I sure hope you are all doing well and are in good spirits. I sure am. Saturday we had our "BIG" Quilt-a-thon at Ross Park Primary School. It was wonderful. We got so much work done! It was a proper sweat shop - just call us "Bush Fire Quilts R Us" we were just pumping them out. I am so proud of what we ALL have done here. There was so much quilted love and good vibes in that room, and out on the porch. I believe we have all but 4 quilts backed, batted and stacked. We are going to make the remaining 4 quilt kits for a couple quilters in Victoria who may want to do their own Bush Fire Star quilt. I thought that was a great idea - they will have the control and can make them when they have the time and resources.
I have to say my thanks first before I go on to the nitty gritty. This in not in order of importance, everyone is so important and we could not have done this without each of you contributing.
- Thank you first to Ross Park Primary School for letting us use your staff room. It was just perfect - nice and warm, heaps of power points, a big boiling water thing on the wall so we could have tea and coffee all day long. It was great. Thank you so much! We want to donate a quilt (for their school auction) as a thank you for giving us the key to their school and giving us the venue to complete this massive project. If any of you are interested in bidding when the time comes let me know and I will see about putting the auction online.
- Thank you to Rachel of 2nd Avenue Studio who donated a big bunch of batting and some backing fabric. The second lot of batting I ordered still is not here - but that is how it goes with shipping to an APO. It will get here eventually.
- Thank you to the Alice Springs Quilt Club for your nimble fingers, willingness to jump into this enormous project head first, and your big wonderful open hearts. Thank you for your time and skills.
- Thank you to Margaret and Apples. Between the two of you how many quilts have you quilted on your frames? 50? 60? Heaps. I will get a count - don't worry. Margaret also got us more batting and backing fabric.
- Thank you to Kim of Honeysuckle Cottage for getting us the first wonderful roll of cotton batting and 11 bolts of wonderful backing fabric and lovely thread to quilt and piece all the blocks up with.
- Thank you Kathy of Pink Chalk Studio for sending us 6 big boxes of safety pins so we could pin baste so many quilts.
- Now most importantly - Thank you to all of you from all over the globe who have sent in blocks, bindings, backing fabric, thread, pins, entire quilt tops, entirely completed quilts, money to buy more batting and packages of tasty coffee. Thank you for sharing yourselves in this project. Thank you for opening yourselves up and sending your love. It is getting cold here in Australia - especially in Victoria and these quilts are going to used to warm the hearts and bodies of some fine people.
I am sure I have left very important things out - put I will edit as I think of stuff.
So, here we are in the Ross Park Primary School Staff room...
See all those boxes on the sofa and floor? They all were in my sewing room...now they are all empty! I have a tall stack of finished quilts in their place!
I made some Monkey Bread. It has been years and years since I made this. I used Martha Stewarts recipe and it turned out so nice. The knife was my first wedding anniversary present from my dear husband. This year my husband spent our anniversary at the BBQ as the cook for the ladies at the quilt-a-thon. So a big thank you to my mate for spending our 11th wedding anniversary watching the kids and grilling.
Eventually we had to swell out to the porch to do stacking because there were so many ladies willing to help.
There were 7 ladies doing quilting.
2 places set up to pin baste quilts.
See everyone working away.
We used the kitchen are for another stacking/basting area.
Here is one of the quilts that we finished on Saturday. This is from LauraJay.
And this one is from Ulla in Finland. She sent the top and I quilted it up. I did loops which I totally copied from Glittergoods. If you want to try your hand at freehand quilting this is a great pattern. I use about a quarter of the thread with this pattern than I do when I use my typical swirly freehand quilting pattern.OK...I guess that is everything from this post. Wow. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to see this project develop.
On a bit of a different note, we have our housing assignment for Ft Leavenworth. Yippee! Our new house will be quite old. Maybe will get a resident ghost? There are lots on post. I have lots of ghost stories, but those will be saved for another blog posting.
I am off to start my Monday morning. Have a great day everyone! Happy stitching, back to my bags!
xo,
Tia
12 comments:
What a hearwarming project. I'm a friend of LauraJay's and she showed me the pic of her part in the quilt project. You ladies are all so special - and what a lot of work for so good a cause - thank you so much.
I think a big thanks needs to go out to you for creating and driving this project. It gained a life of it's own to become an awesome endeavor. I hope that the bush fire victims love their new quilts. I am gobsmacked at how many you and the rest of the "team" have put together and soooooooo very impressed at just all of it. :-)
Monday morning and first thing logging on to see how it all went ! I have been thinking of you all this weekend and been sending my good thoughts your way (and willing my bits in the mail on to arrive on time, I hope they did..). You are one fantastic woman to take this on Tia so close to your move and a very warm thank you to all everywhwere involved. It has been a privilege to see it grow and be the tiniest part of it. It is amazing and wonderful what can happen when good people join forces. Last but not least warm thoughts for the people of Victoria, who have been through so much and, I am sure, are coping so well. May you enjoy your quilts for a long time to come, all made with love.
Wow! That looks so great- all those ladies working... I always love a good Quilting Bee.
Your loops look good too.
Congratulations ladies on a job well done! This has been one amazing initialtive to watch as it grew from an idea on your blog Tia and then it took flight around the world to this end result. It's been great to be a little part of this project. I hope that whom ever actually goes to deliver the quilts to the people of Victoria will take lots of pictures and will post them for all of us to see the final destination of this incredible world wide project.
When I first heard of this project, I was eager to join in. I sent a few blocks and hoped you would have a good number sent, but what happened has truly amazed me. And even more is the way you seem to be handling it all so very calmly! I would be pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to organize it all and that makes the project that much more incredible to me. I'm so glad there are people like you in this world who can organize the little kindnesses of individual strangers into something so much bigger. Now all I'm wondering is why this hasn't been covered by some sort of news media...or has it and you're not bragging? Either way, a big hug and a big thank you for being creative enough to have this idea, brave enough to take it on, and organized enough to pull it off.
oh tia! how exciting! you must be thrilled to see the progress of all your project. you've done a great thing!
What a wonderful project. And the quilts are beautiful.
Thanks for taking the time to post the photos and updates. It looks like you had a great time and all the quilts look sensational. I was thrilled to see one of my blocks in there somewhere. I'm sure the recipients are going to love these.
Alison
Tia, you've heard it all before, but I need to repeat it: you are an outstanding individual. I am so grateful to you and your guild members and you family for pulling this all together - it's been a huge undertaking and you've handled it with such aplomb. I think you're way ahead in the Good Deeds department, the ghosts won't have any justification for bothering you!
So proud to have been the teeniest part of your wonderful bushfire project! Congrats on a job well done!!
Your work is amazing! It warmed my heart to see my plaid star quilt top all finished beautifully by you.
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