Paper Panache

Nativity quilt … the rest of the story!

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The quilt sold at live auction!
Our Nativity quilt was one of the items featured in the live auction at St. Martha’s Fall Festival on Saturday. It was a wonderful event for the whole family filled with fun, food, games for the kids, craft booths and fellowship! And yep … this is my final post about the Nativity quilt!

The live auction started at 7 pm. For a few ladies who stood off to one side closest to our quilt, you could cut the tension with a heavy-duty rotary cutter! After a full day of working our craft booth, several of Martha’s Quilters were in attendance for the live auction. Finally, our quilt came up for bidding. Our demeanor turned anxious as our quilt was finally brought forward. The minimum bid was $1,000. I held my breath. Would anyone in the crowd even bid on such an expensive item? Five long seconds passed. Finally, a lady raised her hand in the front row. Then a lady on the second row raised her hand. They battled back and forth and when the dust settled … our Nativity quilt … the one seven ladies worked on for three months … 843 fabric pieces and over 250 collective hours … the same quilt I had dreams about … what if we didn’t get it finished in time kinda dreams … the auctioneer announced “sold” … for $2,200! A very happy ending to a long journey.

Nativity paper-pieced quilt – part two

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Looks like all the paper-piece ladies at St. Martha’s Prayer Quilt Ministry survived week two of our Nativity quilt project! A couple of the ladies are on vacation this week so only a few were available to bring in their finished assignments. How awesome is the cat and the donkey?

This week my assignment was to put together a Shepherd. Liz had the other half which included the Shepherd’s staff. My part of the Shepherd came together much easier than last week’s Kneeling King. And I did not utter one swear word! I swear! But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out if a Shepherd was really going to appear until all the many little fabric pieces were assembled.

Our fearless leader, Noreen, even had time to put together week three’s assignment. I don’t know how she does it! I got a camel. From the looks of the fabric key … a very bright-colored camel.

Nativity paper-pieced quilt – part one

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Our Prayer Quilt Ministry is getting ready again for the St. Martha’s Catholic Church parish festival. This year it will be held on Saturday, October 3. Along with lots of crafty items for sale, our group has just started working on a special surprise for the silent auction.

The conception of the project began when Lynn brought to Noreen, our resident “Fabric Whisperer,” an intricate paper-pieced quilt pattern called, Advent Nativity, on the Paper Panache website. It is a stunning quilt! But it would be a HUGE project for just one person. I could almost see the wheels turning inside Noreen’s head at the possibilities. It wasn’t long before she was organizing a group of us to make the quilt. Certainly seven pairs of hands could pull this quilt together. With Noreen at the helm there was Sally, Liz, Helaine, Lynn, Clara and myself volunteering for the assignment. No small task, Noreen enlarged the quilt by 190% and put together the quilt sections with fabric pieces into zip lock bags. When finished, the quilt will be 60 inches wide. I don’t recall the length.

Last week, seven of us took home instructions and fabric pieces for a small section of the quilt. I was given the Kneeling King. It had been five years since I’d tackled a paper-pieced project, so I was a little nervous. I have to confess, in the privacy of my sewing room last week, I said a bad word a few times after ripping out the same two small fabric pieces three times.

On Wednesday, everyone brought their paper-pieced assignments in and laid them out. There were lots of confessions of frustration, but you couldn’t tell by wonderful results. I was very impressed! This week will be easier!

Three more weeks of sewing assignments and then the task of sewing the small sections together. This week I was assigned a Shepherd.

Tell me what you think?