Happy One Year Anniversary!

Margaret's Hope Chest is officially one year old today. We launched ourselves on April 30, 2007, the two year anniversary of my grandmother's death. I have had many hopes and dreams for MHC over the past year and some have come true while others haven't. It was my goal to give away 50 quilts in our first year. We actually gave away 19. It turns out it is a much harder process to take groups of quilts from start to finish. It also turns out that it is hard to gather a faithful group of volunteers. Despite not reaching our goal we remain positive and sure that this is what God would have us to do. We know that the families that we have given quilts to were in real need of hope. We were honored to share that with them.
Here is a list of who the first 19 quilts were given to.

-Mother of one of the two girls charged with my grandma's murder
-baby in NICU
-baby in NICU
-baby born with Spina Bifida
-a woman dying of cancer
-a man living in a nursing home with Cerebral Palsy
-5 families coming out our abusive relationships
-a woman living in an abusive relationship
-a group home for troubled girls
-a woman living the waiting area of a hospital while her husband was dying
-a family who's father/husband died very unexpectantly
-Children at Risk program (x2)
-the wife of a farmer killed in farming accident
-the grandfather of the farmer killed in farming accident

What I like best about the list when I read it over is that there is so much diversity. We aren't just serving one "type" of hopeless person, we are open to giving to anyone who has a need.
I hope you will continue to pray for MHC. Specifically, we would like to see the formation of a core group of quilting volunteers (not just me and my mom!!). I know I say this alot but if you know of someone who might like to help us please let me know. Also, if you hear of someone who needs a bit of hope drop me an e-mail.
Thanks again for your support and prayers over the past year. God is good-all the time.

The Show Quilt Finished-I Think

 

So here is the quilt that I have been working on for the Grand Rapids Quilt Show in October. What do you think? I could still add another wide border to make it bigger...I like how it turned out. It looks sort-of grandma-ish to me and that is exactly the look I was going for. Now I will enter it into the show and figure out how to quilt it and finish it off.

Still Here

 

Hello everyone! I am still here-and I am still quilting. I was working on a personal project for a few weeks but I have been concentrating on the quilt pictured above. In October there is a quilt show in Grand Rapids and so I am feverishly trying to put together a quilt for Margarets Hope Chest using all donated material. I hope to be able to showcase MHC a bit to 1000's of area quilters. So, I am spending a little more time on this quilt than I do on some of the others. The deadline for entry is July but I don't like to wait until the last minute. I will post a picture when it is finished which will hopefully be in the next week!

I little update on our activity here. We gave 2 quilts last week to the victim witness unit for their program called Children at Risk. These quilts along with many others (from other people) will go to children who have been identified as "at risk" for many potentially harmful behaviors. We pray that these children will get the help and hope they need to stay out of trouble. I have a referral for a family who lost their dad in a farming accident-still waiting for an address. A reminder that we are always looking for referrals. Just e-mail me!

At the end of this month, Margaret's Hope Chest will officially be 1 year young! I will post on that special day and recap our first year of sharing hope with our community.

Think Pink

 

A few months ago, someone donated a Ziploc baggie full of different sized pink strips. It looked like a good challege to me, so yesterday I took them out and sorted them and put this quilt together. It was fun and a great reminder that scraps are not trash! Maybe we will be asked to give a quilt to a women with breast cancer in the near future. I think this quilt would be fun to give her. We'll see.

On another note,(I always seem to have two points to my blogs) I wanted to mention a newer partnership that MHC has developed with another non-profit organization called Until Journey's End (UJE). UJE was started by a family that we gave a quilt to last November. I read on a blog about Tiffany Evans and her family. They were living in a Ronald McDonald house in Ohio while they waited for their precious baby Isaac to grow big enough to travel home to Grand Rapids. It was a long journey for them but Isaac is home and doing great!! I actually met Tiffany and Isaac in February and we had a great talk. She is a very energentic and inspirational person. Based on her experiences away from home and family, she has felt called to help other families in a similar situation by sending them a care package and notes of encouragement over a period of time. When appropriate, she will add a quilt from us to a care package. You can learn more about Until Journey's End from her blog-www.untiljourneysend.blogspot.com She is always looking for more families to help and for items for the care packages.

Quilt Update

 

 

 

I promised an update before the week was over and here it is Friday so I better not disappoint! We gave out two quilts this week. The blue one pictured was given to Angie and her four children after the unexpected death of her husband and their father. The purple/pink one was given to a women named Hong who is a Vietnamese refugee who is enduring an abusive marriage relationship. In February we sent a quilt to a women in West Virginia who's husband was dying and she was living in the ICU waiting room. A few weeks ago we heard that her husband had died. I hope now that the quilt will give comfort to her and her four children as they navigate a new life together. So I guess the theme this week is giving hope to marriage, for better or worse, in sickness and in health till death do us part......It amazes me how we seem to give out quilts in themed groups. Sometimes we hear of 3 babies in one week, sometimes 2 tragic deaths in one week.
I wanted to highlight one more thing about the pink/purple quilt and the yellow quilt pictured. I hope the picture picks up the amazing quilting that was done on these. Phyllis Myers is our volunteer long-arm quilter. She has now quilted 6 quilts for MHC and she has done a fabulous job each time. If you are ever in need of long-arm quilting please consider her. Her business is called QUILTS COMPLETED. Thanks Phyllis!

Donations

 

During February my sister, mom, and I FINALLY sorted out all of our donated material. I HUGE thank-you to my sister, Amy who spent most of her time one weekend rolling and organizing it by color. If you are reading this and have donated fabric, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!! We are literally overwhelmed with fabric. When we look through these bins at all of the varied styles and colors it seems we will never run out of ideas for fun quilts. God only knows who will lie under these quilts and cry out for hope. We continue to work for His glory. Later this week I will give an update quilt giving and new ways to help.

Pictures from the Quilt-a-thon

 

 

Here are the hard working quilt-a-thon volunteers having lots of fun on a cold winter afternoon. The second picture is the work we completed-8 quilt tops. Thanks again to all of our volunteers. I must add that I forgot to mention and thank one of our volunteers-my dad! He ironed the finished quilt tops for us! I am looking forward to finishing off these tops and making more at our next event!