Made of all pieced quilt blocks
Many times, people hear about us or see one of our quilts and their heart jumps. They know someone who desperately needs one of our quilts. We are always happy to do what we can to honour someone’s memory or help them through a tough time. We have a few tips that can make it easy on both you and our group. We want to do our absolute best to create a quilt that reflects the recipient – infant, child, or adult – and you want a quilt that warms their hearts.
Hand Cross Stitched Panels
Our quilts are usually either 12 – 9×9 squares for children or 20 – 9×9 squares for adults. Of course, we can do different sizes on request. We use colourfast threads and cotton fabrics everywhere possible. For some of our children, we have used flannel backing for their sensitive skin.
All of our quilts, no matter what technique we use to make them, are washable at least in warm water if not hot. They are created to be used and loved. You, as the requester, have the ability to pretty much direct how the quilt will look. Do you want it all pieced blocks like this more traditional Starflower quilt? Or are you a fan of cross stitch? We used 12 hand cross-stitched panels for this child’s quilt. Then, you can have a mixture of whatever you wish like we did in this quilt below. The fully hand-cross stitched quilts can take up to a year to complete – or longer. These are hand stitched, and many of the squares used take a stitcher 30 to 40 stitching hours to complete.
Quilt combining hand counted cross stitch, machine embroidery, pieced quilt blocks, and applique.
When you get ready to ask us for a quilt, we do have forms available from this site. It’s pretty basic information but it really does help us a lot. Who is going to present the quilt? What gender and age is the recipient? What are their interests? We strongly believe in protecting the identity of our recipients. Real names will never be used (unless permission is given). We don’t ever reveal locations – a province is close enough. We only ask what we need to in order to make this quilt as special as your nominee. You do not need to disclose any information you don’t feel comfortable with, and needing to protect someone’s privacy will certainly not disqualify you from having a quilt made. The flip side of this is some feel comfortable sharing Facebook pages with us and becoming friends. We do invite you as the the requester to join our work group as well so that you can see the progress and answer any questions our members may have while they work. It’s a fantastic, supportive group! If you choose not to join us, you can still see some of the information here on our site such as the panels that were stitched, fabrics chosen, and any other information we are allowed to share. We do not post pictures of the completed quilts until they are presented.
If you have questions, please go to our Facebook Page and send us a message. One of us will get back to you promptly.
Some Tips:
- Think of the recipient’s favourite colours.
- Favourite things? Sports (which one), superheroes (which one), animals.
- Favourite sport teams?
- Pets? Hobbies?
- Even favourite foods!
- Would you like their name on a square?
- Which type of quilt do you prefer?
- Is this an emergency? If so, you may wish to request a fully pieced-block quilt like the Starflower at the beginning on this page. These take us about 2 months to complete and combine blocks made by quilters all over Canada.
- Who will be delivering the quilt?