Modern BOM Quilt for Charity

If you're a follower of either Sew, Mama, Sew or Alissa's blog, you're probably familiar with Alissa's Modern BOM that she did on SMS every month for a year.  The ECMQG wanted to use those beautiful, modern blocks to make a quilt that would be used to raise money for a local charity.

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!

June Meeting & Our First Combined Meeting/Sew Day

We had a great meeting last month.  Marcy talked about long arm quilting, and showed us some different techniques for it - like using a stencil with a chalk pounce pad, or using pantograph patterns.  She also brought in the book, Modern Quilting Designs by Bethany Pease which shows several free motion patterns you can use on a long arm.  Marcy also showed us just a few of the quilts she's quilted on her own long arm, to give us a feel for some of the quilting designs she's used.

Due to some technical difficulties, Marcy wasn't able to actually demo on the machine at the store, but offered to let us come to her house and use her personal long arm.  A few of us took her up on that last week!  We enjoyed her talking us through this process, and she answered a lot of questions we had about long arm quilting.  

Our June meeting was when we had our name tag challenge!  Everyone (except me) remembered to bring in their hand made name tags.  We'll have to get a group picture at our next meeting.

And as usual, we had a great time of Show and Tell...

We also passed out fabric for our Charity Quilt.  We're doing the Modern BOM that was featured on Sew, Mama, Sew, and created by Alissa Haight-Carlton.  Here's a look at what all the blocks look like:

(image taken from Sew, Mama, Sew!)

We'll be doing these blocks in colors that represent the beautiful Emerald Coast of Florida - teals, aquas, and of course, emerald green.  We're using a variety of Kona solids, plus a few prints from Lizzy House.  A couple of people have already finished their blocks, and all I can say is this is going to be one beautiful quilt!

Faye's "January" Block

Melissa's "November" Block

We did decide to give the money raised by this quilt to Children in Crisis of Fort Walton Beach.  Stay tuned for further information!

Our next meeting is coming up this Saturday, July 28 at First Baptist Church in Crestview at 10 am.  This is a change from our normal meeting time and location!  We're combining our meeting with a sew, so we'll be at the church until 6 pm.  A couple of things to remember - this meeting is our deadline for the QuiltCon Block Challenge.  If you want to submit a block for this with the guild, please bring it to the meeting.  NOTE - This is just the deadline if you want to send your block in with the rest of the guild.  You can still submit your block up until August 15, it just won't be with the guild.  Also, if you're planning on staying for the sew, remember to bring whatever you need for that - sewing machine, cutting tools, etc.

Hope to see you there!