Dollies for Haiti

My goodness; who would have thought there'd be so many sewing opportunities for the children of Haiti?

I found out about this one from Cathy, who picked it up from this site, Dolly Donations. The deadline for this project is March 31.

Repost: There is no such thing as an Underground Railroad quilt code

Continuing in the theme of Black History month, I want to redirect your attention to an earlier post on my blog, The Myth of Quilt Codes and the Underground Railroad.

Another item to sew for Haiti!

My friend C told me about a pillowcase dress project for little girls in Haiti. So, I googled it, and found this blog. When I got there, I read about the pillowcase dress project on her site, and she linked to the pillowcase dress tutorial here. On the up side: There is no deadline for this project!

Not so overloaded

Since I explained four days ago how overloaded I was, I decided to commit myself to making progress, one small step at a time.

First, the Modern Siggy Swap.

One day, I sewed all of the small squares onto the larger white squares.

One day, I was sick.

One day, I cut the excess fabric off of the corners, to reduce bulk.

One day, I ironed them.

One day, I trimmed/squared them.

Wait; that seems to be more than four days...

At any rate, they are now portable; they await the final step, which is signing them. I can do that while I wait for DDs in their lessons and such.

I'll get that to-do list for this month whittled down yet.

Overloaded

If you could see inside of my brain, this is what it would look like.

I have far too much I need and want to do, and soon:

The Modern Siggy Swap, by the end of this month

Oops

Skirts for Haiti, by the end of this month

Black and white apron challenge, by the end of this month

Skirts for my daughters, SOON (the fabrics were Christmas gifts; I'd really like for them to wear them as skirts before the season passes!)

Grocery tote bags for the local food bank (I've been working on these for far longer than I care to admit)

A quilt for my daughter's upcoming Rite of Passage (more on that later) and hope chest

A Cheaper By the (Half) Dozen quilt I cut out; I'm auditioning the placement of the pieces in this picture, with the border fabric on the left side (Lisa's got a couple of beautiful ones here and here)

A couple of surprise wedding announcements, both of which are happening NEXT MONTH (a pattern and fabric possibility)

Now, mind you, I am an adjunct professor, and I finished up a term this week, so that meant final grades and all had to be determined and submitted this week. And I start a new term in a few days, so I have a lot of prep work for that.

AND my daughters just finished up a major concert--yes, it happened in the middle of the snowstorm.

Oh, and yes, a wee bit of snow--

Last week

This week

OK, so, what do I start eliminating?

Sewing Seeds for Haiti

Randi whom I learned of thru ktquilts, has discovered that there is a need for skirts for girls in Haiti.

Apparently, she has friends that have been feeding children in Haiti since before the quake, and now they are expressing a need for skirts. Please keep them below the knee--or at the knee, at the very shortest. She has given a few links for skirt patterns:

Tiered skirt tutorial

Chica and Jo's tiered ruffled skirt

I Googled "free skirt pattern" and found a lot of great possibilities, such as this one which topped the list.

Go on over to her blog to read about this, and to leave your email address in the comments, so she can send you her address. The deadline is March 5th.

Wordless Wednesday: DD1's WIP

eLegant Squares

Presenting...

My newest quilt!

I would classify this as a modern quilt. The design is my own, yet I derived the idea for the blocks from here. The top picture is the front of the quilt; the second photo is the back. I blogged a little while ago about receiving a generous gift of scraps from a friend.

After I sorted thru them, I saw a grouping of brown and aqua fabrics (I circled them in the picture above) that I did not want to blend with anything else, even though I wanted to make a scrap quilt. So, I took those fabrics, made as many blocks as I could with them, and added lots of off white. I used the leftover scraps to make the binding. I really like the abstract look of this. I decided to call it eLegant Squares because of the L that is created from the formation of the blocks.

This quilt is significant for me because of two reasons: (1) the design is my own (maybe I really can create my own quilt patterns!), and (2) it is the first one I quilted on my home machine. I've blogged before about having rented time on a long arm quilting machine in the past. But I wanted to see if I could really do it on my own machine. Also, in the true spirit of a scrap quilt, I wanted to keep my costs to a minimum with this; I only had to buy batting and a dollar or two worth of fabric to finish the binding, so I spent $10 on this (not including the off white fabric that was already in my stash)!

A very powerful quilt

As we kick off Black History Month, I thought it might be appropriate to share something that I recently discovered. April Shipp created a powerful, stunning, quilt.

Strange Fruit: A Century of Lynching 1865-1965

She embroidered the names of 5,000 documented lynching victims over a 100 year period. You absolutely must view this video; it is very moving.