Blogging with a Purpose...

I am finding this to be harder than I thought. There are so many blogs, and for so many different reasons. I have decided that my first nomination for the blogging with a purpose award is Michele. She shares herself with the world at With Heart and Hands, A Quilting Journey. It's also a journey of many other kinds. Congratulatins Michele *VBS*
**Wednesday** My second nomination for the award is Clare. She heads up the Quilts 4 Leukaemia blog. It's such a wonderfully purposeful blog..please do stop over and see the quilts and link to Clare's other blog at the top of the page. Congratulations Clare, keep up the great work you're doing.

What's new???

This handsome bag is new, for one thing...*VBS* It was made by Michele.She is the current reader of our orphan train book "They Named Me Marjorie".The book has been on the 'move' around blogland, traveling from Orphan Train volunteer to volunteer. It began it's journey with Tracey,Quilting in Conn. She graciously sent it on to Carol.From Carol E. the book came to me, Finn.I'm loving this idea!
Here is what Michele has to say about her bag:"I even used a scrap practice piece...the appliqued heart..that I was testing thread tension on. The meandering on it was awful! All it was, or was meant to be was a thread tester! But an orphan is an orphan and needs to be loved. So, I grabbed it and put her on the front of the bag and loved her anyway! The rest are the odds and ends leftover from my own Orphan Train quilt."
The book is a great read. Interesting, moving and certainly holds you captive til you see how it all come out. With limited eye sight, I'm not much of a reader anymore, but I read it from cover to cover and would have read more if there was more! I chose Michele to receive it next.
Since Michele has been in the Land of Insomia lately, she read it pretty much all at one sitting...*S* She wrote a lovely report of the book and you can read that at her blog. She felt a bag made from her bits of leftover orphans was needed before it left Oregon.The book is now traveling to Jeanne.Carol E's idea is for the book to travel to as many of the Orphan Train volunteers(those who are working with their orphan blocks and get published here)as possible. I love Carol's idea. I had included a newspaper clipping from Carol E's St. Paul, MN newspaper regarding the reunion of Orphan Train riders from Minnesota. They had their reunion this past summer. If Google Orphan Train you will find lots of information including history, pictures, and a list of nation wide reunions of those children who rode those trains west. Of the over 300,000, only a small number are still alive today. It all happened between the 1850's and the early 1900's.
If you are interested in the book, click on the Crocus Hills link up on my side bar under Special Connections. It was written by the granddaughter of Marjorie.
Michele chose to add the travel bag to the 'trip' the book is taking. If you have something appropiate or meanful, please feel free to include it when you send the book onward.
Postage to where ever you send it is up to each individual. If you have no one to send it onward to, please contact Carol E. and return the book to her. Hugs for everyone, Finn

With Heart and Hands, A Quilting Journey: Riding Finn's Orphan Train: I'm Getting On Board!

(In Michele's own words:)
Ever since Finn published her new blog Riding the Orphan Train, I have been feeling like a left out straggler. I desperately wanted to join in the fun, and hop the train, but I could only find a few lost geese and some straggling blocks destined for potholder glory.

As the sign by my computer says 'Think Twice". I had to post-it note those infamous last words because once is never enough for me. No sooner do I write a comment on someone's blog and hit 'publish' do I then have a good suggestion or more to say. No sooner do I sign off the internet (with my dial-up modem, no less) head downstairs, do I then remember why I came upstairs and what it was that I needed to do on the computer, in the first place!

So, naturally, as soon as I began to bemoan my lack of 'orphans' for the making of an Orphan Train quilt, do I realize that I had totally forgotten about some odds and ends panel prints stashed in a box, buried under my sewing table in my tiny little sewing haven. Climbing under that table and getting those boxes open, takes a Houdini/contortionist, but somehow, I managed to break into and out of the box. I found some orphans looking for a good home and I get to play blocks with Finn after all!

In the hidden stash, some sets of panel blocks...the 'Americana' ones most likely from the 90's, and the 'little people ones' probably from the 70's. It didn't take Einstein to figure out how to cut them up into useable blocks for an Orphan Train quilt...especially when I tossed it the 6 orphan blocks snatched back from potential potholder glory and the 4 'mistake' pinwheel blocks where they twirled instead of whirled or worst of all...just plain stood still. I tossed in a few of my lost geese and a couple of strips from one of my patriotic heartstrings and I had a plan!

And of course, AFTER I take the picture, I have my second thoughts. I haven't placed them as they really need to be...leaving spacing for the fillers etc. and some of them need to move hither and yon to actually sew into rows. But..oh well...it's an orphan train...there are always stragglers and misfits and they all still fit in and belong together eventually ;)

So, Finn....sign me up and tell Miss Ebby to make room for one more...cuz I'm getting on board!
Whoo Hooo !

Posted by Quilting Journey at 4:06 AM