Google or Stitch a Hurricane at Home

All is well here in sunny Southern California To my friends and readers in the northeast: Don't take risks.

Besides doling out not-too-useful advice like that, how can the rest of us help? Obviously, money and blood donations are needed much more than quilts. To donate money to the Red Cross, visit http://www.redcross.org; or call 10800-Red-Cross. To make a quick $10 donation to the Red Cross, text the word "Redcross" to 90999.

To make an appointment for blood donation, go to http://www.redcrossblood.org/make-donation.

If you're in the affected zone, but lucky enough to have electricity and no flooding, it's a good idea to spend your time safe indoors, making  or at least googling hurricane quilts. You will be needing to make one in a few months, when the crisis is over.  To set a good example, I went looking around online for hurricane/quilting connections, here's some of what I found:

• A Nebraskan quilter hopes her group's charity quilts will help Sandy victims: http://www.1011now.com/home/headlines/Nebraska-Volunteers-Aid-Hurricane-Sandy-Victims-on-East-Coast--176352211.html

• Suzanne's Quilt Shop in Georgia sponsored a project memorializing the 2004 hurricane season, which involved 4 hurricanes in 2 months (Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan). They asked customers to submit hurricane-influenced blocks, plus a $5.00 donation to the Red Cross per block. Nice fundraiser. View those blocks at: http://www.suzannesquilts.com/hurricane_quilt.htm

• Similarly, the South-East Art Quilters of Florida sponsored an art quilt project, responding to Hurricane Andrew. Find their quilts here: http://www.miamisci.org/hurricane/quiltart.html

• One artist's emotional modern art quilt response to the horror of Hurricane Katrina, and its aftermath http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/2008/08/katrina.html. 

• A spectacular kaleidoscopic hurricane quilt, constructed in a solar-powered camper after Hurricane Ike decimated Galveston, Texas in 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksuedeshoe/5163596380/

• A log-cabin type block: http://www.flickr.com/photos/somegirl2/4412062181/

• You can practically feel the wind whipping the palm fronds in this quilt by Cheryl Costley of Suttons Bay, Michigan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toubib46/4153245786/in/photostream/

• An antique turtle quilt that was, sadly, lost to Hurricane Katrina: http://pinterest.com/pin/228698487297563606/. That looks like a fun quilt to make!

And finally: 

Extraordinary images from Hurricane Sandy's devastation of New York. http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/29-breathtaking-photos-of-hurricane-sandy-devastat . Image #22 on this page is a rainbow. We really hope that one's real.

PS Sorting real from fake Sandy photos: http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/viral-photos-that-arent-hurricane-sandy .