In Which I Announce My Seasonal Charity

Over the past few months, I have spent some time photographing things and putting them into my shop; I'm still adding things a few at a time, as opportunity allows, but there's a nice selection in there to get started. I'll be taking some small items to the Underground Gallery in Collinsville on Sunday to try my luck there as well.

For all sales that I make through my online shop before the new year, I will donate 15% of the sale price to Days for Girls, a group that is doing critically important work to serve the needs of girls and women around the world. Apparently there is a team already in Connecticut that works on sewing and assembling the kits; I have an email out to the local contact and I'm hoping to meet up with some other people to work in a group. Even if I don't hear back, I'll dedicate some time over the next few months to sew a few kits myself. Here's a brief (heartbreaking) statement from the Days for Girls website:

Days for Girls was founded in 2008, when Executive Director Celeste Mergens prepared to travel back to Kenya to continue working with orphanages and communities in the wake of great political and economic upset. One night she awoke with a burning question: “Have you asked what the girls are doing for feminine hygiene?” When she asked the assistant director of the orphanage she was workingwith,  the answer was shocking: “Nothing. They wait in their rooms.” 
The conditions were cramped, unsanitary, and would leave girls without food and water for days unless someone brought it to them. Furthermore, sanitary products were available, but only if girls were willing to suffer sexual exploitation in exchange. This moment was the beginning of awareness to the vulnerability millions of women and girls face throughout the world every month, simply due to this basic biological function. These women and girls suffer in silence, due to cultural ideas and taboos surrounding this issue. Because of this, girls and women can feel that they are tainted, or fundamentally flawed or less in some way. Washable, quality hygiene kits and accompanying education changes all that.  Join us.

We take so much for granted, n'est-ce pas?

Donation Day

I just shared half a dozen quilt tops (maybe eight? I already forget), along with a huge box overflowing with yardage, with Quilts2Heal. Here's hoping they end up finished nicely and in the homes of people who need them.

Happiness Is a Warm Quilt

The Beatles top that I'm making for the New Britain Symphony Orchestra is finished!

These fabrics are terrifically fun to work with. I have so many memories of listening to the Fab Four while I was growing up. My mother had all of their albums from before the Greater-Than-Jesus controversy (at which point she was no longer allowed to buy them), but my father had the later (better) ones, so that meant that I had them all! I have a pretty clear (and somewhat alarming) memory of a day in second grade when my "boyfriend" at the time sent me a ghost-shaped construction paper note that said "Boo! I hate you." I went home from school in tears and sat under the dining room table playing "I Need You" about a zillion times on my clunky little cassette player. Gather 'round and listen attentively, Children, for I shall tell you a story about the Times Before: This tragedy befell me in the days before CDs, so I had no Repeat function to ease the process of my grieving. Lo, I had to use what was called a "Rewind button" to make this song play in countless repetition; I played it so many times that I knew exactly where to stop the rewind process via a number counter, which looked thus:

Countdown to musical solace

If you're still reading at this point, you shall now be privy to a preview of the back of this quilt. I used Elizabeth Hartman's idea of freezer-paper stencils to paint the Help album logo on four half-yard solids. After these cure all day, I'll set the paint and sew them together with big black borders on the top and bottom to make the quilt back. I have an all-day editing session tomorrow, then I'll baste it up in the afternoon and get it quilted in the nick of time for the auction.

Remember, if you're salivating over this Fab Four in Fabric creation, it can be yours at the New Britain Symphony Orchestra's auction on October 12!

Magical Mystery Quilt

Lots of progress on the Beatles quilt for the New Britain Symphony Orchestra today. I got all of the pieces sewn and ready to assemble. Here's a partial layout (showing only two of six rows). The finished quilt will be 64.5 x 76.5". I was thinking I'd add a border, but that's a pretty healthy lap size snuggle quilt, so it may end up borderless.

Quilting for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!

A friend of mine asked if I would donate a quilt for the New Britain Symphony's annual fundraiser. Yes - I shall be a patron of the arts! (And, since the boys are learning about classical composers this year, maybe we'll actually get to some of their performances...) I still have a nice little stack of Beatles fabrics, so in honor of the string quartet's Beatles/pop performance this spring, I'm making a Fab Four Slide Show quilt. Here's a peek at my wall as this starts to go together...

In other artistic news, today I submitted my moebius strip for consideration in the New Britain Museum of American Art's all-member juried exhibition. I promise to keep you posted when I hear if I made the cut!