September mystery quilt fabrics

We will be using the "Celebrate with Hershey" Halloween collection from Riley Blake designs for the September mystery quilt.

I have seen the sketches - it will be another cute quilt!

Give us a call to reserve your kit.

August Mystery Quilt

 Ol' St. Nicholas comes alive in this vintage postcard quilt.  Isn't it charming?

Pattern correction: In the cutting instructions we neglected to have you cut 48) 3 1/2 inch squares from the background fabric.  These will be the corners of the star blocks.

Becky created a coordinating throw pillow using additional panel squares and scraps from the quilt.  It's a little hard to see in the photo but there is a cute gift bag also created from panel squares.

The kits are ready - come and get 'em!

We are still working on fabric for the Sept. mystery.  Watch the blog as we will post the details when we get it figured out.

Second Sat. Sampler - Women of Faith and Courage

Block 4 - Eunice Kennedy Shriver

This information is taken from an article at the John Fitzpatrick Kennedy Historical Site.

Eunice Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on July 10, 1921, the fifth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Although underweight, frail, and susceptible to illness as a child, Eunice displayed great energy that was rivaled only by her intelligence and precocious nature. Mrs. Kennedy recalled her daughter’s “highly conscientious demeanor” and noted that Eunice mimicked her older brothers, acting as a leader among her younger siblings. Considered by her mother to be the most sensitive, religiously devout, and mature of the Kennedy children, Eunice developed a particularly close bond with her older sister, Rosemary, who had intellectual disabilities. This connection helped foster a lifelong dedication to empowering those who may have otherwise been marginalized by society. Through her work in politics, government, and social activism, Eunice Kennedy Shriver improved the lives of millions of people around the world.

Political Involvement

Born in 1921, the year after women first received the right to vote in federal elections, Eunice Kennedy Shriver never ran for political office. However, she took on pivotal roles in the campaigns of her brothers John, Robert, and Edward, and husband, Sargent – much as her mother had done with her own father and sons.

Eunice, and the rest of the Kennedy family, recruited and coordinated volunteer hostesses for the tea parties crucial to John’s 1952 senate campaign. Eunice also organized an elegant reception for 1,500 Irish Catholics to enlist their support, days before the upcoming election. In later campaigns for her brothers and husband, Eunice spent months traveling the country to deliver speeches at luncheons, retirement homes, colleges, fundraisers, and on radio and television programs. The hectic pace of the campaign suited Eunice’s acutely competitive drive. Eunice, who had been competing athletically since her youth, recalled, “I was twenty-four before I knew I didn’t have to win something every day.” After John’s successful 1960 campaign for the presidency, Eunice required hospitalization for fatigue and exhaustion, prompting her mother to write “I have known few people in the world to match her for initiative and energy and drive. […] She [Eunice] thinks I have a lot of energy, but she amazes me.” Around this time, Eunice was diagnosed with Addison’s disease.

Service and Activism

In 1946, Eunice began work as the executive secretary to the Juvenile Delinquency Committee at the Department of Justice. There, she demonstrated strong compassion for underprivileged youth. She created policy to prevent teenagers from dropping out of high school by teaching them trades and vocational skills. Later, she worked as a social worker at a women’s prison in North Carolina. She then joined her sisters Patricia and Jean in Chicago, where she worked with survivors of sexual abuse and teenage mothers who were under the care of the state. During those years, Eunice attended graduate school for social work at the University of Chicago and also met Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. , whom she married in 1953.

In 1958, Eunice and Sargent traveled across the country to meet leading philanthropists, researchers, and academics in an effort to improve the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, which was established in memory of Eunice’s oldest brother, Joe Jr., who was killed in WWII. With Rosemary in mind, Eunice eventually decided that the foundation should shift its focus to concentrate on funding research for children with intellectual disabilities. She spearheaded many of its initiatives over the decades that followed. During the Kennedy Administration, Eunice lobbied her older brother and his advisers to create a national committee on intellectual disabilities. She also suggested developing an organization similar to a domestic version of the Peace Corps to help those most in need. When her husband served as the ambassador to France from 1968-1970, Eunice taught a weekly class to 140 intellectually disabled children in Paris as part of an effort to educate the French citizenry about intellectual disabilities and compel its leaders to take action.

The Special Olympics

In 1961, Eunice started a summer camp for children with intellectual disabilities on the lawn of her Maryland estate. One year later, she decided that the Kennedy family should publicly acknowledge Rosemary’s condition for the first time, leading Eunice to write an essay in the Saturday Evening Post, a very popular weekly magazine. Though the wording of this article is now outdated, the article was an important contribution to disability literature. She addressed the prejudices of the general public surrounding people with intellectual disabilities and urged funding for medical research, job training, and group homes. Eunice wrote, “Like diabetes, deafness, polio, or any other misfortune, [intellectual disabilities] can happen in any family. It has happened in the families of the poor and rich, of governors, senators, Nobel prizewinners, doctors, lawyers, writers, men of genius, presidents of corporations – the President of the United States.”

Through Eunice’s encouragement and the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation’s funding, the first Special Olympics were held in 1968 at Chicago’s Soldier Field and hosted 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada. Today, the Special Olympics furthers Eunice’s mission of empowering those with intellectual disabilities and fostering competitiveness and athleticism on a worldwide scale. In 2019, nearly 115,000 Special Olympics sports competitions were hosted around the world, with more than 5.7 million athletes from 200 countries.

In recognition of her tireless efforts to improve and enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, Eunice was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and received a papal knighthood from Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. She died on August 11, 2009 at the age of 88.  

"You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory: "The right to play on any playing field? You have earned it. The right to study in any school? You have earned it. The right to hold a job? You have earned it. The right to be anyone's neighbor? You have earned it." The days of segregation and separation are over!"
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Charge to the Athletes at the Opening Ceremonies of the International Summer Special Olympics Games, South Bend, Indiana, August 2, 1987

For this block you will need:

3) 4" red squares

2) 4" brown squares

5) 4" background squares

6) 3 1/2" background squares

Draw a diagonal line on the back of each of the 4" background squares.  

Match one of these with the 4" red and 4" brown squares making sure the outside edges are aligned and the right sides are together.

Sew 1/4 inch on both sides of the drawn line.

Cut on the line.  

Square the blocks to measure 3 1/2 inches. Trim the excess points of the seams and press.

Refer to the photo below to arrange the half- square triangle patches to complete the block.

We are cutting finishing kits for the quilt. The kits are priced at $69.95 and will include everything to complete the quilt top and the binding.