It has become a tradition that the president of Quilters of SC issues a challenge to the membership. We have done Artful Bras which supported breast cancer – specifically a charity that helped provide woman who had undergone a mastectomy with the ability to get a prosthetic device. We have done heart themed quilst to support women’s heart health and menopause quilts to support ovarian cancer. For my first term we adopted the four hospitals in the state that belong to the Children’s Miracle Network and I challenged the membership to make quilts for critically ill children across our state. We called it Covering SC Kids. It was a big success and we delivered over 600 quilts! Here is a picture of the quilts that we delivered to MUSC in Charleston, SC last fall.
I am serving a second term and for this one I selected the Quilts of Valor organization. Quilts are made and given to servicemen and women to honor their service to our country. They may be active and/or wounded service people or veterans. I announced the challenge at our Spring Meeting in Hilton Head and we had a wonderful, serendipitous opportunity occur. One of my board members had made a QOV to show at the meeting and kick off the challenge. There was a group meeting at the same hotel that bring in some servicemen and their families and give them a nice weekend on the island. We were able to present the quilt to one of the men. We also had some children’s quilts turned in so we gave the children quilts too. There was not a dry eye in the room.
Here are three Quilts of Valor that I just finished longarm quilting. The first two were pieced by Frances and I quilted them. The last one was a joint effort by Nancy B and myself. Nancy had done the strippy piecing and then decided this was a project she no longer had an interest in. She gave them to me….I shopped for the perfect setting fabric….and we are both very happy that an abandoned/orphaned project is now going to someone special.
While many QOVs have a patriotic theme, not all service people want that. The bright coral and brown quilt will really brighten the day of one of our service woman. In fact I have a very special gal in mind – a former student of mine who is serving in Afghanistan and has f0ur months left in her deployment. She left a very young daughter in the care of her capable and loving husband to serve and protect our freedom.
