Manchester quilting bee

I am sure most of you will have heard about the bombing that took place in Manchester at an Ariana Grande concert on may 22 this year.  Such a tragedy 22 lives being lost and a lot more both children and adults badly injured.
The Manchester Sewing Bee decided to make quilts for the families of those who lost their lives and people were asked to make 5" hexagons and attach them to 6.5" squares.  I made 16 and masses of people contributed and then on 15 th July  Rachel came with another lady and brought quilt tops, blocks etc to be completed at out Leeds MQG meeting.  The first quilt was finished by Liz who sandwiched the flimsy that had been made by a group in Chorlton, quilted it added the binding then passed it over to 2 of us who sat either side of a table and hand stitched the binding down.

First quilt

Good to see the first completed quilt.  There were individual squares, hexagons needing to be added to squares,   rows joined together and flimsies to be completed.  Rachel had been given lots of backing fabrics, wadding etc and people had sent in bindings.  Some of us took the flimsies home to complete and I did one just a wavy line through the seams as my quilting is not too good then bound it and had it completed in a day. There is an instagram page for Manchester quilting bee if you want to see more of what is happening,  think a facebook one too but I am not on facebook

my completed quilt

I am not sure when the quilts will be collected   our next meeting is 19 august  maybe there will be more to do then.

Now back to making more for the epilepsy charity fund raiser which happens at the end of august.

I am also off to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham on 11 august  have a ticket to hear Victoria Findlay Wolfe giving a talk and so looking forward to seeing her quilts and new book.  3 days I have at the show but have to get a bus 5.30am to catch my coach at 6.30 so a very early start.

3 quilts completed charity makes made.

June was a productive month for me,    have been busy making quilts and also blocks and charity makes.

A friend of Helen`s lost her 15 year old daughter  last august   so tragic she had a epileptic fit.  The Mum is having a fund raiser on her anniversary for the epilepsy charity, and Helen volunteered Catherine my other daughter and me to make some things for it!!  Catherine does glass painting and makes beautiful cards   no stitching but other techniques. I am also pleased to support this charity as my ex husband suffered from uncontrolled epilepsy from the age of 29 till his death aged 76 and I would never know when he was going to have a fit,   he often had them whilst waiting to board a plane after a holiday,  we were sure air conditioning effected him so any money raised will go to researching this illness

I have made 8 bags with embroidered cats on them

2 aprons, 3 key fobs, 5 fabric trays,1 fabric box, 2 nine patch little bags  and 2 tablet holders.

 Hope too make a few more things before august to add to these,  maybe some embroidered cards and have done a scrap HST quilt from 5.5" squares which they might like too.  Only completed this yesterday so should really not be in the june makes blog.I had  a disaster with a glass of sherry which I managed to spill on it when it was waiting to have the binding hand stitched, should not have had it on the kitchen table, fortunately it washed out okay. This one I machine quilted with a walking foot and wonky lines

I have also made 15 blocks for the Manchester quilting bee that are making quilts following the bombing at the concert last month,   the bee are coming up to our Leeds MQG on 17th and we are all going to help making the blocks into quilts.  The hexies have been attaches to 6.5" squares.

I sorted my scraps during the month and decided to make some fabric baskets for them  one for each colour,  I used car headliner     the same as bosal but cheaper and not iron on and it worked very well,

3 more quilts   a baby quilt for Debbie a friend of Helen`s   baby not born yet but Helen says she loves the quilt/play mat.  Hand quilted with a wavy pattern on the sashing and circles on the blocks.

This is the back of the quilt   liking this fabic  

now this one was done with Jennie Rayment on the create and craft channel   my first attempt at medallion quilt   I hand quilted this with purple perle  thread   I enjoy hand quilting but could not do it with hand quilting cotton and very small stitches.

Next is a crazy stack and whack quilt    fun to do  but struggled with arranging the blocks,   hand quilted.

I also made 10 assorted blocks   the winter slostice BOM was completed and I decided the blocks that were bigger than 12" I would not use in the quilt so made the substitute blocks instead.  Sorry can`t find the photo for these.
Last but not least a stitching apron for me to wear when stitching. It has pockets on the front,  I made the same as the charity ones but this was the first I made   might take the waistband and straps off and make them narrower as I have done in the other 2.  It is reversible but no pocket on the other side.