Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Finally Firing Up Jolene...

Hi, all!


It's Friday again - are you ready to get your whoop whoop on??  I hope so - I can't wait to see what everyone's been working on!


I am very happy to say that I finally got the new long arm quilter up and running!  Oh, and by the way, I think her name is Jolene....  a friend suggested that name and now every time I use her, I can't get that song out of my head!!  It does seem to fit her...

So anyway, Thursday I managed to get two new quilts finished for the quilt ministry - the one above, another postage stamp quilt in batiks, and this one...

...a sweet, bright quilt for a little 7 year old girl who's very sick right now.  I'll share more about the stories of these quilts next Wednesday in the ministry update blogpost.


But it felt really good to finish a couple of quilts AND to have such a great time working with the new quilting machine!

So that's my whoop whoop for the week!

What have you been working on?

Link up and share with us!!

We want to cheer you on!

The linky will stay open until Sunday night...

Hugs!

Sarah

PS Remember to check out the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, which starts today!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - A Flower Garden For Ashley!!

Hi, all!


It's that time of year again - when those of us who don't get to go to Quilt Market have the opportunity to participate in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival!  It's always exciting and inspiring to see the quilts that fellow bloggers share - be sure to jump over there and check out some of the beautiful quilts!

This year, I wasn't sure which quilt I wanted to feature.  Looking back through my pictures, I found quilts that I had great images of, but that didn't have a great story.  Then I came across this quilt - - - and it has a great story!


If you are visiting my blog for the first time, you may not know that I do a lot of charity quilting.  Our church has a quilt ministry that started about two and a half years ago, and in that time, we've distributed 242 quilts to people going through distressing events in their lives.  We've been blessed with many friends in the blogging community who have allowed us to give quilts that are much more beautiful than we could do on our own, given the time constraints we work in.  The quilt I want to tell you about is one of those joint efforts...

See that beautiful girl in the middle of the picture?  Her name is Ashley, and she's a typical 14-year old girl.  She plays on the basketball team at her high school (very well, too!), loves to hang with her friends, text, dance, do all the things that teenage girls do.  Unfortunately, she wasn't typical in one thing - she developed breast cancer and had a bilateral mastectomy this spring.  


We received a request for a quilt for her, and we went to the box of orphan blocks to see what was on hand.  Those beautiful blocks you see up there were donated by Terri.  (This is actually the second quilt we made with the same set of blocks!)  We put these together, added a pretty blue border, and set out to look for a quilt back...

This gorgeous piece from IKEA leaped out at me and said, "Use me, use me!"  The colors worked, and it seemed like a good choice for a 14-year old girl's quilt, so I grabbed it and put the quilt together!  Keep in mind, none of us who were working on this quilt actually knew Ashley....

From an article the local paper published about her.....


     She was touched when members of Gladeville Baptist Church made a quilt for her.


     "It was pretty perfect," she said with a smile.  "It's full of flowers."


     She took it to the hospital with her and now has it at home while she recuperates.

Ashley is recuperating well and looking forward to getting back on the basketball court.  She has a wonderful attitude and I'm looking forward to keeping an eye on her progress over the next few years!


So I think I have to say that this is my favorite quilt of the year!  Nothing fancy, but it is bringing comfort and a smile to a person in need - and isn't that the best reason for a quilt?


Thanks for stopping by - if it's your first time, I hope you'll be back soon and often!!!


Hugs!


Sarah


PS Be sure to check out some of the other quilts at the Bloggers' Quilt Festival - you'll be inspired, I promise!!!

Make-A-List Monday - And It All Starts Up Again...

Hi, all!


Did you have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend?  I certainly did - I got to spend time with DH and all the kiddos, plus spent time sewing with my sewing sisters!  Life is good!


However, the needs list for the quilt  ministry has started to fill up again.  Let's look at how I did on last week's list before checking what I'll be working on this week....

1.  Put binding on a quilt for a 7-year old boy with a brain tumor.

Done!  This quilt has been finished and delivered!

2.  Keep working on taking stuff down to church and getting it organized in our new space.

Lots has been done on this!  There are still a few things

to get moved in, but it's close!  Here are some pics

from our sewing day Saturday...

You can see the design wall on the left,
plus we put an ironing station between the cabinets!
That's also a portable design wall you see
with the pinwheels on it.

And this is the second ironing station that
Pam brought from her home - it was taking up too
much room there and she thought we could use it!

3.  Finish setting up my new quilt frame.

Almost done!  The leaders are on, and I'm all set to

install the laser pointer.  Next I oil her and then it

will be time to load up a quilt!

4.  Load on a test setup and give it a whirl!

Haven't done this yet - ministry quilts took priority!

5.   Re-organize my own space when all the ministry 
stuff is out!

And I haven't really done this one yet either - 

pretty much just stuffed things into the cubbies without 

organizing, to get them out of the way as I packed up

items to take to our new space at church.  

Hopefully this week!!

OK - so what's on the list for this week?  Lots of stuff - probably way more than I can get to!!

1.  Finish piecing a batiks quilt top for a man with cancer.

2.  Make a back and quilt the batik quilt.

3.  Make quilt kits for the ministry.

4.  Finish taking the rest of the ministry supplies to church.

5.  Decide on a quilt to enter into the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

6.  Prepare the last two posts for the 

Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge!


7.  Pull fabrics for my H2H quilt (finally!)

Hopefully I'll get to all of this, and maybe even some more (yeah right dream on!) 

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

Hugs!

Sarah