The Rest of the Stories...

Remember this post about the quilts I made for children in Turkey - victims of an earthquake sleeping in tents in winter conditions?

Well, I received this beautiful handmade brooch in the mail a few days ago from Rengin, the lady to whom I sent the quilts. It consists of oyas, a traditional needlelace of Turkey. I was expecting nothing in return for those quilts, but this was a pleasant surprise, absolutely gorgeous, and will definitely be treasured by me. (I've got it in a box with the stamp from the envelope, the card that came with it and an explanation of how I came to be in possession of such a lovely item. In case anything happens to me then my kids will know.)  In case you are interested in oyas Rengin sells them in her etsy shop.

And remember this post where I was wondering what the winner of my AAQ quilt was going to do with it? I had a surprising phone call yesterday from Judy K who is now in possession of said quilt. She found me on 411.com and wanted to know if I had anything on the quilt that began with "q", told me she was 70 and a quilter and was not going to use my quilt as a dust rag - she had it hanging on her sewing room wall. How fun is that? I'm about ready to email her to see if she belongs to any online groups, if she has a blog and that I thought somewhere on the quilt there was a little porcupine with quills.

My Teeny, Tiny "I Spy" Wasn't an AAQ Winner, But it Has a Couple of Bids!

My Alliance for American Quilts entry that I made in Feb (see Feb post) is finally up for bid on Ebay. My greatest fear was that no one would even make one bid on it. I need fear no more. AAQ will benefit from my efforts!

This is about the teeniest, tiniest "I Spy" quilt around! Wonder what the winner will be doing with it!

I Spy an Alliance

I finally got up the nerve to finish a little 16x16 quilt for entry into the Alliance for American Quilts contest. I don't have any illusions of winning anything but I can dream. This is the first contest involving quilting I have ever entered.

This is the entire 16x16 quilt. I fussy cut scraps into 1 and 1.5 inch pieces and almost went cross-eyed. My vision is not the best to begin with. I must admit it was a lot of fun looking for different items to include.

Here's a close up of part of the quilt and some of the little pics. I'm really not a designer of any sort so I had a hard time figuring out what to do to make it turn out the correct size including binding, but I did manage.

And here's another closeup of a different section of the quilt. With the entry I had to include an "artist's statement". Mine follows:

A, B, C,

One, Two, Three,

Red, Blue, Yellow,

I spy a bee.

Do you?

My grandkids and I belong to a "Snuggle, Cuddle, Play and Learn with Quilts Alliance". I have made ABC, I Spy, Tell a Story, Match, Paperdoll, Racetrack and holiday quilts for my grandkids and other children. I had fun digging through my scrap basket looking for teeny-tiny objects to assemble into this quilt.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the theme is alliances?