donating to the 2014 Siblings Together programme.  With a keen response oversubscribing her Bee, Lynne suggested that folks consider the possibility of starting up further Bees for themselves via the flickr group.  (There are a couple starting up so do pop over there if you're interested.) I thought this over for a few days and popped in to the flickr group now and again to see what kind of vibes there were for this.  And then, I had an idea (dangerous, I know)!

Reading the comments on the flickr group it seems that some folks might be willing to make a block or two but perhaps just don't have the time or resources to commit to a full Siblings Together monthly Bee.  So, rather than waste your willingness to contribute, here's what I'm thinking...

Siblings Together Quilt Block Drive!  You get to make as many blocks as you think you can manage for me to gather together and make up into a Siblings Together Quilt for 2014!  Want to join me?

My Siblings Together Churn Dash blocks for 2014 boy quilt.

Here's the info:

I plan to make a 6x5 block churn dash quilt for a boy (think age 10+ rather than tiny boy) and I will need 25 more blocks to complete a top.

If you would be interested in joining my block drive, please let me know in a comment below, or via flickr mail, how many blocks you want to contribute to the quilt.  Then, you make the blocks any time you like over the next 5 months (nice and slow) and post them back to me by the 31 October 2013 deadline.  I will then piece the blocks into a top and finish it off before donating it to Siblings Together as our collective effort.

I will post a 12.5" churn dash block tutorial in a few days time that you can use to make up the blocks from your own stash in a colour palette of blue, grey, red, orange and green in fabrics suitable for boys (no white, no insipid shades and no florals please).  Here are the type of fabrics I pulled just to give you an idea of the palette I had in mind.

Please use good quality quilting cottons, just two fabrics per block and stitch with a quarter inch seam to help ensure consistency among blocks being contributed by lots of different folks.

I think that about covers all the details except to say that if you want to join in I will need to be able to contact you, so please make sure to leave an email address in your comment if you are a no reply blogger.

I know lots of you folks that I know well are really heavily committed to all sorts of other Bees and charities, not least our own Bee Blessed, so please, please do not feel obliged to add to the pressures you may already feel under.  I am "advertising" this block drive on the flickr group for Siblings Together just to see if there are folks who want a low commitment kind of contribution to a quilt for such a worthy cause.  (If you haven't heard of Siblings Together, please check out Lynne's post which tells you all you will need to know.)

If any of you want to spread the news for me with a teeny mention to your readers, that would be a great help too.

So that's it!  Anyone in?