"family"

100 Quilts for Kids - The Donation

The wonderful Katie at Swim, Bike, Quilt is hosting the 100 Quilts for Kids blog hop and quilt drive, along with the DC Modern Quilt Guild. Have you heard about it?

Swim, Bike, Quilt

A series of posts from a tonne of bloggers highlighting great, and easy quilts. Perfect for easy construction or group work. In other words, perfect for quick, gorgeous quilts. Perfect for donation. Rather than a central quilt drive and delivery, however, she encourages us to make and donate a quilt locally. (After having done the work for Quilts Recover, I completely get this!)

Today, rather than highlight a specific quilt, I want to highlight the giving portion of this project.

Recently, my husband and his crew had the muddy pleasure of working on the new buildings at Camp Kindle. Camp Kindle is the summer camp built and run by the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta. Nestled in the foothills, surrounded by aspen and spruce forests, the camp is a refuge for kids and families living with and surviving cancer.

We look at our own kids and know that we are tremendously lucky. We also know that should we face the challenges of cancer so directly that a place like Camp Kindle would be a lifesaver for all of us. As one family shared with us, camp is where you can go and not have cancer.

The camp ran all summer, even as the finishing touches remain. As Hubby and his crew grumbled about the mud and hour long drive to get to work each day the first campers started to arrive. And when they saw the first kids, some with IVs and chemo treatments, they immediately shut up. That's when Hubby came home and informed me that I needed to donate some quilts to the camp. He well knows the comfort of a quilt, of something handmade wrapped around you.

Today we were able to visit the camp. We gathered the kids, the rest of Hubby's employees and their families, and journeyed to the gorgeous fall vistas provided at Camp Kindle. The camp, Foundation, and many volunteers were hosting the trades that worked on the camp for a BBQ. It was merely wonderful to finally see the place and more importantly, speak to families and counsellors who truly make the camp what it is. Hubby and his colleagues may have used their tools to put the buildings up, but it is the campers and counsellors who make the camp what it is.

And I took a quilt with me. The camp staff decided that it would be best used in the Rekindle Clinic - the on-site medical facility. Luckily for the camp they do have 4 quilts for the 4 hospital beds - donated by the wives of a local fiddle group! But when they have to change over beds the quilts aren't available.  And having extras to cuddle are always welcome.

It is such a small thing, really, to make a donate a quilt. Early on in my quilt career I gave everything away - baby quilts, wedding gifts... Then I started hoarding the quilts because I couldn't pick a favourite. But now is the time to pass on some creations. And to keep doing so. Such a small thing.









The quilt I donated is the bold and rather easy To a T quilt
Made from a pattern I drafted for the Modern Blocks book.

Pretty Thing


 


Pretty Thing
42'' by 54''

For my latest niece, the pretty thing in question. Modelling her quilt with her 12 days younger cousin, my babe. A summer night just chillin' on the lawn at Baba's house.



Inspired entirely by Malka Dubrawsky's Whirligig quilt from her book Fresh Quilting, only made on a much smaller scale.


Random fabrics including solids (yes, solids for me!), some Lotta Jansdotter, some Amy Butler dots, and a bunch of other loverly greens, greys, yellows, and light turquoise. I mixed up the scale of prints, as well as the intensity of the colours. It was great shopping in the stash for this one.

Quilted with Aurifil 50wt thread with some straight lines 1 1/2'' apart.




Custom Pillowcases


The first slip of paper out of our Summer Fun Jars under To Make was Pillowcases. I gave the girls 3 choices:

... Pick fabric and we'd sew pillowcases.
... Write then embroider their names on pillowcases.
... Go to town with fabric markers on plain pillowcases.

Shockingly, they picked the colouring option.



(That's a drawing of a tiger quilt on your right.)



Over the course of a week they drew, they coloured, the signed, they went crazy on two cheap pillowcases I picked up at a big box store. The fabric markers I already had, leftover from the days when I would colour all my quilt labels. Like most of our crafting I let them be, with little direction. This was their project, not mine. I believe in setting them up and letting them do what they want.

 Now, at night, they curl up with their personal artwork. It's pretty darn cute.



High Tea at the Banff Springs Hotel


In an effort to keep both myself and the girls focused - just a little - this summer I brought in the Summer Fun Jars. The idea comes from Merrilee at Mer Mag. Hers are vastly more pretty than ours are, and a brilliant use of Pinterest.  Function rules here with my impatient girls. Two jars: To Do and To Make. Six slips of paper in each. Sunday night pull to plan for the week.

This week our To Do draw was High Tea at the Banff Springs Hotel. A fancy dancy tea party, complete with tiaras, sparkly nail polish, high heels (for me), and a tower of treats. Plus, a change of scenery and an adventure through a castle.







(Future blogger? She's drawing our food.)



Making up a game because the Croquet set was nowhere to be found.


Grandma was lucky to join us for our trip.