Hands2Help & Flamingos

For those of you who are looking for For Pinks Sake, go to this link.

What a glorious day! It is the final day of the Hands2Help quilt drive. Each year Sarah (Confessions of a Fabric Addict) offers quilters a chance to make a quilt for 2 or 3 different charities. From March to June quilters can choose a charity, sign up and make a quilt.

I chose Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo. This organization captured my heart immediately. Emily, of Em’s Scrapbag, has an ongoing project of making quilts for Happy Quilts. “This wonderful effort provides quilts and comfort for chemo patients.” (Sarah Craig)

The number one reason I chose this was because of my Mom. 42 years ago my Mom had her first surgery for cancer. She went through chemo at one point and suffered the common lot of others who have chosen this option to try to rid themselves of cancer. I wrote a post about my courageous and beloved Mom, which you can read here.

Without any more chatter, here is my Flamingo Quilt!

The Quilt with my 1940 Elna Grasshopper

Don't look too closely at the p-i-n-s.

Kaiju, my kitty, helping with the backing

In all it's glory

What are those? Let me take a closer look? Pins???? Does she plan to have someone snuggle up with a quilt with pins?

No she doesn’t. With school and the Log Cabin (oh boy, she’s rolling out the excuses!) I knew I’d have to make the quilt the week after school let out. Errr, the last week before the H2H deadline.

Fortunately, this was a joint effort and my Sisty Ugler had made the blocks. I started in on last Saturday and was toodling along. Then an unexpected lost day showed up.

I worked my little beehind off yesterday. I thought I could make the finish line. I started quilting at 5:00. After a half hour, which meant I only covered about 24” (2 12-inch squares), I stopped to look at the back.

Eeeeeegads! The tension was all wrong! Loopy loo! And I had checked and adjusted the tension before I started. I stared at it in frustration and mounting apprehension. I would have to pull out all the stitching.

I should have thought to take a picture of my own quilt back!

Four hours later, I had finished ripping it out. It was then I realized it wouldn’t get done for today.

And (get ready for another excuse, group) today is our local guild’s Quilt Show. No quilting today.

And now you know why there are pins in it!

Look for another post next week with the unpinned and completely finished quilt!

** I have to apologize for the quality of the pictures. They are blurry and the color's faded. Darn! **

The Unveiling: For Pink’s Sake

Welcome to all who are blog hopping For Pinks Sake. Anna, who writes Life Sew Crafty, is hosting this blog hop to raise awareness of cancer, to make a quilt for Lemmon-Holton Cancer Pavillion in Grand Rapids, MI.

Anna is quite familiar with this hospital. It is where her mother-in-law, Tina, has had all of her cancer treatments.

Any of you who have had someone you love go through cancer treatments, know how the bills pile up. Anna is asking that anyone who is able to donate to help defray Tina’s medical bills.

Each of the bloggers on the hop are making a block to donate to the quilt for the hospital. You can help by donating a pink block. Instructions are here.

Those who read my blog regularly will know of my Mom who died from breast cancer in 1984. The radiation treatments had just started being refined. While my Mom had them, they learned how to pinpoint just one area to radiate instead of a buckshot approach.

The positive aspect now in 2014 is death rates from breast cancer are declining since 1990. This is because more and more women, like myself, have chosen to forego hormone replacement therapy. The breast cancer incidence rates among women aged 50 and older have seen a gradual reduction. This is due to early detection, increased awareness and continually improving treatment options. It’s a better world now and hope is growing all the time.

For my block, I wanted to make an “old-timey” block I found in my Aunt’s belongings. The publication, Grandmother’s Patchwork Quilts, was has no date. I’ve read about this small, paperback books, approximately 24 pages long, were done in the 1960s.

Young Man’s Fancy was the block I chose had 74 pieces! Yikes! Sooooo, for my block I chose the Klondike Star. It’s paper pieced and has much fewer pieces. You can find the instructions for this block at Quilters Cache, a wonderful site with 60 pages of free block patterns. The Klondike Star is found here.

The blog hop goes on through July 19th, posting every other Saturday. Here is a list of the bloggers who are helping out! Go and check out their blocks--very cool!

May 10

Anna @ Life Sew Crafty

Sarah @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Robin @ Miscellaneous Thoughts

Kathy @ Kwilty Pleasures

May 24

Jess @ Quilty Habit

Melinda @ Quirky Granola Girl

Kristyn @ Melon Patch Quilts

June 7

Amy @ The Calico Cat

Leanne @ Devoted Quilter

Terrie @ Quilting Nonnie

June 21

Carla @ modern bias

Meli @ Munchkin Quilts

Stacey @ The Tilted Quilt

Julie @ The Crafty Quilter

July 5

Erin @ Sew at Home Mummy

Lyanna @ BlueStripedRoom

Heather @ Quilts in the Queue

July 19

Katie @ Swim Bike Quilt

Sarah @ {no} hats in the house

Katie @ Snuggle Up with a Dish from Karma

Chemistry Camp for the Blind

Boy howdy! are you in for a treat today!


As my regular readers know, I teach blind and visually impaired students in public school. I have taught for 26 years and cannot see myself working in any other field. The majority of my students are charming, each in their own way.

Near to us is a summer camp for the blind & visually impaired. It is Enchanted Hills. It rocks! To me, it is straight out of Parent Trap, the original. It has cabins where the upper part of the four walls is screen.

Fishing at Enchanted Hills Camp

Enchanted Hills has everything a regular summer camp has: swimming, horseback riding, boating, campfire hootenannies at night, crafts, etc.

One summer I served as a counselor assistant for one session with 5-6 year olds. It was tough! It was also an awesome experience.

I could go on for quite awhile, but for right now I want to get to the highlight of this post. During the summer, Enchanted Hills also has specialty sessions. The one I want to spotlight is Chemistry Camp. The video says it all and it’s a ultra-groovy video. And, by the way, the boy who produced, filmed, and edited the video, Jimmy Cong, was a student of mine. I worked with him from preschool until he was in fourth grade. He just graduated high school last year. He is blind with enough residual vision to pursue his dream of being a videographer.

Jimmy Cong at Chemistry Camp when he was young

Enjoy!

Hands2Help & Pinks Progress

Me, at 15, enjoying summer!

It’s the first week of “summer” for me. School is out and I’m looking forward to spending most of that summer in my quilting room!

Me, in my pj's in my favorite place: Home

I admit I’m a “homebody”, a lovely person who can't get enough of being home, someone who enjoys the warmth and simple pleasures of being home, someone who hides out in her house, quilting, as much as possible. 

This first week’s project is to finish my quilt for Hands2Help. I’m donating my quilt to Hugs for Chemo. I chose it because my Mom had chemo and I know how much a quilt would have meant to her.

My Sisty Ugler with friend in Honduras

It’s fun that this quilt is going to be a collaboration between her two daughters. When my sister, Sisty Ugler, decided to give up on quilting *gasp*, she gave me her stash! I didn’t have to wait for her to pass on to inherit it! The best of both worlds: I got her fabric and I have her!

I found this cool set of blocks for a quilt.

It is going to be such a cheery and colorful quilt. I love how funky it is—I never use these kinds of fabrics. But I love them.

What’s left to do is sash them, sew the top and quilt. In 6 days. I CAN DO IT—because I’m on VACATION!

The only other thing to accomplish this week is finish one block and make another for my blog hop post this Saturday. Look at the top of the right sidebar for the badge “For Pinks Sake”. Then look for me on Saturday!

Tally ho! I’m just can’t stop being giddy with summer-ness!

I’m hooking up with the following blogs. Hop on by to check out lots of lovely quilts! Their badges are in the right sidebar.
So Scrappy RSC Saturday
Patchwork Times
Show & Tell Tuesday
Fabric Story
Linky Tuesday
WIP Wednesday
We Did It Wednesday
I Quilt
Fabric Frenzy