Cider Mill Quilts

This week I'm prepping fabric for the Cider Mill Quilts project. It is project started 25 years ago by two quilting moms. They had fourth graders and had suggested to their child's teacher to do a charity quilt with the students. Each child would paint a picture on a white fabric square and the two mom's would make the squares up into a quilt tops, layer and tie them and then the children tied the knots The children loved the project and the two quilts that were made were donated to Project Linus. The quilts looked like this:

Word spread and the next year the teacher (and other teachers) asked them to do the project again with their classes. The third year (enter my second son) the two women made quilts with all seven 4th grade classes and the project has continued ever since. The necessary changes were that they now put out requests from the 4th grade mothers to help with the sewing of the tops, layering, turning and threading the ties. I helped sewed that year and officially two more years (for ds #2, 3, and 4s classes). I also stepped in several years when they were short on sewers and needed help. Twenty five years later there are now fourteen 4th grade classes (there have actually been as many as seventeen classes) and 2 quilts of the same pattern are made for each class. One of the two original women is sadly no longer with us and last year I stepped in to help fill the void.

So this week I'm prepping green and yellow fabric - 14 yards green and 5 yards yellow washed, ironed and cut.

I just finished ironing the yellow so I'll be cutting that tonight.

I also sewed up a quick St. Patrick's Day pillowcase for dgd, Paige.

Sharing at Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday