CandiceS

My grandparents are the best. I started going down and staying with them every summer and a lot of Christmas's once I became a teenager. I still remember the look on my Grandpa's face as I would pull rollerblades out of my suitcase, and then pull all the bottles of nail polish out of the rollerblades. They love to travel, and often make cross country trips to see family on the East Coast. So I wanted to make them a light weight lap quilt to keep in the car for their trips. I found this Carpenter Star pattern off of Pinterest and decided that would be the one! I didn't want the quilt too large, and taking up too much space in their car, and I did a very lightweight batting, as I didn't want it too heavy either. Over Thanksgiving 2015 my Grandpa became very ill and was hospitalized for several weeks. It was so hard to not be able to be there to help Grandma and see Grandpa. But then my Grandma told me that she had the quilt with her to help keep the chill off of her as she stayed in the room with Grandpa, and that made the distance not as bad. It was so fulfilling to hear that she had something I had made with such love as she dealt with everything, it made me feel as if a small piece of me was there helping support them at least. Now Grandpa is doing better at home, and hopefully the quilt is back in the car awaiting their next trip.

My son had the same soccer coach for the rec league 3 times, so I put together a quick thank you quilt for her. I did jeans on the backside so it could handle being out on the grass. The front has soccer balls of course, and red and white colors, which is the town's school colors. The W almost took longer to do then the rest of the quilt combined! I finished the quilt with just some simple hand tying with red yarn.

I work at a middle school, and would bring in quilts for the kids to see. So I got this bright idea to bring in my extra sewing machine and let the kids do a quilt that could then be raffled off. Not my smartest moment lol We only had about 20 minutes 3 days a week to work on the blocks, so we only got 4 done in a quarter. They are the sports blocks. I took them home and over the summer made this quilt. I did red and white since those are both the middle school and high school colors. It is backed in jeans so it can be put on the ground at football or soccer games and the like. I took it to the high school at the beginning of the school year. No word yet on what they might do with it though. I'm hoping they will do a raffle to earn money for their senior class party or something.

I have a friend that was asking for donations for a VFW Auction in my hometown. Since so much of my family has been in the military, that is something that means a lot to me, so I of course said I would donate a quilt! I went to JoAnn's and found some great patriotic fabric. Then I sat and stared at it for about a month while I tried to think of what quilt pattern I wanted to do. Because, you know, having an idea before buying the fabric just isn't a rule I've been able to learn! I saw some ideas on Pinterest and combined them to get this pattern. I backed it with a light flannel to keep it nice and soft. I quilted it on my machine, and love the design it created on the back. My friend loved it so much, that she was the one who bought it! :) I don't have any floor space at my house, so I have to take any quilts larger than a baby quilt to my school and baste it on the floor in the hallway after all the kids are gone. So that is one of the pictures.

We live out in the country and unfortunately, too many people just dump there animals out by us instead of finding new owners, or taking them to the shelter. Max is a dog that came to us that way. My husband saw him around the house and spent 2 hours in the middle of the night winning his trust. Long story short, through the power of Facebook, we found his owners after a couple of days, and then 6 hours after we returned him, they called us and asked us to take him back. We did, since we could tell by his behavior that he was probably being abused, so it was a relief actually that they called. Unfortunately, our 3 dogs were not thrilled with this newcomer. So after 6 months of trying to find Max a new owner, we took him to the local no-kill shelter so they could help find him a home quicker than we could. It was heartbreaking to do, so I made him a quilt to go with him to his new home. I am thrilled to say that less than 5 hours after arriving at the shelter he was adopted out! I hope he is happy and healthy and warm with this.