Snowball I Spies

Remember a little while ago I put up a pic of 80 snowball blocks? Half of them are now in a quilt! Its come up so nicely! And its label says "made by Cathy and the ladies of quiltwithchristnzau. Thanks so much to all the makers.
The other quilt will be made after my 3 weeks holiday - cant wait to get away in our van!

More lovely fabric

Today the mail brought a 3kg bag jam-packed with lovely big pieces of fabric for our quilts. They came from the stash of Anjii, who started Quilting Down Under yahoo group. She was a lovely person who died quite suddenly a few months ago. Her friend Rosemary sent me some of her fabric for our orphanage quilts, So thank you so much to Rosemary and to Anjii.

Cobblestones

This quilt was suggested by Jackie and made by Cathy. I really like how it turned out - the dark blue is a great contrast to the various flower fabrics!

Inspiration by Ricky Tims

I had my Ricky Tims Convergence Quilts book out the other day, to make a wall hanging. Jackie experimented with the Harmonic Convergence using some ugly-ish fabrics, and it turned out so well we thought this would be a great centre for an orphanage quilt. So I found some pretty fabrics and had a go. A few borders and some charm squares later, and here is the finished product. I think I'll do this again - It was fun!

New photos!

A few days ago I received photos of the latest quilts we sent being given out. Its such a joy to be able to bless these children!

Quilts arrived in Zimbabwe

We actually heard several weeks ago that our latest quilts had arrived :)) . So it was worth sending airmail this time - they arrived when it was still really cold. I was hoping to receive some photos of the kids with their new quilts, so held off letting you all know, but that hasnt happened. I know the director is even more busy thatn usual, with organizational changes that are happening.
So thank you very much, those who contributed to postage or fabric!!

and here are the quilts we finished on thursday

A boy one from me, and a girl one using up lots of nine patches from Jackie

Photos of the donated fabric

I did something wrong there - no photos. Trying again . . .

Two great parcels in the post

Lately we have received two great parcels of fabric donated by friends. The first was from Helen, an online friend who is downsizing her house and her stash - she sent a heap of bright pretty things to be used for our girly quilts. So many, I am just itching to get into them!

Then very unexpectedly a big red parcel bag came from Joan. This one also contained some bright pretty fabrics, lots of them suitable for quilts for little boys. So both our target groups have some lovely new fabrics, and soon quilts on the way. Thank you so much to Helen and Joan, you will make some Zimbabwean children very happy!

Speeding Along!

This quilt was just finished today - I've been part of a block swap with an online group. Over the last 6 months, we send 2 centre squares out to two swappers, who use their own fabric choices to make the blocks. This one is called the Pennsylvania block. So I got 12 from this swapping process, and made three more myslelf. And today its finished !

Pink, White and Green

More donated blocks have had their quilt finished today - pink and white and green ones given to me by Jo. Thanks so much, Jo!

I love making things like this that are girly and pretty, its not my usual style, so its fun to do once in a while

A quilt from donated blocks

A few weeks ago I was given 12" blocks from a block swap, by Lorraine. It was a quick job to add sashing and a border, and today I quilted and bound it. There's a girl just waiting for this pretty quilt, I know! Thanks so much Lorraine!

A great use of scraps

I had some 4 1/2" cat squares left over from the 2 cat quilts I made, so I went delving in the scrap box for longer scraps, and came up with this irregular log cabin. The border is the only part thats not scraps - a very economical quilt!

surprise post!

I received a lovely surprise in the mail today - Lorraine from one of my swap groups sent me her set of Antique tile blocks ! They'll make a very pretty quilt - thanks so much Lorraine!

And one is finished already for the next shipment

Another scrappy quilt, using leftovers for the nine patches.

The final quilt going into this posting

This makes the 15th quilt going into this posting. It was a three person effort! I guess you would call it an irregular chinese coins? Anyway, it makes great use of scraps, and there's a lot for the recipient to look at. We love the purple sashing and borders - such a great contrast that we'll have to try to buy more of this fabric!

Packing the quilts!

We'll be posting the next 15 quilts on Friday. Thanks so much to those who contributed to the postage - we appreciate it, and so do the children.

New cat quilt

Here's the other quilt made from Joans great cat fabric. Just two more quilts to finish quilting and binding and we can post next week via airmail! Thanks so much to those who contributed postage

change to chipin

Wonderful news! Someone just donated the amount we need to post the quilts economy!

After some thought I decided to change the target and try for airmail postage. We dont usually do this, since it costs double, but at this time of year it would mean the quilts get there while the weather is still cool and the quilts would be needed. Winters are really cold there, and economy takes 5months.

So thank you to our contributors so far, and for anyone else, we would still really appreciate postage money

Time to post the next shipment of quilts!

We will shortly have finished the next 15 quilts, and now need funds to post them. Each quilt costs approximately $15 to send economy, so if you are able to help in any way you can do this via paypal, using the chipin in the post below.

Two quilts finished today!

Jackie and I both finished a quilt today. The solar system panel was given to Jackie by her grandson James, to make a quilt for a boy, and the cat fabric I used was sent by my friend Joan. I had some the same, so I've actually been able to make two similar quilts (the other one will be finished soon) and still have a few cats left over!

Thanks to James and Joan for these

Noah's Ark

Here's another boy one in the centre medallion style, with a cushion panel for the centre. Bright colours made a big difference here!

And a boy quilt!

Jo gave me the "creature in a bottle" blocks for this, so I made the blocks bigger with bright fabrics, and added the sashing and the very appropriate border. Thanks so much Jo, I would never have made these

Some little boy will be thrilled!

Pretty pink and green

A charm pack and border, augmented from our stash, has made this quilt very pretty. Diagonal squares again - it works well!

Pink Stars!

I tried a new pattern for the latest girly quilt. Cecile Whatman of Unique Stitching posted it on her blog, and i thought it would make a great quilt for a girl in the orphanage. I was really pleased to find the beautiful purple fossil fern for the border in my stash!

Quilts have arrived!

Yay! the latest quilts have arrived in Zimbabwe! Only three boxes, not four unfortunately . . . maybe the other will still turn up . . This is the first time this has happened, so its not too bad a record.

Hopefully we will get some photos when they are given out next week!

Iddybiddy Designs

I just received a great parcel of fabric from Wendy at Iddybiddy Designs - my order plus some extras! This is by far my favourite aussie online patchwork store! Great prices, very efficient and helpful, and always some extras included, especially if Wendy knows you make charity quilts.

Thanks Wendy!

Jackie has had several quilts in progress for a while, then we had a break over the holidays. So here's one of hers all finished. As you can see, its squares but in a different layout.

I also finished the other of the antique block swap quilts today. Very similar to the first one, but with different coloured sashing and of course blocks by different quilters. Thanks SCQATC!

Audrey has just finished another Squares quilt, using the lovely orange batik Joan sent. I love these fabrics - so bright and happy!

And here is the latest quilt I made. I'm in an online quilters group, and last year we had a block swap where we sent a centre square to other people, and they made a 12" block with it. I ended up with 17 swap blocks, so made another 13 myself and I'll get two lovely bright orphanage quilts from them. The first one is finished:

Here's a picture of the first block in an online BOM I am doing for an orphanage quilt. Its really cute and fun to sew - I'm going to make another as well in different colours

Fun BOM

I found a new fun BOM on the net this week, so I'm going to make it for one of the children. Simple stitchery and easy blocks. Found a perfect border fabric in our Zim stash, so I pulled out a bunch of FQs in matching colours.

You can have a look at it here: Little birdie
http://www.littlemissshabby.com/2010/12/birdie-stitches-bom-flickr-group/

We are back at work in 2011!

Audrey made this lovely bright quilt, using diagonal squares, one of our favorite patterns. We have a whole box of 6 1/2" squares precut, so to make this pattern we just pick a border, then sort out squares to match, and add to them from the stash. It makes the cutting quite quick.