Quilt Blocks and Sweet Charity

Week before last involved a lot of quilt block making and quilt handling. The final block of the month challenge of the year at the Flower Valley Quilt Guild (October through September is the block challenge year) was to make a block using 25 charm squares from one's stash of material. The winner of the drawing for all the squares now gets to create a unique quilt. I would have loved to win them, but I didn't. I'm most fond of the center square that depicts a spider web!

Another guild project was to make 12-inch blocks using 1930s fabric or reproductions. Since I still have scads of 1930s material left over from the Linville family quilt, I created these four Churn Dash blocks. They are entered in a national drawing and I'm eligible to win a set of 12 blocks made by other quilters...but not sure when I'll hear about that. I kind of hope I don't win since the object is to use up this material, not acquire MORE of it!

Guild members have been making quilts to donate to charity all year long, and we had a "show and tell" of the completed ones at our September meeting. Since I am on the committee, I volunteered to store the finished quilts until they can be given away. Here, the 35 finished quilts (so far) occupied our dining room table while I sorted them by type. We have 10 twin-sized quilts on the left, that will go to a private, church supported home for youth with mental health issues. The stack on the right is 21 baby quilts that will go to a shelter for teenage mothers that is run by a Catholic charity. The 5 quilts stacked in front will join some others that will be donated to Project Hero which provides housing, substance abuse treatment and job training for homeless veterans. It is one program out of many sponsored through St. Louis' very effective homeless services organization, St. Patrick's Center.

Then I spent last weekend quilting, too, at the scrap quilt club. It was a wonderful day and I made progress on two lovely projects that are not quite yet ready for prime time, but stay tuned!