Safe Journey Star of the Sea

Captain Bob, First Mate wife Ellen and the crew of Zach and Javier left yesterday for their journey to the Bahamas and Ile a Vache, Haiti.  They will be delivering food, medical supplies and all of the beautiful dresses and shorts that Sewing Hands made this past year.

Please keep them in your prayers.  I'll post pictures and updates as soon as we know more.  You can also follow their trip on their blog: http://schoonerstarofthesea.blogspot.com/

Happy Sailing Brother - Be Safe,

Sharon

Mountain Stitches

If any of you live in the area of Knoxville or are vacationing in East Tennessee you must go by Mountain Stitches.  This is a fantastic quilt shop in the Gatlinburg arts & crafts loop.  Susan Dudley is the owner and besides being an extremely talented quilter and a lovely lady, she has been a great supporter of Sewing Hands.

This past week Susan donated 43 1/2 yards of fabric that we are going to be able to use for quilts, backing and strips for our blocks.   

Susan's shop has a great variety of civil war, reproduction and contemporary fabrics.  She has fat quarter bundles made up so all you need to do is pick a pattern, pair it with a bundle and get sewing!  There are beautiful quilts adorning the walls that are not only great for inspiration but are also for sale.

From the bottom of our hearts - Thank you Susan !!!!

Trip to Laurel Elementary

On Monday, May 7th, Deborah and Sharon traveled to Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee.  It was a gorgeous three hour drive through the lush mountains.  We actually had to venture into Virginia and then backtrack to the little mountain town of Laurel Bloomery. 

 The assembly started at 1pm.  All of the students were ushered into the cafeteria/gym.  They remembered Sharon from her visit in March...."Oh, you're the lady that is making our quilts!".  The principal, Betty Brown, introduced us and presented us with our own "shining star" volunteer trophy.  (The school's motto is the shining star panthers).

The current sixth graders were graduating this week and heading off to middle school in the Fall.  They were not expecting to receive a quilt.  Boy, were they surprised!

We will returning to the school in the beginning of October to present the fleece blankets and quilts to the remaining students.  They are most appreciative - this is a great project !

First Scrappy Quilt Top Done !

THANK YOU LOIS !!!  The first scrappy quilt top for Laurel Elementary is done.  As you can all see we added more than 7 solid blocks (as previously said in the instructions).  We found that it was too busy and hard on the eyes so we used 12 solid blocks to break up the strips.  Also all of the strips are going in the same directions.  Doesn't it look great?

One more request - when you are sewing the solid fabric onto the muslin backing square please use less than 1/4 inch seam.  That way when the top is put together we will be able to hide your seam in the standard 1/4 inch.

5 Fleece Blankets

Pam Drummer, one of our Sewers from Tennessee, completed five (!) fleece blankets.  They are all beautiful.....Thank You Pam.

14 Quilts for Sixth Graders

I visited Laurel Bloomery Elementary School in March and met the fantastic principal, Betty Brown and the wonderful teachers and students.  Betty had me go to each class and tell the students about our project for them.  They were excited to say the least.

Unfortunately we did not realize it at the time but the 6th graders would be going on to Middle School and would not be at Laurel Bloomery in the Fall when we are planning on delivering the quilts.  They were very disappointed.  When Betty mentioned this I told her we would just have to crank up the sewing machines and get those quilts to them by the end of this school year!

So, Deborah (mom) and I are scheduled to deliver 14 quilts for the graduating sixth graders at Laurel Bloomery on May 7th. (Yes, Mom is flying up to Tennessee to be a part of this!) Betty is putting together a school assembly in the gym and we will be handing them out in front of everyone!

I will put up pictures when we return and I'm sure to have some great stories to relay.

Happy Sewing,
Sharon