Whacky Ladies Sew-In Day

Today was a day of fun and fellowship for the Whacky Ladies, my local quilt bee.  For three years in a row, our January meeting has been a sew-in day to make charity quilts to donate to Capital Quilters Guild.  The guild donates to neonatal intensive care units, rest home residents, children whose families are in a program for  prevention of child abuse, and other worthy causes.

Instead of meeting at Quilts Like Crazy, our LQS, we met at Donna Sontag's new storefront business, Whatever's Quilted.  Donna was formerly housed at Quilts Like Crazy, but has moved just down the street at 1318-156 S. Main St. in Wake Forest, NC.  Donna offers both hand-guided and computerized longarm quilting service, and also is a dealer for Handi-Quilter machines.  She will even train you to use the machines and then rent them to you to quilt your own projects.



 Donna showed us the raffle quilt for the Carolina Longarm Association's next show.  She did a fabulous job using both computerized and hand-guided quilting.

Many members contributed green fabrics and helped piece the quilt top, which has Tree of Life blocks with an applique vine in the outer border.

Donna cleverly extended the outline of the vine into the plain parts of the border.

The alternate blocks have a beautiful feathered design.

She will turn it in at the CLA meeting in Greensboro on Saturday for someone else to bind.

Another show-and-tell was this amazing American Flag quilt top that Kathy Miller and a group of women are working on for the Veteran's Administration Hospital.  It will be used when there is a death of a patient, to respectfully honor and cover the body when it is being moved.  Much nicer than draping a white sheet, yes?  It will be quilted and donated.

Mary made a quilt at home and donated it to the guild.  I think it will be perfect for a Safechild quilt with its happy colors and frog motif.

On to today's projects!  I went through a stack of my UFO's and handed them out.  Marilyn finished a top made from a pattern in Quilts From Aunt Amy.  It is made from muted Civil War reproduction fabrics.  It has free-hand circles cut into quarters, then sewn together with raw edge remaining.  Once it is quilted and washed, the edges will fray, making a ruffled look.  I think this will be great for a rest-home resident as it will have a tactile quality.

Kathy took some of my 5-inch cut squares and made this joyous quilt top for a child.

Two years ago, I made a Yellow Brick Road quilt for Quilts on Wheels, and had lots of leftover blocks and partial blocks.  Mary put those together along with some other fabrics that I cut up for her as needed. 

Lori also dove into her UFO (Un-Finished Object) pile and came up with enough blocks for two quilts.  She made one and Carolyn made the other.  They both have nine-patch and alternate blocks in a scrappy design.

Sharon came late and started putting together a top from some orphan blocks of mine.  Donna got out her quilt tops from our meeting two years ago, and got them started on her computerized machine during our get-together.

It is so much fun to work on these projects together.  In just a few hours we made a lot of quilt tops which will later warm their recipients, body and soul.