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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 Our January retreat at Providence Point near Lanark was once again a big success. We always seem to come away with more knowledge and a sense of having accomplished either some UFO’s or gotten a new project started. I was asked to teach some of the ladies how to make three dimensional Christmas trees with fairy lights in them. The technique is the same as the jelly roll rugs I make. On the Saturday afternoon we had a massage therapist come in and give to those who wanted, a back massage. It fells so good that it makes you want to go and have a snooze afterwards. It is such a treat to have our meals prepared for us and they are always delicious. We do enjoy getting together at the retreats. It is something I and others look forward to twice a year. -- Joanna Vlaming Retreat Coordinator Click or tap a photo in the gallery to see it in full. We started out the new year 2020 with a fun meeting on January 22 attended by 60 guild members and 7 guests. Special thanks to our members in the Ohio Star group, led by Frank McCarron, for setting up the hall, providing the delicious snacks for break time, and assisting with the meeting. Well done! We enjoyed seeing many lovely Show-and-Tell quilts. Demo Night Our meeting featured 3 local quilt shop owners: Nancy of Sew Inspired in Arnprior, Kelly of Textile Traditions in Almonte, and Jan of The Pickle Dish in Carleton Place. They demonstrated some of their latest gadgets and techniques and provided interesting shopping opportunities.  Nancy of Sew Inspired  Nancy's rulers on display  Kelly of Textile Traditions  Kelly of Textile Traditions  Jan of The Pickle Dish  Jan and Winnie Thank you Jan, Kelly, and Nancy for coming to our meeting and sharing some fun techniques and tools with us. Blue Block Party Challenge What a great response to the Blue Block Party Challenge with about 45 beautiful and creative blocks contributed for upcoming Charity quilts. Thank you to all who took up this challenge to make a block from the blue and white fabrics provided by our Activities team. We look forward to seeing some stunning blue and white Charity quilts!   Premie Quilts Several of our guild members have been busy making premie quilts for the little babies in the neonatal unit at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. A sample of the quilts donated at the meeting are pictured below. The teal, red, and white premie feature the Aztec Star Block-of-the-Month (BOM). What a great way to incorporate the BOM block into a finished piece.
Draws Our meeting wrapped up with the draws and as always, some very happy winners.
Guess the number of pages in the book: Brenda G 50-50: Doria H took home $63 Name tag: Lisa C Gift Basket: Joyce T Door Prizes: Jane E, Katrina K, Penny C, Pam R, Georgene B, Dona L, Louise V, Susan W, Irene L, Sandra P, Cathy R 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     Once again our generous and talented guild members made Christmas themed items for local residents. Christmas stockings and holiday placements were donated to Arnprior Meals on Wheels that were delivered with the Christmas meal. Placemats featured Christmas themed fabric on one side and something interesting on the other side so they can be used year round.
 Christmas placemats, stockings and gift bags The festive gift bags were donated to the Arnprior and District Food Bank, to be filled with toiletries and other goodies and distributed with the Christmas food hampers.
Three beautiful Bethlehem Star block quilts made by our guild members were recently donated to the Safe Shelter for Youth program which is offered through Family and Children's Services of Renfrew County. The quilts will be distributed to local couch surfing homeless youths. Representatives of the Safe Shelter for Youth program were delighted to accept our donations which were made just before Christmas. For more information about the important work of this valuable program refer to their web site.  
    A Guild Sewing Machine President Frank unveiled a newly acquired sewing machine for the guild. It's a basic Pfaff model and will be much appreciated by the members doing the break time demonstrations at our meetings, who will longer have to haul in their own machines in addition to the supplies for their demos. It will also be very handy at our hands-on sewing meetings. Thank you Mary deVries for the suggestion, Vickie for acquiring it, and to Nancy (Sew Inspired).  Black & White Block Exchange After dinner the people participating in the Black and White Challenge distributed their blocks to the other people in their groups. The 43 participants in this challenge were divided into 4 groups, so each quilter made either 10 or 11 blocks to distribute among their group. 
 Entertainment Anne Cruickshank led another round of the annual game featuring Anne's story about fictitious quilter Jenny Right. The fat quarter and lovely thread prizes were passed to the right, left, and across the table at a whirlwind speed as we heard those 3 words in the story. At the end the happy winners were holding their prizes. Thanks Anne! And thank you Joyce for a funny story that rang true with many of us! Draws Our meeting wrapped up with the draws and as usual, some very happy winners! Guess the number of pages in the book: Betty R 50-50: Marion M Name tag: Joanne K Gift Basket: Marilyn E Door Prizes: Liz C, Vickie M, Barb D, Diane A, Joanna V, Barb H, Julie C, Mary D, Paulette M, Anne C, Georgene B, Jane E Merry Christmas! What a treat we had at our November meeting. Kudos to our Activities team who calmly dealt with a late cancelling ill speaker and enlisted Bruce Young to entertain us with his fascinating 30 year quilting journey and his amazing quilts.  Left, Bruce Young and our president Frank Some of the interesting information Bruce shared with us:
Bruce showed us more than 60 of his creations! A selection of Bruce's pieces that reflect the diversity of his work are pictured below.and You can see photos of all of Bruce's creations in his trunk show in this photo gallery.          Hooked rug More photos - You can enjoy photos of the other pieces that Bruce showed us in this photo gallery.  Taking a close up look at Bruce's work Charity The hard work of our members on our various charity projects was in evidence at this meeting from the holiday placemats for clients of Arnprior Meals on Wheels, the large stack of Christmas gift bags for the local food bank, and 20 premie quilts for the little babies in a neo-natal unit. Several of these premie quilts were Christmas themed.  Placemats and git bags  Christmas premie quilt  Christmas premie quilt  Christmas premie quilt Coffee Time Demo Members enjoyed Shirley Fedoruk's demonstration of how to make bags for baking potatoes in a microwave oven.   Draws
Our meeting wrapped up with our draws and as usual, some happy winners! Guess the number of pages in the library book: Joyce T 50-50 draw: Daria H won $51.50 Gift Basket: Barb D Name tag draw: Eleanor K Door Prizes: Julie C, Louise V, Margaret F, Penny C, Mary D, Tina M, Jane E At the retreat, November 3 - 7, which was attended by 17 ladies at Providence Point in Lanark, a good time was had by all. We played a game with 2 1/2” strips black and white which were won by Ann Poll and Mary DeVries. There were also door prizes won which were donated by Sew Inspired. It seems that each time we come together for a retreat someone always goes home with a new technique learned or a simpler way to make a block. It seems that we do all get many projects started or completed. We do all enjoy spending this time together. -- Joanna Vlaming, Retreat Coordinator    The game!  Ann and Mary - Winners of the game             Click or tap on a photo in the gallery to see it in full. |
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