Charity Sewing

What projects have you been working on?  Sue has spent the last week working on a new exhibit project, however pictures can't be shared at this point, so instead she has some photos from her local guild's charity sewing day that was held Saturday.  Once a year we do an all-day sew-in to work on our two major charity projects which are preemie quilts for the Children's National Medical Center in DC and soldier/veteran's quilts.  We had over 40 participants and lots of progress was made.

There were quilts in all stages of construction, from cutting and piecing tops, laying out blocks, cutting batting, and machine quilting.

Above are 2 veteran's quilt tops that were finished.  Quilting remains to be done.

Sue chose to work on veteran's quilt blocks like the stars seen above.

Happily she was able to get faster at these as the day went on (3 before lunch, 7 after) and completed 10 blocks for the day.  Only 25 more to go to have enough for a complete top!

We had a delicious lunch of homemade soups, bread, salads and desserts.  It was a fun and productive day of sewing for all involved for good causes.

We'd love to see what you've been working on this year - one month almost gone already!  Feel free to share photos in the comments.

Spring Retreat

This morning I (Sue) left home for a weekend retreat with my local guild in Winchester, VA. I've never been to a retreat with this group, so not sure what's in store.  Here's the car all packed and ready to go.

I met up with a friend for a shop stop at Webfabrics in Purcellville. I hadn't been to this shop before and it was quite overwhelming.  Lots of other "retreaters" were here too.

Above is the shop and the things that found their way into my shopping bag.  Something new called Art Cloth - have to buy it to try it, right?

Folks are beginning to arrive and set up their sewing space for the weekend.

That's my space in the foreground.  I accomplished more than I expected in the first few hours.  There was a retreat assignment for everyone to make 2 blocks for soldier quilts.  I got those done first thing.  Then I started quilting on a baby charity quilt that I put together a few weeks ago.  It went a lot quicker than I thought it would, and I actually got all the quilting done!  Now it just needs a binding and it will be ready to turn over to the quilt collector.

That will be one completed project for April.  There are several more projects in my bag to work on this weekend.