L is for Lenten Banners

I have made a series of Lenten banners to hang in our church. A previous minister Suzy encouraged me to use my love of quilting to serve God and our church by making banners to decorate our sanctuary. I was a bit reluctant at first as most banners that we had at church were pictorial and I am not a good at drawing things. They also tend to have words on them and again that isn't my strong point. However Suzy admired some of the wall quilts that I had made without thinking of them for church. She could see a real message in the colours and patterns that they made. So we hung them in church and then I started to design specific banners to be used in church.

Suzy was big on the ecclesiastical colours... the colours of the church year. She encouraged me to make quilts that fitted in with these colours... green (for ordinary Sundays) red for pentecost, white for Easter Day, Christmas Day and some other special days, and purple for Lent and Advent.

A couple of years ago I made a large purple banner to go out the front but we didn't have much else to hang for lent. There were two small banners but they were pretty tatty so this year I made 2 new banners to decorate the church with.















   The first was simply a purple heart on a white background.The purple squares of the quilt varied from dark indigo to palest lavender. I was going to put some words on it..... I was thinking of For God so Loved.... but then think that pictures speak louder than words. (words are for those who cannot read the pictures)












I had another design floating around in my head inspired by a banner I had seen on the web so I made it too. Again I thought about adding words but decided to leave it to speak for itself

Stash Report Sunday

Busy week meant I had a couple of moderate sized finishes this week.

I started a quilt last Sunday afternoon. I had decided on the design during church and came home and laid it out. It was a new banner for our church for lent. I got the top put together that day and was able to finish it off on Tuesday. Its hanging in our church today. I based it on a design I found on the Fat Quarter Shop. It was 80cm square (approx 31.5") and used 1.6m of fabric

As reported in yesterday's post The Tale (not tail) of Annie's Quilt I got it finished in time to give it to a friend whose house has been deemed uninhabitable after Cyclone Marcia. I forgot to measure it before I gave it to her however I could work it out from the size of the blocks and calculate its size. It was approximately 182cm  x 162 cm (72" x 64") using 6.82m of fabric

We have hosted 5 guests this weekend who were in town for an Emmaus training day. They each bought us a thank you gift and one friend (whom we've known for years) bought me two bundles of fat quarters - 10 of them all together.  He said he had a fabric intensive as he shopped in Spotlight learning about jelly rolls and charm packs and fat quarter bundles.

One bundle was called Traveller and another was of greys. Such a thoughtful gift. That was a total of 2.45m in

There isn't going to be much movement for a while now. For a few weeks now I've had the silent thrill of knowing I had 2 big finishes just waiting in the wings, with just a little bit more work to be done on them and then BAM there would be a big jump in fabric usage. I do have the Teashop Quilt top done now so getting it pin basted and quilted will be another moderate finish but there is nothing big planned. I am going to have to get stuck into little things to sell at the Our Rainbow House stall at the afternoon tea at the end of the month so that will take up a fair bit of my stitching time. They will all be small projects and not account for much stash usage. It will be good to get it done though.

So this weeks stats

This Week

Fabric Used                               8.42m

Fabric Added                              2.43m

Year to Date

Fabric Used                               37.68m

Fabric Added                             12.78m

Net Fabric used                         24.90m

WIP Wednesday Day

I seem to have been buzzing from one project to another this week. I made a banner for church. It was a pretty quick project. I got my inspiration during the service (although I had been mulling over the need for another banner since I had decorated the church on Thursday) I had it largely put together on Sunday, didn't get to work on it at all on Monday due to an unexpected trip to Yeppoon to take our camper trailer down to a friend who had lost power and water due to the cyclone that went through the area on Friday. Our trailer meant she had a fridge and cooking facilities and plenty of water.
I got back to it Tuesday afternoon and got it finished up that night including a label :)

I worked on the frog from Elephant Parade. He still needs eyes.

I finished the next block in the POD. I love how the time turner came out. I stuffed up a bit on this one and had some very careful unpicking and resewing. 

At patchwork today I worked on the blue quilt our group is putting together. These blocks were made back in October. As well as the 8.5" block we were supposed to make there were a heap of little pinwheels made from the scraps. It was pretty tricky trying to assemble it as the blocks came out in a few different sizes and some were too small to be included in the front. (someone had trimmed her blocks back to 8") I had worked out a design a couple of weeks ago and thought that today I would be able to sew it up... huh. Found that with the blocks that ended up too small we needed to make another 4 blocks (we were one short anyway) Lindy had fabric with her and she cut and I sewed and she pressed. We got the 4 new blocks made and I started to put it together. But it was fairly slow progress. I had to sew a heap of the little half square triangles that were left over from the blocks into pinwheels but that involved pressing and trimming and sewing and trimming... all rather painstaking. I didn't take any photos of what I was doing... oops.

I got the Tea Shop quilt put together having finished off the applique on a few of the blocks. I thought I was done. I started to cut the border fabric... and then I realised that I haven't completed the embroidery on the main centre block... and now its in the centre of the quilt and I am going to have to stitch the last bits of it in situ. Much more awkward that stitching the block on its own. Sigh. I think this quilt is never going to be ready to be finished off.  I also found the buttons I bought to decorate blocks with. They won't go on till the end though, after its quilted so that is okay.

I have to stitch over all the lines in the windows. After its been quilted I will add some button cakes and pies.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday,  at Freshly Pieced, WIPS on Wednesday and Lets Bee Social