Bee Day

     I'm a member of the Outreach Committee of my local guild. On Friday we held a quilt bee.  The Outreach Committee  organizes making the quilts that are donated to the personal violence unit at the local hospital.  Most of the quilts are given to sexual assault victims and are important in building trust and starting the healing process.  We also make memory quilts which are given to parents who have lost an infant.

     Throughout the year we hand out block kits at our meetings.  This year we also handed out kits to people as they renewed their membership.  The striking quilt top below was made from registration blocks and was designed by our committee chair Cheryl Cowan.  

     

     Also this year in addition to handing out block kits each month, we are printing instructions for the block in our guild newsletter so  quilters can make blocks from their stash.  The committee members are taking turns picking the blocks and getting permission if necessary to share the instructions with guild members. 

      I was the first committee member to share a block of the month.  I asked Tanya of Tanya Quilts in Colorado if we could use her Log Cabin Medallion block pattern.  We handed out block kits for one quilt top and encouraged members to make other blocks from their stash.  We received enough blocks to make three quilt tops!  Two were completed at the bee day and the third was taken home to be completed by our next meeting.  Here are pictures of the two completed at the bee.

     It was a very productive day.  We completed at least  4 additional tops.  Several memory quilts were finished, some quilts were quilted and backings and bindings were sewn together.  Several guild members also shared their tips for free motion quilting, machine maintenance, and sewing  binding.

     Bee day has always been one of my favourite activities of the guild it's a great way to get to know other members while working for a good cause.  How about you.  Do you attend bee days at your guild.  Do you work on donation quilts.  If you do where do you donate them? 

      I'm linking up with Lorna at Let's Bee Social, and just in case you were wondering I'll be sharing my puppy quilt sometime before the last link up day on November 9th.