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This Charity workshop evening on Wednesday November 23rd was a huge success, both in the camaraderie and the amount of work that was done by the 33 attendees. It was a very active and busy hands on meeting making Christmas gift bags and placemats, and preparing materials for these and other guild Charity projects. We enjoyed meeting and talking to people we hadn’t talked to before or for a long time, including our 2 brand new members, Lucy and Nadine who were attending their first meeting. Marilyn and her set up crew had many work stations clearly labeled and ready for us to quickly get started on various activities from cutting fabric for Christmas gift bags and placemats, sewing gift bags and placemats, attaching bindings to placemats, attaching the drawstrings to the gift bags, assembling kits to make fidget quilts, cutting batting for preemie and other Charity quilts, and ironing, ironing and more ironing in the kitchen!                 A number of completed Charity items were brought to the meeting.  Fidget quilt  Fidget quilt  Preemie quilts  Drawstring gift bags  Placemats Thanks to all who participated in this big work evening. And an extra thank you to those who took home works-in-progress to finish off for our Christmas donations. Show and Tell We took a break for Show and Tell. Photos here  New! Rulers in the Library Gwen introduced an initiative to add rulers to our Library collection - all donations are welcome. Workshop And Gwen also started registration for a tote bag workshop in May that she has kindly volunteered to organize. Details here.  Draws
The meeting wrapped up with draws and some happy winners! Guess the Number of Pages in the book - Lucy Gift Basket - Allison 50-50 Draw of $35 - Debbie Door Prizes $20 gift certificates from Textile Traditions - Vickie and Allison The program for our March guild Zoom meeting was very unique as we welcomed multiple guest presenters who represented several of the charities that our guild supports with donations of our crafts. This was an extraordinarily touching and very informative evening as we heard first hand stories of how our donations are valued by their recipients, and by the people who work or volunteer at the charities. Our guests included: Josee Laplante, RN, BScN, Clinical Manager of The Ottawa Hospital, Special Care Nursery recipients of many of our little preemie quilts  Nancy Peck of Arnprior-Braeside-McNab Seniors at Home, recipients of the placemats that we donate at Christmas time, which are delivered along with the Christmas meal to the Meals on Wheels clients  Pat Tait, volunteer team lead at the Arnprior & District Food Bank Inc. who fill and distribute the fabric drawstring bags that we donate.  Carole Beattie, Palliative Care Coordinator at the Arnprior and District Memorial Hospital, who have received several quilts from our guild for patients receiving palliative care.  Carole Beattie of ADMH Cathie McOrmond, Resource Development, at Lanark County Interval House and Community Support in Carleton Place who have been recipients of twin bed quilts Nancy Arbogast, Regional Representative in Ottawa for Quilts of Valour, Ottawa. Our guild members have donated quilts of comfort for injured Canadian Armed Forces members past and present. Gwen Pennings, Vice-President for the Pakenham group of Victoria’s Quilts who make and donate quilts to people living with cancer in Canada. Gwen is one of several of our guild members who are members of this Pakenham group. We were in awe of the huge impact that our donations can have, and resolved to increase our efforts to support these charities.
We are all very pleased to report that we, as a guild, are very generous and have donated a total of 110 draw string gift bags to the Catholic Women's League (CWL)/Arnprior and District Food Bank, and 51 placemats to the Senior Support Group for Meals on Wheels. The placemats feature Christmas or winter themed fabric on one side and are reversible for other times of the year, and were delivered with the Christmas meals. The fabric gift bags were filled with toiletries and other small items and included with the food delivery. Here are some pictures of the beautiful work we have accomplished. Well done everyone!!!!!  Placemat delivery by Vickie (R)  Some of the 59 placemats  Draw string gift bags For many, many years our guild members have generously donated little 24"x24" quilts to babies needing special care in the local (Ottawa) hospitals. This year, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our guild members dug into their fabric stashes and generously made and donated 146 of these little quilts for babies in the Rich Little Special Care Nursery at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, and the Special Care Nursery at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital. A big thank you to Marilyn E. for coordinating this project - collecting these little quilts, adding our label to the backs, and delivering them to the hospitals. Marilyn reports that the hospitals were very happy to receive them. Marilyn: "Isn't it lovely to make these quick tiny quilts, so use up your scraps and have fun making them."    On Tuesday, October 20, 2020, Jane delivered quilts made by our guild members to Arnprior Regional Health, the broader organization that encompasses the Arnprior & District Memorial Hospital, and The Grove Nursing Home in Arnprior. Michelle Johnston, Activities Director, and Carol Beatty, Palliative Coordinator, were very pleased to receive them from our guild. Michelle mentioned that 4 touch quilts will be kept at the hospital, and 4 quilts will be given to The Grove. Touch (or fidget) quilts provide comfort to their Alzheimer patients, and they can always use more of them. Carol said one of the lap quilts will be given to a current palliative patient, and the second one will be kept on hand for the next patient. Jane confirmed with her that the palliative quilts are a gift of comfort and warmth to the patient and to their family afterwards. Jane: "They were so pleased and thanked me several times.... so consider the thanks passed on."  In the spring of 2021, Jane delivered, on our Guild's behalf, one palliative quilt to the Arnprior Hospital, and two fidget quilts. Here are pictures of Josh, the charge nurse, accepting our donations.  Palliative quilt  Touch quilts   Thanks to all of our guild members who have generously donated their time and material to these important charitable initiatives.
Throughout this year our guild members have been making colourful placemats for the brand new Grove Nursing Home in Arnprior which is expected to open in late summer of 2021. We have received 97 lovely placemats for the dining rooms in The Grove, just over our goal of 96. Many thanks to our guild members who are contributing to this gift for the residents.    For a number of years our guild has donated quilted placemats and fabric gift bags to local charities for Christmas, and this year despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this tradition continued. Placemats feature seasonal holiday fabric on one side, and something interesting on the other so they can be used all year round. We donated 46 placemats for Arnprior Area' Meals on Wheels, which Jane (pictured below at left) delivered to the Arnprior-Braeside-McNab Seniors at Home Program.    Our guild members of West Ottawa Community made 18 placemats, and they were donated to the Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre for their local meals on wheels.   Our guild members also contributed 100 fabric string bags! The ladies filling the bags at the Roman Catholic Church Parish Hall in Arnprior were very happy to receive them! They had all the supplies lying on the tables waiting to fill them. Once these bags were filled they were donated to the Arnprior and District Food Bank . 
Thanks for all the charity sewing and the spirit of giving! This helps make a few more lives enriched in our communities.
One of the joys of handling Communications for our quilt guild is that I monitor the guild email account. I never know what I’m going to find there and I was very pleasantly surprised one day in the fall of 2016 to receive this message. Let me first thank you for your work on premie quilts for the Civic Hospital. I have seen a few as I am a foster parent whose babes have come home with them. Often foster children receive so little at birth and for me this is seen as a treasured gift. I’ve had a little guy since birth who adores his little quilt. He is almost three and we are in the process of fully adopting him. His quilt is really worn (he has chewed the corners) and we would love to replace it. He is medically fragile and the quilt you ladies made has brought him such comfort. I am wondering if there is a way to purchase a second one as close to the first one as possible. -- Gwen
We quickly determined that the mother of Brigid, our president at that time, had made this premie quilt. In the true giving spirit of quilters, Brigid’s mother, who lives in Cornwall and is not a member of our guild, was helping us out. Unfortunately she did not have any more of the cute blue spaceship print fabric, and there was no more in the Cornwall shop where she had purchased the fabric. So after an unsuccessful online search for this fabric, we set out in search of a suitable replacement space-themed blue fabric, and some orange flannel. We soon had this new little quilt for Kory.
Fast forward to November 2019 when I was surprised to receive a new message from Gwen with the news that quilt number 2 was wearing out, and that in his medically fragile state, the little quilt was still bringing Kory great comfort.  Bigger Kory with premie quilt #2  We enthusiastically offered to make Kory a bigger quilt, and yes it would have orange flannel backing. Brigid volunteered to make the new quilt, and on learning that Kory likes green, and trucks and trains, she very quickly pieced together the quilt top at our guild's January retreat using fabric from her extensive stash. On returning home Brigid quilted it on her longarm and then passed it to me to attach the binding and label. We soon had a new, much bigger quilt for Kory.  I still had some of the spaceship fabric we used in quilt number 2 so I incorporated that into the label which is affixed to the orange flannel back.  I was delighted to deliver the quilt to Kory and to finally meet him and his loving family. Gwen had kept my visit and the quilt a secret from Kory. He was surprised, very happy, and very grateful for his new “big boy” quilt.  Kory showed me his little quilt #2 which was indeed well loved, and fraying at the edges.  And our latest note from Gwen? We are so grateful you got to meet Kory. He carries the quilt in a ball from room to room. A friend of mine came to the door later that night and he insisted he had the best surprise to show her :) He took photos and facetimed his older sister so she can see too. He is so proud of it. Thank you. -- Gwen Kory, you've touched our hearts and we hope you will enjoy quilt #3 as much as the first two.
Thank you Gwen for inviting us to provide continued comfort to Kory as he so cheerfully faces his medical challenges. -- Janet Brownlee, Communications, Arnprior & District Quilters' Guild Our fourth Charity Sew Day was Saturday February 15 at Island View Retirement Residence in Arnprior. We had lots of visits from residents, including Jude and Elizabeth, former quilters, who visited and then returned to donate some of their cherished materials for our charity projects. We made three additional tactile quilts which will be donated to local people challenged by Alzheimers, and sandwiched two star quilts. -- Vickie MacNabb  Latest tactile quilts    Donations from Island View residents We had so much fun sewing in the beautiful bright recreation room at Island View Retirement Residence on Saturday, January 11th. We were a total of 5 volunteers and we accomplished so much. We completed the sashing on one quilt, made 4 touch quilts, labled an Island View's resident's special quilt, and cut over 40 blocks for the background of the new charity block. We had lots of residence visitors... and they teased us and said we were loud with lots of laughter!!!! Delicious coffee, tea, cookies and muffins were supplies by Island View. Thank you for your welcoming hospitality. -- Vickie MacNabb, Vice President and Charity     |
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