Help for Sandy Survivors!

Help for Sandy Survivors! 

I am copying this post from Bonnie Hunter's blog Quiltville's Quips & Snips almost verbatim.  I have been so busy lately with the move and now with unpacking and Master's Studies that I have done very little blogging, but if you read this and you have an afternoon free to sew up a quilt, please do so.  If not, and you are in a Walmart, or Meijer, or Target, or where ever you shop and you can pick up a blanket, it will be used and appreciated.

A friend of mine lives in a neighborhood devastated by Sandy.  His neighborhood lost two young boys when a tree smashed the home in which they were sleeping.  There is great need.

 

Bonnie's Post...

This is an urgent post.

I’ve been emailing back and forth with Victoria Findlay Wolfe of bumblebeansinc.com over the past several days trying to line up something that we can do to help those left in the wake of Super- Storm Sandy’s destruction.

So many are still without power, having lost their homes or having experienced severe damage ---

So much is needed!

As quilters, what do we do best?  We Quilt!

Here is what V sent me to pass on to you:

 

Super Storm Sandy and my area of the world.

Having missed the entire storm, by being in Houston for Market, I felt helpless as my family were in NYC without me. I started to organize a quilt drive for our area while I was still in Houston.

 

Once home, I realized how seriously the storm affected my neighborhood, my friends, and fellow New Yorkers, CT, PA and NJ... Homes have been wiped off the face of the earth, people are cold, and wet, and we have rain and snow coming. I need to be able to help NOW.

 

I just had a call from Raul Russi, Head of the Acacia Network, whom I had previously partnered with on myBUMBLEBEANSBASICS.com Quilt Drive for homeless families being taken out of shelters and put into transitional housing.

 

He said, "We have 150-200 quilts here, right now. And since the rest of my families are INSIDE already, can we deliver these quilts in our medical trucks to the people in the Rockaways, NOW?"  I said, "YES! Let's go!" 

Once we have more quilts, we will continue to set up more distribution points around our area including Staten Island, Long Island, NJ, CT.

http://bumblebeansbasics.com/

QUILTS AND BLANKETS are needed ASAP.

Home-made or Store Bought QUILTS AND BLANKETS: ANY SIZE.

Quilts will be accepted, and handed out as quickly as they come in.

Give Selflessly.

Thank you cards will not be sent out due to the urgency of the events of SANDY.

REAL THANKS:

LABEL YOUR QUILTS, Name, address and email.

The person who receives your quilt may want to thank you themselves.

Send Quilts & Blankets to:
Basic Housing, Inc.
Attn: Robert Gonzalez / H.SANDY
540 East 180th Street, Bronx, NY 10457

PLEASE Include INSIDE THE BOX CLEARLY WRITTEN
your name, email & address & Phone

Please ship them with delivery confirmation.

Any questions, Please email:

Lane Falcon: lfalcon@acacianetwork.org

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!

Victoria Findlay Wolfe bumblebeansinc.com

Me Again...

While I have not done Bonnie's Trip Around the World quilt, I have done a few of her quilts and her instructions are well written and easy to follow.  I may just abandon my unpacking for a day this weekend and spend some time sewing... I've been wanting to do that for some time anyway, now I have a "Good" excuse.

Until Next Time,

Paul

Bonnie Hunter is in Town...

Those of you who have followed for a while know that I follow Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville.  If you've not visited her website, Quiltville, do so, she has dozens of free patterns, lots of advice and tutorials galore.  She is also a much more consistent blogger than I... I follow three blogs daily, and hers is one of them.  You can visit her Blog HERE.

I love her spunk, her smile, her quilts, and now that I've met her face to face, her laugh.  She is a contagious person, in a good way, a very good way.  I came home wanting to quilt.  of course, tonight I have some work to do that can not wait. I am sneaking on here to brag that I just saw Bonnie Hunter's presentation on her Scrap User's System.

I have envied Bonnie's organizational skills since I started reading her blog and now that I have seen it "in practice" I understand it much better and will begin using it very soon.

I am taking a class with Bonnie in 3 weeks, and I can't wait...

I would love to stay and write some more, but I must get some photos from this afternoon's shoot processed and up on my photography blog... If you're interested you can see them at www.PergerPhotography.com.

I do not carry my professional cameras and lenses with me everywhere I go, but I do carry a pocket camera with me almost everywhere I go.  Due to my shoot I walked in right before they got started which meant I was relegated to the back of the room, but here is proof (albeit a rather pitiful piece of photography) that I was at Bonnie's presentation tonight...

Miss Bonnie Hunter in Ohio...

Until Next Time,
Paul

Bonnie's New Mystery...

Bonnie Hunter is at it again, and for some reason, I can't resist.  Orca Bay, here I come!!

I don't know what it is about Bonnie at Quiltville that draws me so, but I must admit, she does.  I follow what she is doing, what she is working on, where she is teaching next, etc.

I sound like a stalker or something, don't I?!  Oh, well, So be it.  I'm not a stalker, but I AM a huge fan.

There are several reasons this might be true:

1. Bonnie's blog was the first quilting blog I ever read.  A Google search landed me on her blog somewhat randomly due to her "Scraps and Shirt Tails" book.  (I was searching for how to make a quilt out of old t-shirts.)
2. The first "Blogging Give Away" I ever won was a book from Bonnie's blog.
3. Bonnie's tutorials are extremely well written.
4. Bonnie writes from her heart.  She shares who she is.  Her blog is part of her business but it is also part of her life.  And she is not ashamed to share her life with the thousands of people who read her blog.

What is really ironic, is that my quilting style and Bonnie's quilting style really don't match.  I tend to be very anal about things like fabric choice, and colors matching exactly.  In my "Stars and Stripes" quilt, I had 19 different fabrics, I literally spent a month of lunch hours traveling to different shops until I found all of the fabrics that I wanted to use.

Bonnie's approach is quite different.  She is a scrappy quilter.  "Don't Worry about the print, if it's BLUE, it's BLUE, just USE IT!!" would be something you could find in one of her tutorials.  Someday I will have bins of scraps and I will be able to more easily embrace that sentiment.  Maybe.

Until then, I'll do her mystery quilts by purchasing fabric needed to do the quilt.  I was going to use old shirts this year, as I did last year, but I couldn't find enough black shirts at the Thrift Shop... So, I purchased a bunch of FQs and I am now ready to begin "catching up".  I'm already a week behind!

If you are doing Bonnie's Orca Bay, please leave a comment with a link to your photos or blog if you can.  I would love to see what you all are working on.

Give Away Notice...  Lily Pad Quilting is holding a giveaway of a Go! Baby... Click on the link below to go to Lily Pad Quilting and enter the giveaway...

Until Next Time,
Paul