Social Bite Village Quilt Drive Report 2021

I was recently sent a report with some statistics that have been gathered from the Social Bite Village project.  Since launching the village in July 2018, 39 people have been helped out of homelessness and the outcomes for almost everyone who has stayed there have been overwhelming positive. If you are interested you can read the whole report here…

And more good news was announced recently as Social Bite are now starting to work on plans to replicate the project in more cities, including Glasgow and London.

As these new projects start to move forward I will be hoping to replicate the Edinburgh Quilt Drive in these new cities. I already have a volunteer coordinator for Glasgow (thank you Muriel!)!

Before we take a look at this new bunch of donated quilts I wanted to share some comments from Denise, one of the support staff, who I met when I dropped off the quilts.

Denise has been working at the village since the beginning and she was delighted when I turned up with the quilts. She said that everyone loves the quilts and when the residents move on to permanent housing and she goes to visit them one of the first things they want to show her is their quilt on their bed.  It was always very important to me that these donated quilts would be given to residents for keeps to take with them when they left no matter what happened or where they went next so I just love to hear how much they treasure their own quilt in their new home.

She also said that one of the former femail residents had come back and asked to take another quilt as she wanted one for her grandaughter when she came to stay with her in her new home. Isn’t that lovely?!

I am so grateful to all the quilters who donated these latest quilts and all the previous quilts and I hope that reading the above quotes will be a reward in itself (though I know none of you actually need one).

These first 2 quilts were both made by Mary Donaldson from Dumfriesshire.  Mary sent me the quilt below not long after I delivered the last batch of quilts last autumn so I’ve had it with me for a while now. Mary said her husband told her it was too garish!  Well I can tell you Mary, it certainly is not garish, it’s absolutely gorgeous! Please ignore your husband on the matter of quilt design in future!

Another 2 stunners were sent from Suzanne Foster.

They are both fabulously scrappy and I particularly love the large one (close up on the left, full image at the top of the page). It’s such a cheerful happy quilt.

The red and green one (below) is also lovely but you know how I love ‘all the colours’ 😉

Thank you Susanne!

Next up is another pair, this time from Muriel Campbell.  Two very contrasting quilts, one all earthy and calming and the other so bright and funky!

My sister, Jane has also donated 2 quilts.

She used the first one to practive her FMQ skills on, to great effect. She used the quilt-as-you-go method using a pattern from Lynne Goldsworthy’s excellent Quick and Easy Quilts book.

The second quilt was also a pattern from Lynne’s book (she has made quilts from my book too!).

Jane brought it with her when she came to visit recently and we loaded it to the Moxie and Jane long-arm quilted it herself.

Sheila made this striking version of a Granny Square pattern with some wonderful meandering FMQ.

I absolutely love the palette Sarah chose for her quilt, those gorgeous yellows and mustards with the grey borders around each block makes this such a calm quilt.

One last quilt to share. A giant hexagon design with a fabulous vintage style by Jayne Clark.

It was quilted by long arm quilter Jo Riou of Loulourioux, and Jo very kindly quilted this for free!

And just look at the quilting design!  I love it and it works so perfectly with the hexagons.

A huge thanks to both Jayne and Jo and all the wonderful quilters who donated these beautiful quilts!

At this point I would normally be calling out for more quilts for the next delivery but with these 11 (and my recent Mystery Quilt) the village thinks that will do them for the rest of the year.

Plus the local organisers for Linus Quilts have offered me 30 quilts that aren’t suitable for their usual donations!!  I am going to collect them on Wednesday and I hope some of them will be suitable for Siblings Together and the rest I will hang on to for next year or for the new Social Bite Villages when they appear!

But don’t worry I’ll let you all know when I need some more!