We decided on the charity, Children in Crisis, which is a local charity, based out of Fort Walton Beach. They are a foster care facility for children from four counties here in Northwest Florida, and they strive to keep siblings together. CIC's mission statement is:
“Providing Homes and Establishing Hope” for the abused, neglected and abandoned children of Northwest Florida. The Children’s Neighborhood provides an emergency shelter for young children, and the family foster homes help with the severe shortage of foster homes in our community. Together, we can make a difference in the life of a child.CIC has a "Children's Neighborhood," which has an emergency shelter, foster homes, a playground, a recreation center, and administration center, and teen transitional housing.
Once we decided on which charity to raise money for, we just need to figure out what kind of quilt to make. Since we are a Modern quilt guild, we decided that Alissa's Modern BOMs would be a perfect way to reflect our aesthetic, and we took it a step further, and selected colors that represent the beautiful Emerald Coast of Northwest Florida. We used some prints from Lizzy House, Michael Miller, and Valori Wells. The solids are all Kona solids from a Poseidon FQ Bundle, along with Kona Bone for the background of each block.
The fabrics were cut and divided up into bundles, and at our June meeting, twelve of us signed up for a block to make.
All of the blocks were finished and returned by our August meeting, where we played around with the layout of the blocks.
Melanie, one of our members, volunteered to piece the top together, and we decided to put a sashing between the blocks, to make the quilt a little bit bigger. She used Kona Putty for the sashing, which ended up being a nice subtle way to make the blocks stand out.
As far as the quilting goes, one of our members (Marcy) has a longarm. We originally thought a fun way to quilt it would be for everyone who made a block to quilt their block on Marcy's longarm. So we had our September meeting at Marcy's house, and when it came time to quilt it, we all decided that it would be best if just one person quilted it. Most of us don't have longarm experience, so we were nervous about messing up! Marcy was fine quilting it herself, and she does beautiful work, so we were confident in her abilities.
Kathleen, another one of our members, volunteered to put the binding on, which we were all grateful for!
So here's the finished product. To say that Marcy did a good job on the quilting is an understatement! It's hard to capture it in pictures, because each block is different, but you can really tell she had fun quilting this, and she really let the blocks speak to her.
Here's some more pictures of this beautiful quilt:
So this is where the fundraising part comes in. Go to our First Giving page and make a donation. This fundraiser will be open until the end of November, at that time, one person who made a donation will be selected to receive this quilt! Our goal is $500, so help us get there!
