A Little Quilting

In the little spare time I have, I've been stitching up a few quilt tops for Anna Maria Horner's Rainbow Around the Block. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the link. The short story is: Anna Maria also lives in Nashville and after the May floods decided to give back to the community by collecting quilt blocks to be stitched into quilts for those who lost everything.

Hundreds of blocks were sent in, as well as a number of partially completed tops, sets, and finished quilts. A few others who live in Nashville have gathered twice so far to sew the tops together and make sense of everything she'd collected.

This charming woodland quilt was actually made from two different tops that were sent in. One must have been made of a few charm packs to form a small quilt top. The other top was actually about 1/3 of a quilt top made of blocks with the bear applique. I ripped the two tops apart and stitched them back together to make this pretty giant quilt top that will fit perfectly into a Tennessee home.

This quilt is made of the same block sent in from many different people. I think it was one of the block patterns Anna's children designed.

Here we have the infamous flamingo quilt. The interesting thing about asking others to send in blocks is the fact that you never know what you're going to get. There were a few shall we say - "funky" - blocks made with novelty fabrics that took special consideration to work into quilts. Anna Maria offered five bucks to anyone who could make the flamingo blocks work so I took on the challenge. It turned out to be a great success, thanks to all of you who sent in pink and lime blocks. Now that I think of it though, Anna Maria still owes me that $5 :)

This quilt top was such a delight to sew together. It started with a stack of blocks from the same person, deep tones from Kaffe Fassett, that I combined with other gorgeously bold blocks. The result was stunning and to be honest, I wish I could keep this quilt for myself!

I took over backing duties on the second group sewing day along with Kirsty. We had a giant roll of Good Folks to back all the quilts.

Can I just say how much fun it was to swim in that sea of Good Folks fabric all day long?!

Overall it was such an amazing experience. It was so nice to meet local quilters who are closer to my age, and there was even talk of starting regular modern quilt meetings! And it was such a learning experience to see how other people think creatively. Creating quilts from random blocks was also a test in creative thinking. There were some amazing blocks, there were some odd blocks, and there were just some straight up ugly blocks, but we managed to make them all work together to make beautiful quilts for the people of Nashville. 

Anyone recognize any blocks you sent in?

Here's a video of our second sewing day. Be sure to look out for me talking :)

In other news, here's a sneak peak of a Christmas quilt I've been working on:

I'm still working on hand-stitching the binding to the back, but it will definitely be done by Christmas morning and I know the recipient will love it!