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.