Announcing Changes to Our Board

We have an announcement! 

Our beloved board member, Maribeth Hinderer, has moved from Washington State to Kansas. We miss her like crazy, but are fortunate that she still travels out to see family and friends in the area several times each year.

Maribeth helped me to found this guild with her encouragement, sewing skills, generous donations and support. She has been a strong cornerstone in our work and we are forever grateful to her for her friendship, love and dedication. However, her relocation has made her job as Vice President a bit difficult.

Enter guild member Mary Ryan. Mary is the mother of Briana, our guild's junior member, and is presently serving as our "Gratitude Ambassadress" - she writes the "thank you" notes for donations, and keeps the spreadsheet current for our reporting to the Guild Association. Mary does all of this quietly and never seeks any kind of credit or thanks. We appreciate Mary and all she does, and now, she has accepted the position of Vice President of Katie's Comforters Guild.  

Thank you, Maribeth and Mary!

Our Board of Directors:

Karen Gerstenberger, Founder and President

Mary Ryan, Vice President

Andrea Cunningham, Secretary

Linda Case, Treasurer

We are so grateful to each member of our board for all that each one does to help us in our mission of bringing comfort to the patients of Seattle Children's Hospital. We couldn't do this work without you!

Calling All Quilters!

We have a need for experienced quilters who would like to lend their skills to help us turn some gorgeous tops into finished quilts for sale to support our Guild's work. We always need funds for fabric, batting, binding and so on, and we have received beautiful unfinished pieces which deserve to find an appreciative home. You might have some questions about this:

Question: Why do you need help finishing these?
Answer: Because they are old, beautiful and deserve to be handled by someone who possesses greater sewing skills than I have.

Question: Why do you plan to sell these, rather than donate them to patients?
Answer: Because the fabrics are from various sources and of different ages (some appear to be antiques), we cannot donate them to sick children. There is nothing wrong with them, but the hospital has very strict rules about quilts/blankets for patients.

Question: Where will you sell the quilts?
Answer:  We are hoping to open an Etsy shop (online) where we will offer these and some other gorgeous finished quilts for sale.

Question: What will you do with the money raised? 
Answer: It will go into our Guild's bank account, which is managed by our Guild's Treasurer. Our plan is to purchase materials (fabric, batting, binding, etc.) for making more quilts and blankets. It may occasionally be used for shipping costs when we receive quilts from faraway donors, or to ship fabric and supplies. If there is a surplus of funds, we may decide to donate some of it to Seattle Children's Hospital.

Question: What sizes are these quilt tops and pieces? 
Answer: The dimensions are underneath the photos.
Please take a look at these beauties and let me know if one or more of them is calling to you to take it from this state to finished work of art! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

39" x 49"

Various sizes, to go with Sunflower quilt above

Various sizes (two top-left squares can also go with Sunflower quilt at top)

31" x 52"

54" x 62"

52" x 40" (4" squares)

39" x 52" (4" squares)

58" x 61" (1.75" squares)

39" x 50" (4" squares)

50" x 59"

12" x 12" each (12 of 20 total)

12" x 12" each (8 of 20 total)

Various shapes/sizes

If you are a seamstress or quilter, or if you know a seamstress or quilter who might like to help us, please leave a comment here, or on facebook, or email me. You may "adopt" and finish a quilt - or you can let me know if you would like to buy one of these as a finished quilt!
All of this is to benefit Katie's Comforters Guild at Seattle Children's Hospital - to help us continue our mission of comforting the patients there.

Aloha Spirit from Linda and Peaches

Here is dear Linda, surrounded by her quilts

I received a message from a friend of our guild, Linda. She wrote from her vacation on Kauai:

"There are some wonderful quilt shops here, and I was selecting some fabric to make a few quilts for Katie's Quilts. I found some darling fabric with little brown-eyed seals on it. The ladies were oogling over it and asking me what I was using it for. I started telling the ladies there about Katie and the quilt project. There were tears, one woman said she was going to look it up and see about donating, another was about to go through cancer surgery and asked us to pray for her. It was a powerful moment. When I was checking out, the shop owner asked if she could send home some fabric for me to use. I said SURE! She asked me to stop by again a few days. When I stopped by today, she had selected fabric to make 5 quilts for the cancer kids. She had it all neatly fold in a carry boat for me to take on the plane. She said 'Aloha, and God bless you all!' She sends her love and prayers!

"I am so blessed to meet people of God who have caring hearts and want to donate and pray for a project like this. Her name is Peaches, and I told her we'd be praying for her as well. Isn't God good? I'll have them done soon, along with about five others I have at home that just need the bindings put on them."

Now, I have the pleasure of sharing the details of Linda's handiwork and Peaches' generosity with you, in these photos:

The variety and boldness of color in these fabrics is stunning!

Linda hand-wrote a message of blessing on each quilt

This photo is a little blurry, but you can see the cute paw-prints and Hawaiian flowers on the back of the quilts

A crocheted and a fleece blanket rounded out this donation (thanks to Liberty Bay Books' Nathaniel H. for delivering them)!

Safari print

More Hawaiian prints

What a gorgeous batch of coziness! Those children who receive them are going to be delighted by their quilts - and the spirit of "Aloha" that comes with them.

If you are going on vacation in Kauai, here is the address of Peaches' store:
Kapaia Stitchery
3-3551 Kuhio Highway 
Linus, Kauai, Hawaii  96766

...and here is what it looks like:

outside of the store

inside the store

 Thank you, Linda and Peaches!

New Blankets from Lucile (Donated Fabric)

Lucile has been hard at work washing and sorting fabric which our guild received from Shana & Scott H. She has created a batch of 25 beautiful new blankets. Here is a look at her latest creations:

Soft fleece blankets with decoratively stitched borders

Cotton tops, flannel underneath and satin blanket binding all around. That ladybug print is so cheery!

Look at those colors, and the fun combination of prints!

Frogs, puppies, sports equipment and teacups - oh, my!

Close-up of teacups print with "kisses" border

Sports equipment with handsome plaid on the back

What could be cuter than puppies and daisies?

Cheerful pink bubbles and frogs

Butterflies, telephones, kisses, soccer and flowers

Lucile blends fabrics with a great eye for color coordination and originality

Sweet combination of butterflies with rainbow plaid, and dream-clouds with hearts

Detail of heart border on the dream-cloud print

Lucile, we are so very grateful to you and Noble for all of the time, talent and materials that you donate to Katie's Comforters Guild!

Special thanks to Shana H. 

for donating her mother's beautiful fabric 

to our guild for Seattle Children's Hospital patients!

Fearless Quilters of RBPC

On Sunday, my family and I had the privilege of visiting Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church to receive 13 gorgeous quilts that their Fearless Quilters group made for Katie's Comforters Guild. The Fearless Quilters group is comprised of talented fabric artists who put great detail and love into each one of their creations. This batch of quilts has to be seen and felt to really get the full effect, so I am going to share a lot of photos with you to help you see just how lovely they are.

Safari animal theme quilt & floral-ladybug theme (with sock monkeys for whimsy)

Hawaiian flower theme with elephant (that elephant is made up of fabric pieces)

Back of one of the quilts - look at the quilting detail on the underwater square!

One of my personal favorites - 1920s cabaret print

Detail of center square

The balloons go perfectly with tie-dye border and circles below

Clever tone-on-tone quilting detail of balloons!

These bold chevrons include some soft flannel pieces

I love this "menswear" herring-bone flannel

Wonderful color and design combinations

Detail of the elephant print

Detail of brilliant jewel tones

FISH!

Look closely on the left and you will see a fish quilted into the design!

This is pure color joy

Lovely, vibrant color and whimsical fabric combinations

Pastel dinosaur theme

This would be perfect for a baby or toddler

What a blessing, to receive one of these works of art, filled with love and well-wishes!

During the worship service, the pastor asked a blessing upon the quilts, and afterward, I gave a talk to the Adult Education class about "the Art of Being a Comforter." It was a pleasure to be among the wonderful, generous people of Rolling Bay.

Heartfelt thanks to Pastor Marty, and especially to  

Sally Thompson and Vicky Adkins

and all of the Fearless Quilters, 

for sharing your gifts with sick children through our guild. 

Those quilts are going to make the recipients very, very happy!