Tuesday 3 November 2015

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.

12 comments:

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

Wow, that is awesome to get so many quilt tops pieced together in a day, and for great causes, too. I'm not a member of any local guilds, and this does sound really nice an appealing.

Gina said...

An amazing amount of sewing. What a great cause to sew for. Well done you and the rest of the ladies xx

Preeti said...

What a productive day, indeed!!! Love your blue log cabin quilt.
I am a part of the M* forum. I just finished making three quilts for the Stillborn Bereavement Group. http://sewpreetiquilts.blogspot.com/

Lorna McMahon said...

You and your girls have sure BEEn busy! Lots of beautiful quilt tops and for such worthy causes. I am not in a "real life" guild, just this wonderful online community. But I have donated many of my quilts both as church fundraisers and to the womens' shelter in my nearby hometown.

TheItinerantChemist said...

(Ufff, I wish they'd swap the locations of the "Sign out" and "Publish" buttons...)

Anyway, wanted to say that these are great quilts for a great cause, and I'm sure they will bring great comfort to their new owners. Although I am not a member of a guild or anything, I go to a little local quilting group and a lady there is very involved with Project Linus. I've been to one of her sewing days and donated three tops, and I also like to donate suitable fabric to her when I spot it on my wanderings. :)

Vicki in MN said...

We don't have Bee days in our guild, but I know several of us(me included) do make and donate quilts to various organizations, it is a wonderful thing to do. So give yourselves a pat on the back :-)

Jayne said...

Beautiful quilts for a great cause and so productive! Love the blues...great job! Our guild has charity sew days for NICU babies. It is very rewarding to give back to the community in some way!

Pat said...

Beautiful!!!

Sandra Walker said...

LOVE those blues! Isn't it so wonderful this QBL of sharing? Think that the idea is from a Colorado blogger (yay Tanya!) and now helping comfort people in need in the southern Ontario area. Love that. Cheryl's is striking indeed. I'll have to bring this idea to our wheelchair charity quilt group, as they sew for hospice and also for dialysis patients who get very cold during dialysis apparently.

Kaja said...

No guild, so no bee days for me, but this looks like great fun and is such a great way to make quilts for a good cause.

Pamela said...

Bee day sounds like a great way to spend the day! I wish I could join in. The blue quilt is gorgeous.

Sewmotion said...

I love the charity work that you amazing Bees do, well done, and keep up the great work!