Quilt Spotlight: QuiltCon Charity Quilt

The  Omaha Modern Quilt Guild will be starting a recurring feature on our blog...a quilt spotlight featuring fabulous modern quilts made by our members! First up is the OMQG QuiltCon charity quilt.

When the idea of making a charity quilt for QuiltCon was presented, members of the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild were excited to participate. OMQG Vice President Katie Roehlk and Secretary Stephanie Jacobson headed up the effort. We decided to use a limited color palette and chose the following colors for members to work with:

We decided to make a star sampler quilt and set up a Pinterest board with links to various star quilt block tutorials and patterns as inspiration for our members. We also posted guidelines for our members. The blocks we received at our November meeting were pretty amazing, and it was fun seeing them up on the design wall.

The blocks were divided among four members (Katie Roehlk, Kristina Morrow, Kristie Jarchow, and Stephanie Jacobson), and each member was responsible for assembling her quarter of the quilt by piecing the blocks together, adding additional fabric or blocks, and quilting the section. Huge thanks to Kristie Jarchow for assembling the 4 parts of the quilt, binding it, and getting it shipped safely to Austin.

We look forward to seeing our quilt displayed at QuiltCon in Austin and donating it to a charity in the Omaha area.

Pilger & Beaver Crossing Quilt Deployments

On Sunday, May 11, 2014, a tornado hit Beaver Crossing, Nebraska. 16 homes were destroyed and 22 homes sustained major damage. The Omaha Modern Quilt Guild began our effort to collect quilts for the residents of Beaver Crossing. On June 16, 2014, twin tornadoes caused extensive damage in the town of Pilger, Nebraska, and our guild extended its efforts to also collect quilts for Pilger residents. Many quilt shops generously served as drop-off sites for quilts. AccuQuilt let us use their amazing design studio to hold sew-ins to make quilts and allowed us to store donated quilts in their warehouse. Over a period of approximately 4 months, we collected over 600 quilts and afghans.

On Friday, September 12, 2014 and Saturday, September 13, 2014, members deployed to Pilger, Nebraska to sort and distribute quilts to residents.

On Saturday, October 25, 2014, we deployed to Beaver Crossing to distribute quilts to those that had been affected by the May 11 tornado.

Quilts ready to be distributed.

Just a few of the residents with their new quilts.

There is a long list of individuals and organizations to thank for their help with our efforts including the members of the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild, Lincoln Quilters Guild, Cottonwood Quilters Guild,Omaha Quilters Guild, AccuQuilt,Quilts for Kids, Quilts from the Bluffs,Omaha Project Linus, Nebraska State Quilt Guild, virtually every quilt shop between Omaha and Grand Island and countless quilters from several states who donated time, materials, support and quilts to make this all happen!

A HUGE thank you to Omaha Modern Quilt Guild President Lori Bain for her efforts in coordinating so many individuals and groups to make these deployments a huge success. We greatly appreciate the time and effort you put forth for this cause!

Flash Block Party!

The Omaha Modern Quilt Guild will be having a "Flash Block Party" to work on quilt blocks and quilts for Quilts for Beaver Crossing, Pilger & Beyond.

Saturday, July 2, 2014

1:15pm - 5pm

Sunshine Stitches

525 N. 155th Plaza

(Pepperwood Shopping Center

next to Baker's Supermarket)

Bring your orphan blocks, UFO's and quilt projects to work on for the quilt drive. An OMQG member has generously agreed to bring her AccuQuilt Go! to help us make blocks and quilts in a flash!

Hope to see you all there!

Quilts for Beaver Crossing & Beyond

Our hearts are breaking as storms have done extensive damage with fatalities in NE, OK, KS, MO, AR, MS & AL. We need the help of our incredibly generous quilting community to help us “Bring Hope & Encouragement to the Hurting” in these communities. The Quilts of Compassion Disaster Response Team has a deep passion to help those that have experienced tremendous loss and are hurting...which brings HOPE in the midst of suffering.

Quilts of Compassion, in conjunction with the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild will deploy August 13 -18, 2014 to deliver quilts to those impacted in Beaver Crossing, Nebraska and beyond. We lovingly deliver quilts DIRECTLY to those that have been impacted by the storms. Many have lost their homes and all of their possessions, many have lost their place of employment and many have been injured or lost a family member or friend. It is truly heartbreaking.

We are accepting quilts of all sizes for men, woman, children and infants. They may be quilted or tied. If you enjoy crocheting or knitting, we can certainly use afghans of all sizes too.

Please search your stash of quilts and afghans for donation to help your friends, relatives and neighbors here in Nebraska and Iowa. A complete and current list of donation spots can be found here. A huge thank you to the shops that have agreed to be drop-off sites.

Aside from donating quilts, how can you help?

• Visit and like the Quilts for Beaver Crossing & Beyond facebook page. Share our page. Help spread the word about this cause.
• Visit and like the Quilts of Compassion facebook page. This organization does amazing work across the country to bring hope and healing to those affected by disasters.
• Spread the word via social media (instagram, facebook, twitter, etc). #quiltsforbeavercrossing
• Check back here and the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild facebook page for upcoming volunteer opportunities and sew-ins.

Thank you in advance for your help in this huge endeavor!

Beads of Courage Sew Down!

At our July guild meeting last night, a member shared a great charity opportunity--making fabric bags for Beads of Courage. We will be getting together on Saturday, July 13, 2013 at the Millard Public Library (13214 Westwood Lane) from 9am to 12:30pm to sew bags. You can find instructions for making the bags here, so gather up your sewing machine and supplies and join us on Saturday 7/13! (If you are planning on attending, please leave a comment on this post so we can have an idea of how many people to expect.)

For more information....

Beads of Courage Sewdown Flyer

QuiltCon quilt blocks

We received a set of 10 quilt blocks from The Modern Quilt Guild and they are beautiful!

Our job is to turn these 10 quilt blocks into a twin size quilt which will be donated to the Austin Children's Shelter.  We can do this by making additional quilt blocks, adding negative space, or a combination of the two.  The quilt must be machine quilted, bound, washed, and shipped to Austin before QuiltCon--the due date is February 1, 2013.

How can you help?

• Be a part of the group that will be piecing the top and backing.
• Donate your fabric scraps!  We need to provide all the materials to complete the quilt.  If you have solid scraps in the colors of the QuiltCon logo (plus gray and white) or larger pieces for the backing, we would love to put them to good use.

• Share your ideas for piecing the top by leaving a comment on this post, in our facebook group, or in our flickr group.  Nine of the blocks measure 12.5" square and one block is 12.5" x 5.75".  The completed quilt will need to be no smaller than 68" x 88" and no larger than 72" x 92".

In playing with some possible layouts I realized how bad I am at this!

Help us out with your suggestions!