The Blocks Are In The Mail!

I finally found a box large enough, packed the blocks for Soy Amado Project up and sent them to Alison today.  There were 101!  And they were all wonderful.  Thank you so much!  (To learn more about the project read here and here.)

If you want to keep sending me blocks, I will keep collecting them from American quilters and sending them to Alison as soon as I have enough.   (Canadians can send them to Kristy and all others should send blocks directly to Alison.)  Email me (lmgardunia at yahoo dot com) for my address and pitch in a few dollars for the final shipping to Alison.  It is much more affordable to send over a large package of 101 blocks than 25 packages of 4 blocks.  The cost to ship this package averaged 85 cents per block.  Not too bad.

If you make a few blocks, sending them to me would be the most cost effective.  If you have a larger number of blocks (20 or more) it would probably be less expensive to send them directly to Alison.  If in doubt, take your unsealed package to the post office and get the price to send it to Alison and the price to send it to me.  If the cost of sending it to me, plus 75 cents to a dollar per block (in cash - I am awful about cashing checks) to help with the final shipping is cheaper than sending them directly to Alison then enclose the shipping money and send them to me.  If not, seal and send directly to Alison.

Thank you all for participating!  If you want to send prepared strips for the final QAYG piecing or binding I will send those too.  (Use the measurements Alison outlines in this post.) I am sure Alison would appreciate it.

Hope you all have a great weekend!  It is raining here, but that is good because it means I don't have to work in the garden.  :)

Orphan Blocks For Street Children

     

Quilts for Mexico City's street children. Shamelessly stolen from littleislandquilting.blogspot.com

At the beginning of the year Alison blogged about how her family went to Mexico City over the holidays and visited a home for street children.  Click on over and read more details about her visit here.  Let's just say that the plight of the homeless children in Mexico City is overwhelming and appalling.  (Google Mexico City Street Children for tons of stories.)

Alison decided to do what she could and find quilts for as many of the children as possible.  To be able to help more children she has been asking people to send her 12.5" square quilt-as-you-go blocks which she will make up into quilts.  (Details here.)  I absolutely love the quilts she has made so far.  They are a happy riot of color and patterns.

So I finally got my act together, rummaged around in my sewing room and found 5 orphaned quilt blocks.  I layered them with some scraps of batting and used some fabric that I wasn't in love with anymore for the backing and quilted them up.  So Easy & Fun.  There was no stress basting because the blocks are so small they just about stick together on their own.  The quilting was a breeze because the blocks are small and easy to maneuver.  As an added bonus I was able to practice some new free motion quilting designs.  A win-win-win.

Find a good use for extra blocks?  Check.
Use up batting scraps?  Check.
Get rid of that less loved fabric?  Check.
Practice free motion quilting?  Check.
Do a bit of good in the world?  Double Check!

Before going to the post office I checked postage rates online and my jaw dropped.  Umm...it's kinda spendy to send packages overseas.  So here is my plan.  If you would like to send me your quilt-as-you-go blocks and a dollar or two for shipping, I will put together a large package of blocks and send them to Alison.  Win-win-win.  :)

So dig out those orphan quilt blocks that you know you aren't ever going to use, quilt them up and send them out into the world to do some good.  Shoot me an email or leave a comment and I will send you my address.