Quilt Camp Day 5

Today was our final day of Quilt Camp. We accomplished all that we intended. There was only a little sewing left to be finished on the machines and then everyone spent the day tying their quilts. The kids helped each other to get it all done and then there was a pizza party for lunch. After lunch there were a few more ties to finish up and then everyone pitched in to get the room cleaned up and back in order. the kids helped carry all the supplies down stairs and back where they belong in the quilt group closet All the stuff the adults brought was down and ready to take out to the cars. We ended the day with cupcakes and a photo session and showed off the quilts for the moms when they came to pick up the kids.

The   photo  on the left is of all the kids with their own quilts.  For some reason, known only to the kids, some of them switched quilts for the second photo. They were all wound up in high spirits by the time we got ready to shoot the pics. The second photo has the adults in the back row. Betty is sitting on the end and Beth, me and Kim are standing on the left; Debbie is second from the right in the back row. Debbie  is a fairly new quilter herself. Missing from the group picture is Cathy who had another commitment today but whose help was invaluable the other 4 days.

Kim took these pictures and many more but I don't have them yet. My own photos are not very good so when I get some more of Kim's I will post them.  I think we had a good week. This was a big commitment time wise for the adults but I think we all felt is was worth the effort. My own thoughts are "where else could I have so much fun all week'.

Quilt Camp Day 3

Here we are on day three and we are pretty close to being on schedule. I think we finished half of the tops and are close to being done with the rest of them. This was the day that we needed to accomplish the most. Everyone in these photos was hard at work on the machines. One of the adult helpers is in the background on the left.

This was the end of the day after everyone had gone. We are fortunate to be able to leave everything as it is and lock the door and walk away, knowing it will be undisturbed until morning.  

This quilt top on the left was the first one to be finished. This was made by the only boy in the group. He was with us 2 years ago and he finished first then too

These next photos below show some of the completed tops.

Most of them are face down on the quilt backs and ready to be sewn around the edges. We will be layering the quilts and sewing around the edges and turning them. We will also tie them instead of quilting. Past experience has shown us that machine quilting and binding are too ambitious a project for our time constraints with new quilters, some who have never used a machine before.  

These last two quilt tops on the left are almost finished. There always issues with some of the machines and that puts some of the kids behind. Of course there is always some frog stitching and doing over that slows them down.

The adults step in and help with some of the ripping when it starts to become discouraging.

Quilt Camp 2010

Quilt Camp got off to a good start yesterday.  We have 12 young people from 6th grade through 12th this year, eleven girls and one boy, all of them really nice kids.   We have a nice big room with good light to work in and plenty of tables so we have a good workspace for everyone.

Because most of the kids have not had prior experience with rotary cutting all of the cutting is done at the cutting stations in the center of the room where there is an adult (adults) to supervise. The first picture here shows the cutting area and a few of the sewing areas. In the far background is my sample quilt that never got beyond the top. We had 2 sample tops finished and one complete quilt sample. That's enough for everyone to understand what the quilt is supposed to look like.  We applied for and received a grant from NEORQC which we used to purchase 2 new Janome basic sewing machines with no bells and whistles. Over the few years that we have been doing this we had acquired 6 used machines, some more reliable than others,  and all of us adult helpers brought our own machines for the kids to use.  The 2 new machines were a welcome addition. Only a small number of the kids have a machine they can bring. It is a big surprise for us quilters to realize that not every home has a sewing machine these days.

The other pictures show some of the kids and their quilts which they have started to lay out in preparation for putting the top together. They all chose their own fabric and I think they did a good job.

Quilt Camp

I finished my sample quilt top today it is 53 x 65 . As usual I was overly optimistic about what I would accomplish.  I'm not sure what anyone else got done because no one finished theirs on Tuesday. We had a lot of things to discuss and little sewing got done.

Quilt Camp

The last week in June we have Quilt Camp  at our church for the teens, actually for 6th grade through 24 years old. In other years we have had a couple of college girls that wanted to come so we raised the age limit. This is our 4th year and we have 11 girls, 6 of them returnees. We have 5 adults working with the girls and we are all returnees too. It is not really "camp" we are at the church from 10 AM until 3 PM Monday through Friday.

Tomorrow we are getting together to go over the lesson plan and we will all make a quilt top so we will all be on the same page with our instructions. I cut out my kit last week so I could be sure that the yardage and cutting instructions were correct. We are doing that much ahead of time so we can get the top done tomorrow.
I went ahead and made my strip sets and cut the blocks I wanted to make sure I had not done something creative with my arithmetic. Below are the blocks for 2 partial rows. The pattern is Warm Wishes. We like to keep it simple because most of the girls do not sew at home. I will post pictures tomorrow when we have our practice tops done. I am optimistic and believe we will get them done tomorrow.