Quilts for Care Leavers Quiltathon

I'm Liz Holpin and I ran a Quiltathon for Quilts for Care Leavers on 20th and 21st October 2021.  We quilted 69 quilts in two days and thanks to the generosity of many people we raised £860 on this gofundme page for the backing fabric.

 

We had 12 Handi Quilter longarms at our Pinhole Quilts Showroom and we turned our showroom over to this worthwhile cause for four days in order to quilt as many as possible. 25 amazing volunteers sewed, quilted and bound the quilts.

 

 

 

 

As a business we have also donated the lunches, the thread and all the supplies to run the longarm quilting machines. However, we don't have money for the backing fabric which currently I've paid for! I'm looking for £700 to cover the cost of the backing fabric. If you could help to raise this it would be really appreciated.

 

Let me tell you more about Quilts for Care Leavers....

 

Every year children leave the care system. In 2013 Lemn Sissay MBE who is a poet and Chancellor of the University of Manchester was himself in care, started Christmas Dinners. As he says in his autobiography so often all he wanted was a hug. Quilts are like hugs. In 2018 Maggie Lloyd-Jones and others started Quilts for Care Leavers to provide quilts at the Christmas Dinners with the aim of providing that "hug". So the quilts we are making are called Hugs and the labels on the back have positive messages that say "You are special. This hug was made for you."

 

They each get to choose their own quilt. It may be the first choice they have been able to make of something that they get to keep, that is theirs.

 

I knew of Lemn Sissay as I studied at Manchester University and he has shown that even with a difficult start in life you can succeed in life. Knowing someone believes in you can be so important. I was moved to help this amazing cause and your help would be very much appreciated in achieving this.

 

Any funds that are left over will be used to fund fabric for the quilts for 2022. Nothing will be wasted - rather like our patchwork quilts :-)

 

 

 

Thank you so much!!

 

Love from

Liz