Operation Wood Hollow is Growing!

Julie at Having Fun Quilting has been gratefully overwhelmed with the response she's received of quilts to donate to families who have lost their homes to fires.  She is dreaming bigger and bigger, and wanting to help a lot more families!

OK, rather than me try to explain what she said, I will just copy and paste her latest post about her ambitions so you can see for yourself!  I hope she doesn't mind. : )

Here is her June 29th post from havingfunquilting.blogspot.com:

big . . . Big . . . BIG . . . Changes to Operation Wood Hollow

You are all so FANTABULOUS (yes, that's a word)!!!  :o)

Operation Wood Hollow has had so many quilts donated to it!!!  :o)

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!  :o)

So, here are the BIG changes . . .

First of all, we're going to need to change the name from Operation Wood Hollow to something else (any suggestions???) and here's why . . . Because Operation Wood Hollow has had so many quilts donated to it, my husband and I have decided that we are going to go REALLY BIG with this and help people who have lost their homes to other fires as well -- especially the Waldo Canyon fire (Colorado Springs) and the High Park fire (Ft. Collins) -- and try to give them some comfort by giving them a quilt full of love, too!  I'm obviously going to need a LOT of quilts to do this, but I think it will be well worth the effort to help someone who has lost everything!  As long as I have quilts to give, I'll be spending this summer driving to those who have been affected by all the different fires in the Western United States to show them that people (especially TOTALLY AWESOME QUILTERS!) really care about what they're going through!  :o)

Large Incident: A wildfire of 100 acres or more occuring in timber, or a wildfire of 300 acres or more occuring in grass/sage. Wildland Fire: Any nonstructure fire, other than prescribed fire, that occurs in the wildland Wildland Fire - IMT1: Wildland fire; Type 1 Incident Management Team Assigned. Wildland Fire - IMT2: Wildland fire; Type 2 Incident Management Team Assigned.

On this map, the red and blue dots are the fires that give me the most concern.  I just did some research (don't quote me on this!) and there have been approximately 656 homes burned so far!  So . . . if there are any of you out there that wanted to donate a quilt, but thought it wasn't needed any more, IT IS!!!  More than ever!!!

We are researching how to turn this idea into a non-profit organization so we can help people in this way every year, but we don't have time with this fire season to wait for that!  Will you help me by continuing to send in quilts while we get this officially set up??? 

Kayde Dexter wrote this on the My Lazy Daisy Blog:  "You have no idea how much that quilt will mean to them. My house burned four years ago, and while we sat there watching the firemen do their thing a good friend stopped by and gave me a little lap quilt. That quilt means the world to me and brought a lot of comfort in a time of need."

I am so grateful for each of you that have contributed to this cause!  I know the recipients of your kindness will be as well . . .

Hugs!

Operation Wood Hollow

You may have heard about the fires sweeping across the west of the US.  Sanpete County in Utah has been rather devastated by fire with over 39,000 acres burned, about 300 homes evacuated and at least 29 homes destroyed.

Julie at Having Fun Quilting and her family were ones that were recently evacuated and is working hard to help others who have lost everything.  She is organizing “Operation Wood Hollow” to collect quilts and supplies such as quilt tops, fabric, money, anything that can be contributed to help these families.  All help is welcome, so stop by her blog to see if there’s something you’d like to do!

I knew I wanted to help out, but also knew I wouldn’t have time to quickly make a quilt, so I remembered I had some really cute pink floral fleece in my stash.  I thought it would be a perfect way to have my kids join in on the service effort!   

We had fun tying the edges of the fleece and my kids thought it was pretty neat to be helping in some way.  This afternoon I drove the blanket down to be delivered to Marion as she is helping Julie out.

Thanks for the opportunity to help, ladies!

Myra

Peteetneet Quilt Show

Hi all!  I’m finally getting around to posting about my excursion to the Peteetneet Quilt Show last Saturday. I took my little girl with me and I’m so glad to say that I think she fully has the fabric bug in her blood!  First, we went to a class and watched a lady demonstrate how to fmq and also how to add words to your quilts. 

 

 

Then we walked around and looked at all the quilts on display. There sure were lots of pretty ones!  Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

This one is a tribute to Abraham Lincoln. Amazing!

 

My daughter loved the dresses on this quilt so she wanted to draw a picture of one of the dresses so she’d remember it later.

  

Pretty good rendition, wouldn’t you say? : )

 

I thought that these next couple of quilts were amazing as they were done by girls who are about 16-18 years old.

 

On this one, the girl hand-stitched some scriptures and quotes onto the blocks- beautifully done!

 

This is the second youth one that I really liked, and it’s kinda hard to tell in the picture but each of the flowers are three dimensional.  So cute! On the paper that described this quilt, she said that this quilt will go with her to college, and she was now going to start on a wedding quilt to go in her hope chest. Awesome!

 

Another pretty quilt.

This is me and my daughter – great friends and fellow fabric and quilt-a-holics.  Life doesn’t get much better than this. : )

 

At this point, the batteries in my camera died. Bummer, cuz on the very next row were three awesome quilts made by my friend Marion.  I had only seen them on her blog and to see them in person was so great!

 

It was a fun morning!

Myra

Look what I did tonight!

I just think I’m so amazing.  I actually did something rather techy!  And it turned out pretty good!  I discovered a wonderful quilt blog, Ellison Lane Quilts, and that she had a tutorial for how to make a blog button!  I always wondered how people did that.  So, I followed the tutorial and I actually made myself a blog button!  I’m just so proud of myself. : )

 

Who knows, I may change it someday, but for now I think it’s pretty good. : )

Let me know what you think!

 

<a href="http://shetaughtmetoloveit.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="She Taught Me to Love it..." src="http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s513/SheTaughtMetoLoveit/MyBlogButton-2175x175.jpg"/"></a>

Vintage Eva flimsy

I’m so excited! I got the flimsy of my Vintage Eva done! Woohoo!  Although I LOVE having my son home from Honduras, I have found that my sewing time is less, simply because I want to give him his space. He’s been doing jobs on his computer so he’s in his room a lot. So, I’m pretty amazed that I got this flimsy done!





Myra

Stars & Stripes – Done!

I started this quilt, oh, about 4 years ago! No, it didn't take me so long to finish it because it was difficult (so easy!) it’s just that I got as far as putting on the border, and – didn’t. So it sat there all this time. I pulled it out a couple of months ago and realized how close I was to finishing it and thought to myself, “That was silly.” Anyway, here it is. I got it back from my favorite LAQ a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t get it bound until today because I knew I had cut out the binding 4 years ago, but I couldn’t find it! Until this morning that is… So, here it is:

Stars & Stripes!

It’s about 42”x60” and will hang on the wall in my sewing room.

 

I sure hope you can see the amazing quilting that my friend did on this quilt. If you look closely at the blue area, you’ll see four eagles with their wings spread - their tails all in the center. Amazing!

 

Then in the white border, she quilted the words, “God Bless America” all around it… Beautiful!

Then in the stripes, she did wavy lines and then in the red stripes, she also did stars.

Here’s a picture of the back so you can see more of the detail.

I love finishes!!! :)

I’m being Featured on Quilt Story Today! (Wednesday)

Wow! A new little quilt blogger like me, featured on Quilt Story! Imagine that!

What a kind thing for them to do.

Thanks a million Heather and Megan!

Go on over and check it out!

Ball at the Governor’s Palace

A while back I posted about one of our Liberty Girls escapades and said I would post more about them sometime- so here’s another one!
The third book of the Felicity series has Felicity and other girls attending a dancing lesson at the Governor’s Palace. It’s quite a big deal and is a real sign of a girl growing up.  The story behind Felicity’s dress is a really sweet one, and if you want to read my synopsis of it, go to the end of this post for a few short paragraphs. 
The mothers in our group and I decided to recreate the ball at the Governor’s Palace for our girls and sewed each of the girls a beautiful blue satin gown, just like Felicity’s!

This is my daughter ready to go to the ball!

We reserved a room at our local government building and it certainly looked like a palace to the girls!

I’m sure this is what Cinderella looked like going to her ball!

 

The parents of one of our girls went all out and rented costumes to play the part of Lord and Lady Dunmore.  They were fabulous!

And the dancing lessons begin!

      

 

We had quite the fare of delectable refreshments!  

Of course we had to make matching dresses for each of their 18” dolls!

 

What precious girls these are and what a wonderful time we had! It was an extremely memorable event for sure!

Synopsis of the 3rd book of the Felicity series:
-Felicity has been invited to attend a dancing lesson at the Governor's Palace in early January! What a thrilling opportunity! For the first time in her life, she is dreaming of having a beautiful gown so she can wear it to the Palace.  One day while in a store, her mother notices her gazing lovingly at a doll that is wearing a beautiful blue gown, and is surprised, yet pleased, that Felicity is dreaming of it.  She talks with Felicity about it and decides to make a gown just like it for her to wear to the Palace.  It is just before Christmastide and Felicity's mother goes right to work on the dress.  Felicity is beside herself with excitement!  However, just after Christmas, Felicity's mother falls very ill, and the doctors are concerned she might not live.
-Felicity loves her mother dearly and grows up a lot during this time as she puts aside everything and cares constantly for her mother, her siblings and the house. She puts all thoughts of the dancing lesson at the Palace aside as it is now trivial to her compared to the more important things in life.  Her father sees how much Felicity is devoted to caring for her mother and siblings, and goes and buys the doll with the blue dress and gives it to her as a gift. She is thankful for the doll, but inside she doesn't want to have anything to do with the doll or the Palace.  All she wants is for her mother to get better!  So, she gives the doll to her friend Elizabeth, but Elizabeth says she'll just hold it for her for a while.
-Well, after many days, her mother gets well and is able to sit up in the parlor. Felicity is so happy and relieved! That day also happens to be the day of the dancing lesson at the Governor's Palace and Felicity has no thoughts of going. She goes upstairs to retrieve something for her mother, and she finds in her room, spread out on her bed, the blue dress all finished! And beside it sat the doll!  She discovers that her friend Elizabeth came and secretly got the gown and took it home and she and her mother finished sewing it for her.  When Felicity shows her mother the dress, her mother is so happy and really wants Felicity to go to the Palace.  Felicity is super surprised and thrilled, so she gets all bathed and prettied up and goes to the Palace. The Governor's mansion is exquisite, and everything and everyone is so beautiful and she has the time of her life!

Two WIP’s

Our life is beginning to return to normal after our son’s arrival from Honduras. We’ll soon (hopefully) be returning to earlier bedtimes, too. : )

I’ve been able to get started on my quilt, the one I’ve been intending to make from the charm packs I won from Angela at Cut to Pieces, and using the pattern I saw on Marion’s blog. I have the main strips sewn together and have just started ironing them…

And you may remember I mentioned a while back that I had a couple of patriotic quilts in progress, and that one of them was at the long-arm-quilters? Well, she called me yesterday and said I could come pick it up! Woohoo! She did a really fabulous job and her details are beautiful! I’m only going to give you a teaser as to what it looks like, and then when I’ve finished binding it and hanging it on my wall I’ll take more pictures. : )

My Stash

This is my fourth post today! Amazing!

My friend Marion has asked people how they store their fabric stash. I took some pictures of mine so here we go!

This looks like an ordinary closet…

But in reality, it’s a DUAL purpose closet! (Just like my sewing room is also a bedroom! See here and here.)

On the left is my son’s side…

And on the right is my fabric stash : )

It’s all kinda crammed in there, but still somewhat neatly.

I think I would lose count if I tried to count how many “gonna-make-someday” projects are in there. ; )

A Special Quilt from Heaven – The Story

A few weeks ago when I was first learning about the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge that Sarah Craig is doing over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, I read about one of the charities called Happy Chemo, and I thought to myself, “I would really like to make a quilt for this project. What kind of quilt could I do?” Immediately the thought of a little plastic sack of fabric in the corner of my sewing room came to mind, and I thought, “That’s perfect!”

So, this is the story of the little plastic sack of fabric…

It held some pretty blue, yellow and green fabric, already cut into 6 1/2” squares along with some extra yardage. The layout had already been determined by my mom and each row was pinned with little papers with numbers on them.

My mom purchased this fabric several years ago and had cut it all out, done the layout, put it all in a sack, and then with all of her other projects she loved to do, she just didn’t get around to sewing it up.

My mother passed away 2 1/2 years ago, and when my siblings and I gathered together to go through her belongings and divvy it out between us, this little sack of fabric is one of the things I chose, and it has sat quietly on my shelf for the past 2 1/2 years.

The significance of this quilt is that many years before her passing, she had breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and went through a double dose of chemotherapy. The chemo was a hard go for her but she had told the doctor that she was a fighter and that she was going to beat the cancer. She definitely was a fighter and she did win.

Her amazingly positive attitude, faith and determination got her through it and she was blessed to gain another fifteen years with her family. For which we are all forever grateful!

I’m going to write a special letter to have delivered with this quilt to its recipient, sharing its story. I hope it will help her feel loved and encouraged.

(My fourth son enjoying the attention. : )

I love this quilt! It is so bright and happy!

So this quilt has two authors, me and my mom. A special quilt from Heaven. I really feel that my mom had something to do with the inspiration I received to make this quilt be the one I send to Happy Chemo. I hope it brings its recipient a lot of happiness!