Quilts for Ukrainian refugee children

Claudia Pfeil in Germany is leading a team of wonderful women making quilts for Ukrainian refugee children.

I became aware of this via her Instagram account, and I offered to collate blocks from New Zealand quilters and post them over to Germany.  

The charity quilts ready to be gifted.

Ukrainian children receiving their quilts in Germany

I've chosen to get involved because Claudia is a woman of action.  She isn't just calling for blocks, she's finished some quilts already and has already started distributing them to the Ukrainian refugee children in Germany. Here are some examples of the finished quilts that have been gifted already.

Some stats:

Claudia has already received 4,860 blocks - enough for 240 quilts.  

37 quilts have been finished, and most of them have been gifted already. 

Block size - 8.5" unfinished, for an 8" finished block in the quilt

Colours - blue and yellow

Pattern - any pattern you like

I started making some blocks on Sunday and these are the ones that I've finished already:

You can see that they don't have to be fancy.  Once the blocks are mixed up and put into quilts they will hopefully remind the children of happier times in Ukraine. 

If you're in New Zealand, and would like to make some blocks, I can send them to Germany with mine if you get them to me in Wellington by Friday 22 April.  Just send me an email when you're finished and I'll let you know my address.  email wendysquiltsandmore@gmail.com

Or, I could collect them from the following locations:

Botany Downs, Auckland on Sat 9 April. 

Queenstown Sat16 April

Stitch Witches Dunedin Sat 30 April

Capital Quilters, Waterloo School Hall Sat 30 April.  

The end of April is the absolute last day for collection. 

If you or your guild have a lot of blocks to send, please consider positing them to Claudia yourself.  I can give you her address if you need it. To avoid customs duty in Germany, please state "no commercial value", gift / donation and maximum value $1.  

I believe there are collection points in Australia and USA too.  Just google to see what's happening in your country.  

Thank you.  

My very first Prairie Schooler Santa

I know I said that I wouldn't join this band wagon, but the more that I looked at all the gorgeous displays of Prairie Schooler Santas, the more I started to weaken.  

Then a shop in New Zealand advertised the 2021 Santa pattern, and my fingers must have slipped because before I knew it, I'd purchased it.  

I haven't turned it into a FFO (finally finished object) yet, because I've fallen down another rabbit hole and need to source the right display basket first.  Yes, stitching the ornament is just a small part of this process.  I could turn it in to a tiny pillow, or mount it onto cardboard.  Both methods probably involve cord, bows, fake pine cones and holly.  That's is why I was reluctant to start! 

Take a look at Carol's finishing here. 

Don't worry - my ornament is not going to be lonely in the basket (when I find one).  I've ordered more Prairie Schooler patterns through Stitch Witches in Dunedin, and hopefully I'll have at least two or three finished ornaments in the basket by Christmas.   

I stitched my Santa on part of a fat quarter of Belfast 32 count linen  - colour Platinum - from the Ribbon Rose in Auckland.  

This is my March finish for #12in22ornamentstitchingalong with Carol from Stitching Dreams blog.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.

Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Bordered Diamonds

Bordered Diamonds is such a great pattern.  

The original pattern is in Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts by Kaffe Fassett, but that book is out of print now, so I've been using Midnight Diamonds from Quilts in Burano by Kaffe Fassett.  I think the patterns are the same, but I haven't got out my ruler to check.  

I've had fun mixing the fabrics and applying borders to the fussy cut blocks.  I especially like the big Cactus Flower block above, surrounded by the blue section of the Diamond Stripe.  The blue in the border highlights the blue in the flower. 

Although Bordered Diamonds can be a scrappy quilt, it's still important to balance the blocks and get a good flow throughout the quilt.  I like to use the same feature fabrics more than once, but change up the borders so there's no exact repeats.  

The Cactus Flower looks good in it's final placement.  

Oh! And in exciting news I see that the Shawl design is going to be re-released later this year. I love Shawl.  Here it is in the Bordered Diamonds quilt - the pink flower in the centre.

I'll show you full photos of the Bordered Diamonds quilt soon, but in the mean-time, here's one I made back in 2014.

I called it Bordered Peacocks because of the feature print that started it all.  You can read about it here. 

In fact that quilt is where I got the name for the Peacock Party from.  I've always loved the jewel tones in peacock feathers.

Well, now it is time for the Peacock Party.  Fee free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Pandemic Sampler at 90%

Yes! I'm 90% finished my Pandemic Sampler.  

There's only 2 more pages to go, and one of them is the page with the least number of stitches in the whole design, so it should be quite quick.  But then there's all the backstitching to do.  

I have to admit that finishing this one is hard work.  I'm itching to start other things, but if I don't finish this now, it could languish for years to come.  

It feels quite appropriate to be working on it now as the COVID pandemic has finally reached New Zealand in 2022.  Our closed borders and elimination strategy protected us from COVID in 2020 and 2021, but now Omicron is out in the community and there have been over 20,000 cases a day reported in March.  

Fortunately Omicron is milder than previous variants, and we only got our boosters in January due to our delayed vaccination rollout, so I'm not too worried.  But just as we see the rest of the world opening up, we're having to wear masks everywhere, use vaccine passes for hospitality and transport, and obey gathering limits of 100 vaccinated people.

So I'll finish my Pandemic sampler while NZ is still stuck in the red traffic light setting.  At least I'll have something nice to show for 2+ years of COVID restrictions.  

Thank you for all the kind comments on my video interview last week.  I'm glad you enjoyed it. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to share a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

My Fiberchats interview

Irina Shaar from Fiberchats asked me if she could interview me for her Fiberchats channel on YouTube.  I said "Yes", and here's the result.  

Irina mainly interviews knitting designers and people who hand dye knitting wool, but she's branching out and interviewing other fiber artists too now. 

I hope you enjoy my interview!

Here's the link incase the embedded link above doesn't work for you:

https://youtu.be/3btT93OW5pE

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter