Quilts for Fort McMurray

Like many of you, we have been watching the news about the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The entire city of over 80,000 people has been evacuated. Whole neighbourhoods have been lost to the fire. People have lost everything. The images from the disaster are shocking and heartbreaking. And unfortunately, the fire is still spreading.

It’s hard to know what to do to help. But as quilters, maybe the thing that we can contribute is to give back a bit of comfort, by making some quilts for these families and evacuees who have gone through so much.

We are collecting quilt blocks to make quilts that will be sent to those who have lost their homes in Fort McMurray. We would be grateful for blocks that you might be able to contribute:

• Maple Leaf quilt blocks at 12.5″ square (unfinished; so they can be joined and finish at 12″ square)
• Colours can include blue, yellow, green, red and white (like the Alberta flag) but two-colour blocks are preferred (i.e., use two of these colours in combination, like blue/yellow); any mix of print or solid fabrics are fine
• Use any Maple Leaf pattern you’d like, or you can make an improvised leaf block - it’s up to you. Here are some examples of 12.5″ unfinished Maple Leaf tutorials online (and I’ll have one shortly, too):
• From “All Patched Up”
• From equilters.com
• Stacey's tutorial slostudio.ca
• 
  

Please mail blocks by June 30, 2016 to:

Quilts for Fort McMurray, c/o Mad About Patchwork, 2477 Huntley Road Stittsville ON, K2S 1B8, CANADA

If you are in the Ottawa area, you can drop blocks off in person to Mad About Patchwork.

Thank you so much for your generosity and help. We will post updates on this, as we get more information. 

If you have any questions please comment below. 

* * * 

Other ways to help:

If you have finished quilts that you would like to donate, you can get in touch with the Quilts for Fort McMurray group on Facebook. Or, check out the listing of places collecting quilts on Cheryl Arkison’s blog.

You could also consider donating to the Canadian Red Cross, which is responding to this emergency.

*This was mostly copied from slostudio.ca - Stacey was very kind to start blogging and instagramming this initiative, while we were working the OMQG room at the Common Thread Quilt Guild Show.