Tuesday, February 1, 2011

E PLURIBUS UNUM


Joyce T's Disappearing Nine Patch arrived at my house yesterday and is leaving it today.   The fabrics were donated by Wish Upon A Quilt in the Raleigh area.  Joyce made this as part of my guild's outreach program, using a pattern I had modified somewhat from the usual D9P.

In this case, several of us took the donated fabrics, which were just swatches of various lines from fabric manufacturers, and cut those swatches into 5" squares.  The line Joyce worked with had both lights and darks in it, and she used them effectively to highlight each other, but we had about 30 other lines and manufacturers to work with.  The tables were covered with many gaily colored squares, some that were bright with Christmas colors and some that were tropical and some with children's themes on them and others that had a more old fashioned, reproduction appearance.

Out of all these hundreds of squares, collections were gathered for 15 or so quilts, coordinating them as much as possible if the swatches from a particular line were not adequate to make an entire quilt.  It takes 48 squares of colors, 48 squares of backgrounds, and 17 squares of a "pop" color to make one quilt, not to mention the extra yardage for sashings and borders.

Once the quilts are made, some members of our guild will quilt them by themselves, and others will have the quilts done by a longarmer.  No matter who does the work, however, the focus of our guild is to provide these warm creations for people who need their intrinsic and spiritual comfort as they face sometimes inestimable hurdles in their daily lives.

Because Joyce wants her outreach quilt to go to the local hospital's outpatient chemo unit, I quilted it with ribbons, the symbol of hope and caring for cancers of all kinds.  We hope it will cheer someone during the long hours spent in those recliners in the clinic.




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