By Fran Abbey
Barriere Community Quilters
The Barriere Community Quilters are participating in the ‘Big Quilt Bee 2017, 150 Year Birthday Celebration’ held in conjunction with the Canadian Quilters Association (CQA).
The goal is to have 1000 quilts made to be distributed to the 14 Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada that have a total of 469 rooms. These rooms are full all year, and consistently have waiting lists for residency while children are treated in hospital.
Canadian quilt guilds were asked to make 12.5 inch slab blocks; each containing one piece of special 150 year birthday material available at their local quilt store. These blocks were to be made into quilt tops, left as is, or made into a complete quilt.
The finished quilts from Kamloops and area will be sent to Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver.
The blocks and unfinished tops will be sent to Quilt Canada 2017 in Toronto, Ontario.
There will be sewing machines, long arms, mid arms, and an army of volunteers ready to work on quilt tops and stacks of slab blocks made by hundreds of Canadian Quilters. These quilts will then be distributed to Ronald McDonald Houses throughout Canada.
This will be one of the biggest Quilting Bee’s ever.
Barriere Community Quilters are happy to be involved in this worthwhile project, and feel it is a way of paying it forward for the 800 plus quilts we received from across Canada after the communities of this area experienced the devastating McLure Wildfire of 2003.