October's Project Pink is ending

The official end to Project Pink is today but don't worry if you're still working, Jennifer has said she'll continue to accept these blocks for now so we won't set a firm deadline for all the blocks to be received - yet.

However, this is one of our short term project so you'll want to finish up and maybe get back to making some of our red and blue standard blocks before the next special project comes up. The mailing address for pink blocks can be found at this link.

Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll continue to update our online album as more tops and quilts are completed.

Helping those in need - Southern California

Nann, a HeartStrings member put Debbi Kulick in touch with me. She is requesting quilts for children in Southern California affected by the fires.

She will be working through the Kids Need to be Kids program. Having just finished up our Purple Project, I'm hoping we will be able to help. If you would like to send quilts please email me at mmcjohnson@gmail.com for Debbi's address. Her request is below.

As you know, southern California is under siege with the fires. There are currently 13 fires burning, over 500,000 people have had to evacuate and they expect that number to rise to over 1 million.

At this time, I would like to ask that anyone who would like to donate quilts for the children, I will be glad to accept them and help get them distributed. The children have nothing and need something to help them be kids while Mom and Dad will be dealing with FEMA, insurance companies and everyone else trying to piece their lives back together. I plan to work with Kappa Delta Sorority and work with our Kids Need to be Kids program which began with Katrina.

We will be collecting toys and books for the children too, I would love to have quilts for them along with toys and books.

Kasson, MN Sew-In

We had a wonderful time on Saturday. Sheree was the perfect hostess and she wrote the following summary to share here. You can see all the photos from the sew-in at the slide-show posted on our website.


Saturday, October 20, 2007 was the third meeting for the Minnesota/WI/Upper Midwest HeartStringers. Mary, Sue & Barb, all from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN met Sheree in SE Minnesota for a VERY productive day of quilting pink. Ann, who is part of the HeartString Yahoo Group, and who lives in nearby Byron, MN came by with 50! blocks. Some of Sheree’s friends also stopped by and added to the fun and productivity of the group. And we were international with virtual quilters from Australia and the UK, not to mention others quilting pink throughout the US.

The blocks and tops we worked on will all be donated to breast cancer patients and were created from pink and white fabrics in support of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Our group of fabulous women put together 2 quilt tops from blocks brought to the sew-in, and completed 118 more blocks!

Additionally, the work HeartStrings does will be featured in the local weekly newspaper! All-in-all, it was a Heart warming experience as we spent the day enjoying each other’s company creating instruments of comfort for those who will need a soft place to land and the warmth that a quilt sewn with love can supply.

Will you be joining us?

Don't forget our MN area sew-in this coming Saturday. Details can be found at this previous post.

For those of you not able to attend in person, consider joining us on a virtual retreat and make HeartStrings blocks at home. You can either sew pink blocks for our October Project Pink or use the guidelines and sew our regular blocks.

Make sure you write in and tell us what you worked on!

Country Crossroads Quilt Guild

After seeing the 5th HeartStrings quilt (pictured above) from Joanne and her guild I asked her to write a brief note telling us about the HeartStrings quilts they've been making. This is what she wrote:

The Country Crossroads Quilt Guild of Forreston, Illinois does a special charity project every 3 years. (We are a small guild of about 60 members).

This year it was decided to donate quilts to the Rockford Rescue Mission. The RRM requested twin size quilts. I made a string quilt using the Heartstrings Quilt Project guidelines, quilted it on my new longarm (quilting on charity quilts is great practice), and brought it to guild to donate.

I suggested to the members that if they wanted to make the Heartstring blocks, I'd assemble them, quilt and bind them and hopefully bring one back every month. One month I used 50 blocks that were donated to the project and sent to me by Sue, but every other month the guild has managed to make enough for a quilt.

I received October's donation of 90+ blocks and have the first quilt on the longarm now. The extra blocks will be made into a smaller quilt to be donated to one member's husband, who is a county deputy sheriff, to keep in his squad car to comfort a child when needed. The twin size will be the 6th quilt we've made this year for RRM.

Purple Project Update

Members continue to finish and donate quilts from our recent Purple Project. Here's one finished and posted by Jennifer. She used blocks she pieced and donated blocks to make 4 Purple Project quilts. You can see these and all the purple quilts in our online album.

If you're participating in October's Project Pink and need some inspiration check out these finished tops and quilts. Details for participating in this project can be found in this information sheet.

As always even with a special project going on, we continue to accept red and blue center string blocks made according to the guidelines.

Don't miss out on October's Project Pink

In addition to the blocks being made and mailed to Jennifer, HeartStrings quilters are finishing their own tops and quilts for Project Pink.

Five days into the project and quilt photos are already being posted. Check out our online album for inspiration and then start your own blocks. If you'll be sending your blocks in for group quilts make sure to read the guidelines.

Sew-In on Saturday, October 20 in Kasson, MN

Sheree is hosting our October sew-in and recently posted this reminder. Please contact her for further details at sheree@kmtel.com.

I'm talking this up locally and plan to bring an extra machine for people who stop in to see what we're doing. I thought they could sew a strip or two onto a foundation and be part of the process too!

I'm planning on bringing my newly completed blue string quilt (will get a picture) for folks to see. If any attendees have completed tops or quilts that they could bring to show those who aren't part of our group, that would be great.

Kasson/Mantorville is a small community, so I thought I'd contact our weekly newspaper to see if they'd like to stop over and give us some press as well. I'm pretty psyched about hosting this. I'm excited to see old friends that have been made from previous get togethers as well as hoping that moving the site around will entice other people to join as well ... so if you live in Southern Minnesota, Northern Iowa, Twin Cities area, or feel like a road trip would be a great thing to do, PLEASE, join us. It really is a fun and HEART-FILLED day!

We'll be carpooling from the Twin Cities area - for more information, please contact Sue Frank at suecfrank@aim.com.