Pillowcases!

Sherry loves to help out Iowa Comfort.  She especially enjoys working on smaller projects... which makes pillow cases the perfect fit for her.

Here are four more that she has completed for us.

I have an online friend that makes pillowcases every year for her school district.  The school nurse knows which child will likely not receive anything for Christmas.  The nurse uses the pillowcase to put small toys, and other articles in and gives it to the child the last day before winter break.  Since the nurse has her eye open for all of the children, regardless of age... I thought I might donate these pillowcases to my friend for the cause.  The nurse believes she will need 35 or so.... but every year the need is more than what is anticipated.  I thought maybe these could go to older children within the school district.

By the way with these four pillowcases we have 66 completed. Our goal was to make 75 this year.  I think we are going to make it!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Jan's gifts

Before I write the main post, I just want to put it out there again.  I have reached my maximum capacity for storage.  So I am not accepting donations at this time.  Of course every rule has an exception.... and Jan's gifts fit the need.

Jan loves to quilt!  And Jan is a perfectionist, like most quilters.  She ordered a backing for a quilt of hers online.  In the picture it looked like it was going to be a perfect match for the quilt she was working on.....then it arrived.

Jan was not in love with it, and she could not bring herself to use it in the project.  So she donated it to Iowa Comfort.

Now I can always use 108 inch wide backing!  And I actually had one of the bed size quilt tops that I did not have a backing for.

The quilt top mentioned also has brown in it.... so I think it will be a really good fit.  Should I decide that it isn't.  Jan also donated this.

I will use these to make a strip quilt, and use the backing above on the quilt top.

Thank you Jan for all of your generosity over the last two years!  You are the best!

Better late than never

Here it is! The completed hexi quilt from Dottie.  Oh do you happen to remember that Dotti hand pieced this top?  

Once I started to quilt it I realized it truly was a quilt of a different era.  Those hexi patches are made from scrap pieces of clothing, or other fabric.  There was polyester, knit and cotton fabric in this top. I love tops like this, where quilters made due with what they had... and re-purposed fabric once it had completed it's initial function. 

 I have had this quilt top since February.  It was donated to me thru Deb Y.  She knew of a quilter that was no longer able to continue to quilt due to heath reasons. Several of her quilt tops came to Iowa Comfort.

Nancy H. generously offered to bind it for me, and I picked it back up from her this last Monday night.  It was donated to the center on Friday.

As long as I am showing you one of Dottie's completed quilts... I think I will show you the one I took off the longarm on Thursday.

I am still looking for a binding for this quilt.  When this donation originally came in, there were several sheets donated also.  I have used those sheets as backing (trying to stay as close to Dottie's vision as I could).  The backing is a soft green, blue, yellow and cream colored print.  The print is a large floral print.  I know it doesn't sound like the two would go together.... but they do.  Infact this quilt could be reversible.  Either side will be beautiful on a bed.  
I am leaning towards just a plain muslin binding on it, or maybe a soft green or brown.  I'll have to hit the fabric bins to see what will work.

Looking for binding will have to wait until Monday.  I have Owen this weekend, and this grandma is going to spend her time playing!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sorry I am late

I was hoping it would stop raining long enough for me to get a quick picture of the hexi quilt.

Nancy gave it back to me last night after binding it for me.  Unfortunately it is still raining here in De Soto.

I'll try to get a picture later this afternoon if I do I will get it up on the blog.

The rest of the week I am working on getting a donation over to the center, and try to get at least one more of Dottie's quilt tops quilted.

I am also working on a couple of comfort quilts for friends of mine in the quilting community. 

It will be a busy week.

Hope you all are enjoying the cooler weather and the rain.

A day of sewing

Yesterday was Open Sew Friday.  I didn't make it to Open Sew Thursday, but I did go yesterday.  

There were only two of us there yesterday, so we had lots of room to spread out.

Celia stopped by and picked up three of our Hope Quilts that I quilted this week.  She took them home to work on binding them for me.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH! 

I decided that it really was okay for me to work on a quilt for me.  So I made scrappy 9 patches, and watched a small bright quilt top form on the floor.  Since I had altered the pattern and decided to make the quilt larger, I would cut and sew, and reevaluate how many more blocks I would need.

Earlier this week one of my customers brought me these:

  Isn't this a bright and cute little quilt!  It will cheer up a small child in no time at all!  And the fabric that I was working with yesterday will make a great scrappy binding for it.

Judy also brought me this little bag of scraps.  A majority of it is cut down to 2 1/2 inch strips.  Which is great because I found a quilt pattern on Bonnie Hunters sight that I see myself making next year for Iowa Comfort.  It is called Strip Twisting.  I think I am going to make several of these quilts next year for the center. It will be a fast and efficient way to use up some of the stock pile of strips that I have.

So thank you Judy for the donation of the quilt, and the strips!

I am heading out to farmers market with my mother in a few minutes.  Then later today I am going to head over to the cemetery to document a few more graves.

I will be back to work on Iowa Comfort quilts on Monday!

Have a great week end everyone!

Fabric snitchin dog!

I don't know about you, but I know it is time to clean the quilt room when Hawkeye is getting into my 2 1/2 inch strips for chew toys!

I had all of my strips neatly in a basket, separated by size under my longarm.  I am going to have to find a new home for that basket.  It is a good thing I love that dog!

On to what has been going on this week.  Since my last post I have quilted 2 of the hope quilts that I showed you in my last post.  The third is loaded on the longarm and ready to quilt today after I run my errands.

At night I have been working on binding.  I have completed one quilt, and just about have the second one bound.  I will also take a couple to open sew on Friday this week.

I have two customer quilts coming in this week.  So I will quilt one of those on Wednesday.  On Thursday the plan is to quilt one of the bed size quilts.

Friday at open sew I need to make some Doggy Beds.  Dear Hubby said I really need to do something with these:

All three of those bags are full of stuffing for the doggy beds.  I spent a couple of nights last week chopping it all down into small pieces.  Which brings me to my next topic.  If you are part of a small sewing group and want to help out with this project, I will gladly make the bed, then all you have to do is keep stuffing it. 

 Once it is full just sew it shut with a double seam and then drop it off to me for delivery.  The stuffing really needs to be either long sliver pieces of fabric or cut down into no larger than 2 x pieces.  Otherwise the bed doesn't fluff right, and is lopsided.  

I could also use help making up the beds.  I had hoped that the high school might be able to help with this project but I didn't get a response. :-(

I still need to work on my book work.... Swedish church records kept me from working on them Sunday.  There just isn't enough hours in the day for me!  It seems that I am constantly at battle between my two passions/hobbies. 

Well those are my plans and goals for the coming week. 

Hope you have a great week!

Inventory Complete

Well at least the inventory of quilt tops.

In my last post I told you that I was taking the quilt tops and hanging them on hangers.  The goal was organizational, but also to give me a sense of what projects I had.

Well I now know.  Take a look at part of my walk in closet.

There they are twelve bed size quilts ready to be quilted.  All but two of these quilts have backing hanging right along side of it.

There is another twin size quilt that is waiting to join the group, but it is going to need some TLC before it can.

Anyone what a project?  This quilt top needs to have all of its seams reviewed, and stitched as needed.  It also needs all of the strings cut from the backside before it can go on the long arm.  It could also use a stern pressing.  I think it will make a pretty quilt once we whip it back into shape.

Here are the first 5 hope quilts, lined up and ready for their turn on the longarm.

And here are the other 18 patiently waiting to by married with backing material.

I am really glad that I completed this project....even if it meant that the books are still not done!  For whatever reason, knowing how many tops I have has given me a sense of calm.  I can now make a schedule and set sites on completing my task.  I really do better when I can see an end to the project.  The project being these 35 quilts at the moment.

So this weekend, I will be working on finding backing for the rest of the hope quilts....and maybe book work.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Oh Dian I will be giving you a call later this week, and thank you Nancy for taking that binding project for me.

It took 7 months

Way back at the beginning of the year, I posted my New Years Resolutions.  And I must say I did better on these than any other time I thought it was a good idea to make resolutions. 

I have done a really good job of keeping the 2013 photo gallery current.

I did switch the format of the labels to follow the suggestion of law enforcement.  I also decided that I needed to go with a more generic label for these quilts.  And the label is applied prior to quilting now.  Those labels are not coming off.

I have slipped a couple of times when writing my blog post and used a last name, but I quickly edited those posts...so I am doing okay there.

Where I completely fell off the rails this month was keeping up on my paper work.  I have five weeks worth to do this afternoon.  I don't even have an excuse for why I fell off the wagon.

I could use the excuse that I was in a funk, or that I was out of town, that I was busy looking for my new car, or that I was concentrating on the 13 customer quilts I did in the last two weeks....but those are all just excuses.  Plain and simple, I just blew it off.

So guess what I am going to be doing today?  Yes I am going to be doing paper work and getting the August donation ready for delivery.

I have also started a new project, that I am hoping will help me with my organization of the tops.

I have this large walk in closet in my bedroom.  On my half of the closet there are 6 hangers with clothes on them.  I gave away most of my work clothes when I retired, for the most part I live in shorts, blue jeans and t-shirts, and they all go in the dresser.

SOOOOO I am using that space to hang my next quilt projects.  I started last night.  I took a top, found a backing that will work for it, and cut a batting for the project.  Now those three pieces are all hanging neatly on a hanger in my closet.  I even pinned the label to it.  The only thing I haven't done is dig out binding for the quilt.  My hope is to do one of these a day, making it easy to grab a project when someone volunteers to quilt one for me.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend!