Teapot Tuesday and other things, too!

Boy do I have a lot to share today.  I was planning on posting yesterday, but, storms when thru in the morning and knocked out the power for several hours.  Our area lost power to about 868,000 homes.  There are still about 375,000 with out power this morning.  It's hot and humid.  I hope they get power soon. 

This is my teapot for today.  I've had this teapot for many years.  See, I've loved old sewing machines long before I started to collect them.

 Isn't this cute!  My friend, Mary gave this to me last week.  She knows I love sewing machines, including toy sewing machines.  This one even has a bobbin.  Thanks Mary!

 Well, I finally finished all of my Santa blocks for the Santa block exchange with one of my quilt guilds.  Since I couldn't remember how many blocks to make, I made 12 of each block (I only needed 10).  I signed up twice, that is why I made 2 different block sets.  I'll use the extra blocks either in the quilt(s) or I'll make little wall hangings as gifts. 

The top Santa block has buttons sewed on for eyes, buttons on Santa's coat and on the mistletoe.  The bottom Santa block has 2 different Santa's for the center square.  You can see the different centers on this post.  The top block is fused applique.  I've never done this before since it is so hard to hand quilt thru fused applique.  It's fun to try something new.  On the second block, I'd seen a pattern similar to this one in several places, but, none of them were the correct size, so, I drew it up to fit what I needed.  Graph paper is great.

Quilts of Valor booth at Farmer's Market

Quilts of Valor raffle quilt

 This is where I was Saturday morning.  I helped at the Quilts of Valor booth at the local farmer's market.  Our chapter of Quilts of Valor is trying to raise money for fabric and batting for more quilts.  Our chapter works closely with Great Lakes Naval Base and the Returning Warrior Weekends (RWW) that they hold about 4 times a year.  We make approx. 90 quilts for each RWW.  We also make quilts for other soldiers in our area along with quilts sent to hospitals for wounded soldiers.  That's a lot of quilts.  If you quilt, you know that cotton fabrics and batting have gone way up in price.  We have lots of long arm quilters that donate their time and batting for these quilts.  We also get donations of small amounts of fabrics, but, we always need fabrics for blocks and backings.  One of our members made this lovely quilt for us to raffle off. 

Quilts of Valor signature quilt top

Quilts of Valor poster

 We are also  having people sign blocks for donations.  These blocks will be made into signature quilts for our soldiers, like the one in the picture.  One of our great quilters had her whole family sign blocks and she not only raised funds for Quilts of Valor, but, she sewed the quilt blocks from her family into a top.  How great is that!  We have wonderful quilters in our group.  If you appreciate our soldiers and want to help out, contact Quilts of Valor and find your local chapter.

Quilts of Valor signature blocks

Sorry this post is so long.  The Santa block exchange was last night at quilt guild.  I'll post pictures of all of the blocks in another post.