Quilters have Big Hearts

There's one thing about most quilters...their hearts are very large.

On Thursday night, I received an email from Ed Chamness, the Miami Valley Quilter's Guild's email chairman. Extreme Home Makeover was coming to Beavercreek (Dayton) and the Quilt Guild was going to make quilts for the family who was getting the home makeover. By August 5, Guild Volunteers were to have cut, pieced, quilted and bound one King, one queen, three twins, and one lap quilt for the family.

Above, Kim Gros who arranged for the facility at Prudential One to be used, and Susan Hill, president, press the borders which I had stitched.


Local shops, (Appalachian Quilts, Sulphur Grove Quilt Shop, The Mason Jar, and The Fabric Shack) donated fabric, with Appalachian Quilts donating the batting and backing for the king size quilt as well. Several long-arm quilters were going to take the quilts home and quilt them. The rest was up to the membership.


Work started on Friday, with many people cutting and piecing. I went down on Saturday night as there were fewer people there and many of the jobs had been parcelled out.

I helped put on the 1 1/2 borders on the queen size quilt.

Several of the quilts had already gone to the long-armers, I only saw the pair of "I Spy" generous twin size quilts which were going to the younger twins before they were packed off to go to the quilters. The pink and purple quilt for the young girl had already gone. Here's what I was able to take a shot of.

The red/white/and blue is going to be a King size and it is just fabulous! A Kaffe Fassett print really made it electric!

I worked on this one, which is going to be a queen size once all the borders were added.

When I first heard about this, I couldn't believe that this would be accomplished. I felt that the readily available, poorly made, inexpensive Chinese quilts which have flooded the market had made people think that quilts were easy to pop out....I couldn't have been more wrong.

I should have known that this guild, with its large membership, could accomplish what seemed to be an impossible dream, even on short notice.

Now, after working on some other things, I'm going to turn my attention to making one (or more if I'm lucky) 5" x 7" art quilts for "Hearts for Anna".

Dawn Goldsmith has stepped up to help a quilter in need. Here's the story and what she's doing about it and what I'm going to work on:

Anna Millea, (shown in photo) a longtime Guild and Artful Home artist, is fighting breast cancer - again. The disease has returned aggressively and is now in her bones, requiring an extreme sixteen rounds of chemotherapy. She has no insurance, having been deemed un-insurable due to her "pre-existing condition." When we at The Guild/Artful Home learned of this we knew we needed to do something to try to help her through this situation.What we have come up with is an event we are calling "Hearts for Anna", to which we hope you will contribute and donate a little bit of your time and talent. Artful Home will hold a 5-day online event, "Hearts for Anna", August 12-16, 2009 in which miniature artworks, no larger than 5" x 7", will be sold. The items will be sold first-come, first serve, with all items selling for $100 on Day 1, $75 on Days 2 - 4, and $50 on Day 5. All money will go to a fund that goes directly to Anna Millea to help pay for her medical bills.Requirements for donated artwork: (Deadline: August 7)Participation is open to all artists, both Artful Home members and non-members. The point is to get great participation, and thus give a greater hand to Anna.The artwork can be in any medium, no larger than 5" x 7". Artists in all media are encouraged to participate and donate works.The artwork should be one of a kind, though each artist participating can submit more than one piece.All work should fall within the theme of "Hearts for Anna", however the artist chooses to interpret this.

For pictures and the full scoop, as well as the entry information, please go to

http://subversivestitch.blogspot.com/2009/07/cancer-no-insurance.html

Consider donating, and if you can't whip up a little piece of art, then please consider bidding. I can't imagine facing the bills with no insurance.....Breast cancer is scary enough without it being a recurrence with no insurance.