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Two Years and HOPE

Has it really been two years since I last posted?  Wow!  I guess I struggled with what do I post, what do I not post etc.  Was this a blog to record life or was it to record my creative adventures with an occasional post on life?  I think I'll chose the latter.  It's hard to remember daily things, let alone remember things that you make, how you made them and why.  I hope that I can capture those thoughts here, and I can come back here in case I forget or in case I want to remember.

Do I recap the past or do I move forward?  Hmmm... let's just move forward!

The family has grown and had additions, and the grands have grown with a few added and more to come.  The last two years have been busy.  August 31, 2018 was the last date i posted.  Since then many quilts have been made, given away and more have gone in the WIP pile...of course.  Two grandkids were added and the last single kid got married.  Our original family of six is now at thirteen and growing.  Life is good and we are blessed.





My dear friend Mary, who is also my hair stylist, decided that she and her team (she owns the salon and took volunteers from the salon) were going to work at a Foster Teen Camp last summer.  The camp is for teens 12-18.  They did an activity with the teens which involved having them draw on fabric blocks.  They were to draw what "hope" meant to them.  Those blocks would become a quilt that would be auctioned off at the Foster Teen Camp annual fundraiser, which raises money to support the camp.  There were 92 blocks of visions of hope.  As Mary gave me these blocks of fabric I wondered what I would do with them.  As I looked at each block and saw what kids drew, I knew I needed to do something to represent what they were expressing, but what?  What does "hope" look like?  I immediately thought it had to be bright, it had to have happy colors....make it simple so that what shines are the blocks.  I found some bright solid fat quarters I had bought at Hancock of Paducah years ago and went to work.




The idea was to use the bright colors as sashing for the blocks.  I wanted to highlight squares that had "hope" specifically written in the blocks, after all this quilt was about "hope".  I wanted those blocks to be in the center and I wanted them to be outlined in the color yellow... who doesn't feel happy and inspired when they see yellow.  It reminds me of a new day.. a sunny new day.  It is something that I think every teen at that camp wishes for... a new sunny day, a new beginning.

After visiting with my friend we decided that making two lap size quilts would be better than one big quilt.  After arranging the blocks I realized I was two blocks short for each quilt.




 Nevermind I said, let's put the missing blocks on the bottom two corners and I was sure I would figure something out.  I set up a design for the sashing for both quilts, and hoped that I would get inspired to figure out what to do with the backing and the missing blocks.  With patience comes inspiration (and lots of time on the internet auditioning fabric, looking for patterns etc).  In a nutshell, "hope", those words became the inspiration for the back.  The blocks were about visions of "hope", The auction where these quilts were going was called "An evening of Hope".  HOPE in big bright colors nestled on bright happy fabric, that is what I wanted.  Along with that I wanted bright hearts and bright rainbows for my missing blocks.  And the quilts came to life...from simple muslin squares to something that I hoped would move those who saw a simple quilt.



 The hearts are paper pieced and can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/587498181/herringbone-heart-paper-pieced-pdf-quilt?ref=shop_home_active_28&crt=1



The rainbows are paper pieced and can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/677657795/rainbow-heart-paper-piecing-pattern-pdf

#hope and h💓pe were free handed by me and just appliqued on the back piece.  I quilted the back with my sewing machine and the binding was also done by machine.

The auction was held on Saturday February 8.  When I saw them displayed in the room I told Mary it looked so much better than I had hoped.






The first quilt was auctioned towards the beginning and the second was auctioned at the end.  The first quilt was auctioned for $1,000 and the second for $1,200.  It was so much more than I imagined.  But the real story is that I got to meet some of the kids who had blocks on the quilts.  The woman who had the highest bid on the second quilt got it because she and her husband were adopting a girl from the camp.  She had worked with the girl for the past two years and her block was on that quilt... my heart melted.   I met others who wanted to buy the quilts because kids that they had worked with had a block on those quilts.

There were so many stories from those that worked at the camp, it was so hard to keep from "ugly crying", I finally gave up.  I don't know if I can work at the camp, I don't know if I would be strong enough, but if my talents as a quilter can contribute to the greater good I am happy to do that.  As so many said "Its all for the kids".




It was/is so rewarding for me to be part of something so wonderful.... In all my years of quilting, I think that these two quilts have made me the proudest. I have my dear friend Mary to thank for getting me involved in this project we lovingly call ... HOPE.

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