Make-A-List Monday - The Best Laid Plans....

(Please be sure to read all the way through to the end of this post to learn about a wonderful opportunity to do some good and have a chance at winning a great quilt!)

Hi, all!

Wow, Monday again - where did my week go?????  I have pitifully little to show for last week, but I did get to spend some quality time with hubby, the granddaughters, and my sister and nieces - so I guess it was a fair trade!  Let's take a look at how last week's list went...

1.  Cover the cushions for my friend's chair.

I actually finished sewing the last of these cushion covers just before dinner tonight - still have to cover the foam in batting and stuff it into the cover, but I'm counting this as DONE!

2.  Upholster a stool cushion.

Done!  This is so easy - I love this kind of upholstery!

3.  Make a messenger bag.

Totally neglected this one....

4. Finish the wall hanging from last week.

I didn't get it finished, but I did do a bit more of the quilting.  Lots and lots and lots of straight line quilting...  But I hope to finish it this week!

5.  Quilt my "Orange You Glad" quilt.

Not even close....

6.  And as if I needed another hobby, I'm starting to knit a "Honey Cowl" - it will be interesting to see how this goes!

And I'm about halfway done with this...

Isn't that pretty?  My daughter has already asked for one when I'm done with this one, and now Lilli wants one too!

Now, in my defense, I did help my niece finish two of the quilt tops she brought with her this weekend. She finished this one for her mom...

..... and this quilt for herself!

She's just a little bit happy about it!

I wish you could have seen her walking around the house with it draped around her shoulders like a superhero cape.  She says she's going to wear it like that around campus when she returns to college, too - and I wouldn't put it past her!  Just wish I had thought to take a picture of her wearing it.....  

And here's my list for this week...

1.  Finish that wall hanging!

2.  Make at least four blocks for a Scrappy Trips

king-sized quilt.

3.  Make the messenger bag.

4.  Work on the knitting project.

5.  Work on any ministry needs that come up.

It's been quiet on the quilt ministry front, but that's not unusual for a couple of weeks around the holidays.  However, I expect it will get very busy, if history is any indication - we usually start getting a lot of donations just before we have a lot of requests come in, and this has been a big week for emails from people who want to make donations.  More about that on Wednesday!

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And now I want to invite you to participate in something very special.  My friend Pam started a quilt for her father long ago - a beautiful king size quilt that she chose to hand-quilt in a Baptist Fan pattern.  Well, by the time she got close to finishing it, her father had suffered some health setbacks and is now living in a nursing home, where a king-size quilt is just too much for his needs.  Not wanting to let her work of art go to waste, she decided to use it as a fundraiser for Blood:Water Mission.  She hopes to raise enough money to allow a well to be dug in an African village!  

Pam blogs over at Learning To Be Me, and you can read more about her raffle and the quilt there.  She's offering one entry to win the quilt for every $10 donated, and I know I'm going to be entering - I've seen this quilt personally, and it's a gorgeous thing!   And she'll even pay to ship it to the winner. You can also make a donation by clicking on the donation box at the top right of my blog - but be sure to go to Pam's blog afterwards and let her know that you did! She's got instructions there for how to contact her.

It would also be great if you could help spread the word - this is a great cause and a chance to win a fabulous quilt!  Win-win!!

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So now, the question is - - - what are you working on?

Hugs!

Sarah

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? I'm Such a Proud Quilt Mama...

Hi, all!

It's Friday again - are you ready to get your whoop whoop on?  I haven't got anything of my own finished to show you this week, but my niece came to visit today with some quilt tops that I'm definitely whooping about!  I'm a very proud quilt mama, let me tell you!

Heather started quilting shortly after I did - I taught her how to make a disappearing nine-patch block, and she put that quilt together pretty quickly...

Then she moved on to a pinwheel quilt, fairly simple design but great color technique.  From there she went on to quilts based on mathematical principals (the Fibonacci sequence) ....

and the Doppler effect...

...but now she's really stretching herself!  Take a look at the quilt she came up with recently, after becoming a huge Dr. Who fan...

For those of you uninitiated in Dr. Who lore, this is the TARDIS, which is the vehicle that Dr. Who uses to travel between time and space (TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.)  But she created this all by herself without a pattern, and only asked me for advice about how to put the letters on.  Isn't it awesome?

And then, for Christmas, she decided to make a quilt for her mom. Now, my sister loves cats, and Heather had wanted to make a cat quilt, but needed a design that was simple enough to make in just a few days before Christmas (she's a graduate student and doesn't have much time to sew until school breaks.)  She was doodling a bit and came up with an idea, and realized that a snail trail block would work perfectly for the linked tails of the cats.  So here's the quilt she designed....

Isn't that a great design?  I just love it, and I'm such a proud quilt mama!!  I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.  So here's a great big whoop whoop for Heather!!

Wish us luck - we're going to load the cats quilt on the frame for quilting, and then hopefully the TARDIS quilt, too, if time allows. Maybe I'll have the final, quilted versions to show you next week!

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And now it's your turn!

What have you been working on this week?

Remember - it doesn't have to be a finish -

Just something you want to show off!

We want to cheer you on, so share!!

The linky party will close at midnight on Sunday,

so there's plenty of time to join in...

Be there or be square!!

Hugs!

Sarah

What's Cookin' At The Sweatshop? Finally back again....

Hi, all!

Well, after a ridiculously long failure to post Sweatshop updates, I'm finally back! Trust me, we've been making and giving away quilts - 138 since my last Sweatshop update - but I have neglected to do the posts like I should have.  This year I'm going to try to stay current, and also do some "fill-in" posts to recap the quilts I failed to report on since September.  Wish me luck!

So this post will be showing all the quilts we did in December - fourteen of them!

This pretty quilt went to a 93 year old woman with a lot of health issues and family problems....

This neat string quilt, pieced from donated blocks by Cindy, was given to a man with inoperable brain cancer...

This bright, cheerful quilt went to an 18-month old little girl who was just diagnosed with a brain tumor...

These two quilts went to a husband and wife, older couple, who were in a serious car accident and suffered head trauma and broken bones....

This quilt went to a young man, recently married, who was just diagnosed with leukemia....

We gave a quilt that I failed to take a picture of to a woman who suffered a heart attack and is still in the hospital with fluid on her lungs...

These two quilts went to two teenage sisters who were in a serious car accident, suffering broken bones, internal injuries and undergoing multiple surgeries....

This lovely scrappy thing went to an older lady who suffered from multiple health issues, including a heart attack....

This beautiful quilt (believe me, the color is totally off - this is lovely shades of soft green and rosy pinks!) went to a woman who had to move to live with her family in another state because she was no longer able to stay home by herself.....

This pretty quilt, in a design I like to call a "Mega D9P", was given to a woman just diagnosed with breast cancer...

The call for this quilt came in just a few days before Christmas, asking for a quilt for a woman just diagnosed with stage 4 bone cancer, and no possible treatment available.  I didn't think we'd be able to get this one done before Christmas, but we ended up delivering it on Christmas Eve!

The front...

...and the back!

And here is the last quilt of 2012, the 245th quilt we gave away this year!  This quilt went to a 10-year old girl who battled brain cancer seven years ago and beat it.  She was recently diagnosed with a tumor on her spine and is undergoing radiation treatments at this time.  Her favorite colors are purple and green - I hope this quilt makes her smile!

So those are the quilts we gave away in December - our prayer, with each and every one, is for the quilt to bring comfort, peace and hope to the recipient and their families.  It always amazes me how such a simple thing as a quilt can convey so much more than we could ever say, and mean so much to so many!!

Hugs!

Sarah