LoveQuilts UK News
Lockdown UK Jan/Feb 2021In view of the hard lockdown in England and Scotland, please stitch and hang on to your squares and do not send them to us until further notice. All 26th January deadline quilts have been extended to 24th February. If lockdown is lifted in 6 weeks (from 4th Jan) we will be able to start taking squares again from 15th February. International stitchers, please follow your local rules - New Zealand and Australia are doing well, for example, so no problem with you posting to us if your local rules allow it. Contact Gaynor for the address via email or Facebook. Stay safe, everyone. While we are here, thank you very much to those who have sent us squares over the Christmas period, they are: Ali, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Ann, Billericay, UK (5) Anonymous Donation, Barbara, Midhurst , UK (3) Catherine, Leamington Spa, UK Charlotte, Nottingham, UK (2) Clare, Southampton, England DRGP Group, UK (21) Elaine Dixon, Athens, Greece Eleanor DB, Croydon, UK Elizabeth Cousins, London, UK Emma, Solihull, UK Helen Cheape, Sunderland, UK Jan G, Hull, UK (4) Jenny Elkington, Boston, UK Joanne M, Oxford, England Jodie Balaam, Lawshall, England (10) Karen Stephenson, Cambridgeshire, UK Linda Cropper, Atherstone, England Marie, Yeovil, UK Mark Grogan, Oldham , UK Miss Debbie Elkington, Boston, Lincs, UK Nicky, Mytchett, UK Rosemary Binnie, Macclesfield, UK (2) Sandra, Shefford, England Sarah, St. Albans, UK (3) Sarah, Enfield, London, UK (2) Sharon, Kenilworth, UK (3) 2020 Review of the YearWelcome to our review of 2020! This was the 12th year for LoveQuiltsUK and with the Covid pandemic it has been a bit different to usual, so during lockdown we were very quiet, followed by very high activity in the second half of the year! Total squares received in 2020: 2574 squares We also passed the 20,000 square milestone this year! Total quilts delivered in 2020: 203 quilts (6 of these were emergency quilts and 45 were backfilled quilts) This brings our overall total to 1543 quilts since 2008. 2020 was (against all odds!) another record year, with 203 quilts against last year's total of 201 :) A massive THANK YOU to every one of you who have sent in your lovely squares, quilted them together into fab quilts, or fundraised for us this year!. This year was very different with LoveQuiltsUK going on pause during the national UK lockdown in March/April/May and all stitchers holding their squares until safe to go out to post them. The stitchers were still stitching away busily though and interacting via our Facebook group more than ever. When the lockdown lifted sufficiently in June, we received literally hundreds of squares! The quilters had a large backlog of quilting, but every single one of them rose to the challenge and caught up the backlog. Due to the uncertainty during lockdown we had no quilts planned for September, but the quilters picked up backfilled quilts (made with excess squares from our Any Child stash) and made up the difference. We are ending the year on a 203 quilt total with at least another dozen quilts completed over the Christmas period for delivery in early 2021. Thank you again to everyone for your unstinting support throughout these difficult times. We have a few people that we would like to mention specifically for their efforts this year: Kat Kat has dealt with a record number of squares this year, despite still being in full-time caring job with very long hours. Well done Kat for keeping everything in order! Gaynor Gaynor has continued her efforts in sourcing fabric, doing the administration and maintaining the website. Well done, Gaynor. Mrs T All fabric is pre-washed prior to going out to quilters to account for colour runs and cotton shrinkage. Mrs T (Gaynor's Mum) has washed a lot of the fabric and duvet covers used for LQUK once again this year. Thank you Mrs T! Cards Thank you Sandra (Wright) for organising the cards we send out with the quilts via our Facebook group, and chased them up so that they all come in on time! She also has organised sufficient cards for the many backfilled quilts we have done this year (see below) Backfilled quilts A big thank you to those who have undertaken labels for backfilled quilts at short notice this year - this made an extra 45 quilts possible. A special mention to Jan Garton who has an amazing ability to conjure up labels at very short notice on a wide variety of themes! Also, thank you to those who sent in cards to be held in reserve for backfilled quilts, it is really appreciated. Leanda and Heather For generally for helping with "back-room" admin bits - for example tracking down duplicate uploads of squares, locating squares that have jumped on to the wrong quilt page on the website, tidying up the contents of the kids' webpages and more! Pattern creators Thank you so much for those who created patterns for our Pattern listing this year. We have a large collection of legal charts now which makes themes such as Disney and Harry Potter possible Chart permission A massive thank you to Clare Bray for her high success rate in approaching companies for permission to chart our own patterns of their copyrighted characters - Transport for London gave us permission to use their symbols this year which made a London Underground quilt possible! Emergency Quilts Many thanks to Leanda and Heather for continuing to store the emergency quilt stash and sending them out quickly, sometimes at extremely short notice. Also thanks to the others who are storing emergency quilts they have made. Stitch-a-long with Merete Merete Langseth is one of our stitchers and also a fantastic pattern creator. Merete ran two stitch-a-long events for us this year on themes which are popular with children (Superheroes and Princesses) The patterns produced are really fantastic - easily equalling any official Disney pattern in our opinion! 25-30 stitchers took part in each event and many squares were produced. These will be placed on Superhero and Princess quilts in the future. Many thanks to Merete for this original idea and thank you to everyone who stitched!   Fundraising Fundraising looked like it might take a battering this year with normal events being impossible due to social distancing. The OneFamily Community Grants grant of £5000 in December 2019 (thank you again, Pat!) could not have come at a better time for us, and also many rose to the challenge to keep funds going despite the pandemic. We have managed to keep funds at comfortable levels! Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to funds this year, it is really appreciated. A special mention to the below who organised specific fundraising events (Please let us know if we've left anyone out so we can add you!)  Thank you so much once again to you all!! Support from Businesses A big thank you to Morton Post Office for their continuing support in 2020 - always a pleasant chat and £1 off every parcel for LQUK - open on Sundays too!. Thank you very much! Thank you Katzstitch who have catered to LQUK stitchers by selling Aida in our required size (13 x 13 inches) and offering a discount on top. Thank you to Kim Hubble who has offered discount Zweigart Aida via our Facebook group. Also thank you to Kate of Lakeside Needlecraft who also sells suitable Aida. In Memoriam We would like to pay tribute to the following children who sadly passed away in 2020: Holly S Many LQ supporters joined people around the UK and indeed around the World in "Wear Pink For Hol" day as a tribute to Holly. We fondly remember Anne-Louise our stitcher and long-time supporter who very sadly passed away at the beginning of this year. We also remember Frank Osborne who was also an avid supporter and stitched beautiful squares for us and passed away in 2019. A selection of his works were received in 2020 and will be use in future fundraising items. We send their families our very best wishes and hope that 2021 will bring them happier times. And finally... No year review would be complete without taking a look back at the 203 quilts that were delivered this year. A vast amount of time and effort has gone into the following 203 quilts, thank you so much to everyone who contributed to them:
Once again, a very big thank you to you all. We look forward to continuing the LQUK work into 2021 and hopefully there are better times ahead! A Happy New Year to you all! Katherine and Gaynor x News 13 Dec 2020 - 30 Dec 2020Quilt News Just a quick update ahead of our Review of the Year tomorrow :) 7 quilts have been delivered since our last update: Amelia R's quilt (Mr Men and Little Miss) - quilted by Heather:  Bethany's quilt (Disney characters) - quilted by Katie:  Eleanor N's quilt (Moons, stars, planet, rainbow, shooting stars) - quilted by Tracey E:  Felix C's quilt (Thomas and Fun Vehicles) - quilted by Sarah:  Finley M's quilt (Space) - quilted by Linda:  Lennie E's quilt (Vehicles) - quilted by Carol:  Molly-Mae's quilt (Princesses) - quilted by Katie:  Thank you so much to everyone involved in these quilts! :) Square News We have received 45 squares since our last update! Many thanks to all those who stitched them! Comfort Pillow Group, Poland (6) Emma, Bedford, UK (2) Gail, Lochgelly, Scotland Helen, Swindon, UK (4) Jan G, Hull, UK Jan S, Enid, Oklahoma, USA Jen king, Worcester, UK Jennifer Urquhart, Glasgow, Scotland Jodi Maple, Niagara Park, Australia Julie Moody, Newark, UK Kerry, Aldershot, UK (4) Miss Debbie Elkington, Boston, Lincs, UK Nancy Lowe, Tamworth, UK Nicola, St Albans, UK (2) Nicola Hargreaves, Barnsley , UK (4) Paula Dewar, Glasgow, Scotland (2) Sam, Leicester , UK Sandra, Shefford, England (3) Sandra Buck, Bedford, UK Shirley, Worthing, Sussex, England (6) Donations Many thanks for those who have sent us donations, it is very much appreciated :) |
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