Saturday was National Quilting Day! -- Making of the Quilt for a Cause!

I celebrated by sewing and quilting all day long!!! I am machine piecing the blocks for our family quilt for a cause quilt for the Fireside Team to raise money for the Rainbow Hospice Family Room in Johnsons Creek, Wisconsin. The blocks are made with blues and greens in batiks and dyed fabrics of all sorts! Here is a picture of the blocks so far!! After I piece all the blocks, I then need to sew them all together using this cool striped fabric for the lattice strips. Then a really neat blue green border fabric. My mom and I started this quilt about a year and half ago. We first bought every blue and green fabric out there!!! Then we washed and pressed and starched the fabric. The next step was to cut it into 1 1/2 inch strips X 2 1/2 inch X 4 1/2 inch X 6 1/2 inch X 8 1/2 inch and X 10 1/2 inch and center squares that are 2 1/2 inches --- all the sizes needed to form the courthouse round block. Then I put them into a labeled 3 drawer container and Mom carefully chose the strips one by one for each block and laid them out on a paper towel. We put them in a big pizza box. Next it was my job to sew them together. I started sewing in September at a quilting retreat, but didn't finish the blocks and put them away until about 3 weeks ago, beginning again I sewed two strips on every block each morning before I started my quilting. Each night I pressed the blocks and then the next morning sewing two more strips. I missed a couple mornings and nights! So today I am going to sew and press and try complete the rest of the rounds on the courthouse round blocks. Then I can put it together and get it quilted next week. I reserved a date on my schedule to quilt it! --- must do that in order to get my own quilting done! We want to get it to the Fireside for displaying and for the raffle by Easter weekend.