Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Again my rules....

So I broke them.  This time the rule that I broke had to do with fabric donation.  

I am currently overwhelmed by my lack of fabric management!  I am not accepting fabric donations at this time.  But with every rule there is an exception...and this donation meet the criteria for the exception.

The donation came from my friend Jan M.. She did a little cleaning in her sewing room and found some fabric that she was sure she would not use.  

Now I know that Jan only purchases quilt shop quality fabric... and usually purchases large quantities when she does.  Add to those facts that this fabric was already on mini bolts, which means I don't have any work involved with the donation,  how could I say no? I would have had to have been insane.


Here is what the donation looked like when it arrived;

When I finally decided that I really needed to be able to find my quilt room floor again.  I took this box and did this with it.


From the box, to the shelf.  Easy peasy.  I can see the colors, I can tell about how much fabric is on the bolt.  I see several backings for Hope quilts in there.  

At some point I will get all my colors on the same shelves....but that day isn't today.  Today I am just satisfied to have the box off the floor.  And extremely grateful that Jan thought of Iowa Comfort!

Have a good week everyone!



Tuesday, December 23, 2014

okay so I lied.

What is the old saying?  God laughs when you make plans...

I told you on my last post that would be the final quilt of 2014 to be donated.  That was the plan.

Plans do get changed though, and so did mine.

I received a call from Colleen T.  Through the grapevine she had heard of a family that could use some assistance during the Christmas season.  They had actually made on to an organizations list, and the family had created a wish list.

The family is a single mother with 4 children.  Two boys and two girls.  This particular family also happens to be a family that sought refugee status here in the United States.  Limited communication skills were available.... but given what they were asking for it was obvious that there was a need.

The family asked for used beds, the mother wanted to get her children up off the floor.  The only other thing I remember on the list was A LAMP.  Not toys, not electronics not even food or clothes.  The mother just didn't want her children to have to continue to sleep on the floor.

Colleen asked if by chance I had any quilts that I could donate.  The group that was trying to assist this family were going to not only try to supply at least 3 double beds.... but also the bedding for them.

This family is in Polk county, and our donations usually stay local.... but I will just say it, they are my rules and I decided to break them.

My quilting machine had been in service for a little while. But I got it back in time to quilt up this top that was donated by Jean V.


Colleen put the binding on from her stash.  She tells me that this quilt will be on an eleven year old girls bed.  It sounds as though there will be a bed for each of the family, and they won't have to share.

Jean I just want to thank you for the beautiful quilt top.  I had felt bad that I hadn't gotten it quilted yet.  I now realize that it always had a home... I just didn't know where it was yet.

Colleen thank you for binding the top, and all the time you took to help this family.

I am glad that we were able to supply a little bit of comfort to this family.  

I hope each and everyone of you have a wonderful Christmas.


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The last quilt of 2014

Here is the last quilt of 2014.



One of the ladies from the Adel Christian Church pieced this top for us.  I quilted it and also managed to get it bound.

It has already been donated.  One of the staff members at the center thought that this little quilt would be given as a Christmas gift this season.

I know this post is short and sweet....but I have Christmas and birthday presents to wrap.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Donation


This quilt top was donated by Jean V.  Much earlier in the year.  I love Jeans quilts!  They are always bed size and so cute.  I have at least one more of her quilt tops to get quilted...maybe two.  She is such a supporter of  Iowa Comfort and I so appreciate her time and talents.

Speaking of time and talents.... Nancy H took this quilt home after I quilted it and bound it for me.  She is also one of my volunteers that I so appreciate, always willing to help anyway she can.  She has even volunteered to help me get caught up on getting our hope quilts quilted.  I will be sending her two of them to quilt for us.  

Nancy has a long arm and these will be great practice quilts for her to play on. I call that a win, win, win situation.  Nancy gets to practice, I get two more tops moved off the to do list, and the center has two more finished products to pass out.

Right this minute I am sitting on standby..... you see that part below.

It actually holds my bobbin case and hook in place on my longarm.  It is suppose to be straight. 

So even though APQS is booked tight for service the next 6 weeks. They recognized that this was a problem that I could not fix myself and allowed me to bring Lenni up for service this morning.  

I hope to get her back tomorrow.  I have 4 customer quilts to get finished, and then I can start working on that pile of tops for next years quilts.

More show n tell next week!  I promise to have a post up the next couple of weeks. (I can make that promise because I am going to draft them tonight)

Have a great week everyone!


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

What I am thankful for

Hard to believe it is the week of Thanksgiving.  

As I plan my week, which involves cooking, baking, customer quilting and cleaning pretty much in that order.

I wanted to take a break and give thanks to all the wonderful people who have helped Iowa Comfort over the last three years.

Originally I wanted to do one quilt a month.  As of the end of this year we have donated 157 quilts to Dallas and Madison county charities.  We have also donated countless doggy beds and blankets to AHeintz57 dog shelter.   I actually delivered 6 beds to the shelter this past Saturday.  Amy told me that they came at a wonderful time.  She said that they had some bony mommies that were so going to enjoy being up off the cold hard floor.

Needless to say with all of your help we have brought comfort and joy to many over the last several years. I am so very thankful to each and everyone of you that has helped along the way.

My volunteers are very generous and talented.  

Some made whole quilts ready for donation, others made quilt tops.  
I have had longarmers donate their time and talents on some of the projects.  

Others have come to community sew days and sewn, pressed, cut kits or helped with fabric management.

I have those who have taken scraps home and cut them down for the doggy beds.

Others donated fabric....oh the pretty fabric I have received. 

My all time favorite volunteer are those who offered to bind for me.  There is no way we would have donated a fraction of the quilts without your generosity.

So thank you one and all for your generous spirits.  I truly appreciate each and everyone of you.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday with family or friends.






Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Absent

Yes I have been absent over the past several weeks.  Additionally I have also felt a lot of guilt over not getting my posts up each week.

Recently my youngest son made the following off the wall comment to me.  " So Mom, you say you can only manage 2 obsessions at a time?"  It wasn't exactly what I had said.....but he is right I have taken on more than I should have at one time.  

Man I hate it when he is right. Especially when it means I need to set some priorities in my life.

I have taken the last several weeks to think about the things I love to do, the things I like to do, the things I must do and what is no longer bringing me any joy at all.  

For those of you who don't know I really have about four obsessions right now.... 5 if you count traveling....and I really can't juggle them all.

The top of my list right now is regaining my health.  This blog isn't about weight loss or exercise so I am not going into detail here.  But a good chunk of my day is dedicated to this goal, which means other things are moving to the back burner.

Iowa Comfort is not moving to the back burner, but I am setting different goals for it.
  
Right now my time is being spent quilting customer quilts for Christmas.  That is how I fund Iowa Comfort, so very few quilts will be finished between now and the end of the year. 

I am spending my evenings working on fabric management, and kitting bed size quilts. 

Once I have the current quilt tops I have on hand quilted, I may organize a community sew day.  Let me be clear that is next year if at all.

Either way the goal for next year is 12 bed size quilts, anything more than that is extra.

For those of you who have donated fabric or other supplies.... no worries they will be used for the intended purpose.  

What is moving completely off of my plate is the doggy beds. The scraps are over taking my house, and I am overwhelmed when I can't get them made up quickly or completely.  ( currently I  have 5 that need to have the sham made for them).  I also have 4 garbage sacks of scraps that were not cut down small enough that I will need to work with prior to it going into a project.  This project does not bring me any joy anymore.  So I will not accept anymore  scraps for this purpose.  I would encourage you to do as I am going to do.  I will continue to make them for A Heintz57 shelter from my own projects.  You can do the same, they will take any size you want to make.  They do appreciate a case or a sham over the bed so that it can be easily laundered.

Last but not least is this blog.  At this moment in time, it feels like a job.  I plan to continue it....just not on a designated weekly schedule.  My posts will be sporadic between now and the end of the year.  Hopefully once things calm down I will have plenty to share again.

Hope everyone has a great week!





Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Camera not working

I have been on vacation the last couple of weeks.  My husband and I took an impromptu trip to the Canadian Rockies earlier this month.  Which means that not a lot has been done in regard to Iowa Comfort the past two weeks.

To add insult to injury my camera has decided to be difficult this afternoon.

I have two finished quilts, but the camera won't let me get upload them for some reason.

This coming week is going to be a busy one for me.  I will be working on customer quilts. So not a lot of time for Iowa Comfort quilts.  I am going to try to take inventory on how many quilt tops I have that need to be quilted.

I know this post has been short and sweet.  I will leave you with a totally no quilty picture of me standing on a glacier.


The silly girl from Iowa believed the weather man and did not pack our winter coats for our trip.  It was 25 degrees on that glacier and that sweatshirt was no where close to warm enough!

Have a great week!


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Diane's donation

Diane L. has a magic closet that holds all kinds of quilty treasures in it.

Diane is also in the process of moving from a house that she has lived in for MANY years, to a new house.  Gives me chills just to think about having to move.  I have lived in this house for over 30 years.

So as she was sorting through her quilt tops, she ran across one that wasn't going to make the move to the new house with her.  Instead she decided to donate it to us, and allow it to bring cheer to someone who was having a rough go of it.

 
I really like this quilt top!  It is always amazing to me what I see in a picture versus looking directly at the top.  Here in this picture I see the same block in three different color ways. Two with dark green pedals, three with white and green floral pedals and four with light green pedals.  I find that extremely interesting and fascinating.  I would of never thought about doing something like that and yet I love it.  And yes I know that there are subtle differences in each of the blocks, so no two are identical.

This top reads very feminine to me and is going to be a great donation quilt for the center after I get it quilted.  I think I will spend just a little more time with this one, and maybe quilt feathers on it to make it a little more special than what I normally do with these donations.

Thank you Diane for sharing once again!  That magic closet of yours must go all the way to China.

Have a good week everyone.

 

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Doggy donations

 I have had more doggy bed stuffing arrive over the last week.

 Kathy B sent this bag to me.



Betty W. brought the above 3 bags to me one day last week.

Since both ladies followed my wishes and had the contents cut down in to sliver strips or squares no larger than 2 x 2.  These bags went directly into doggy beds.

Here are the three beds I was able to make out of the above four sacks.

Now I am not quiet done with them yet.  I still need to make the sham to go over the bed.  Thus allowing laundering without having to launder the bed itself.

HUGE THANKS to Betty and Kathy for their donations, but even more for cutting that fabric down and ensuring there was nothing in those bags that could hurt a volunteer or the doggies.

As a reminder, if you are wanting to donate doggy bed material.  I am accepting only under the following conditions.

1 Large pieces of material that can be used to create the bed or sham.

2. Stuffing material must be cut down to small slivers if strips or squares no larger than 2 x 2, smaller would be even better.

3. Sack can only have fabric in it.  No needles, pins, embroidery floss or other non fabric or batting materials.

4. Your name must be on the outside of the sack.

Any donations that don't meet those requirements will not be used.  I have already thrown away several bags that were left at the Adel Library for me that did not meet these requirements.

Have a good week everyone!


Tuesday, September 23, 2014

A couple more finished quilts

Today I am doing show and share.  A couple more finished quilts that have already been delivered to the center.


This top was made by Jean V. a long time supporter of Iowa Comfort.  If I remember correctly she was using up fabric from her crayola quilt.  She absolutely refused to put any of the fabric back in her stash!  The quilt was large enough that it will fit on a bed, and when I delivered it last week, it was the first one that was picked up and admired.  

Thanks Jean for all of your generosity and talents.


This little quilt was a panel that was donated by Diane M..  Thank you Diane for thinking of us when you were sifting through your Mom's stash and looking for new homes for her fabric.

I am trying really hard to alternate the hope quilts.  I needed a little girl quilt to make the donation even (3 for girls 3 for boys) so I popped this panel on the longarm and got it quilted.  I didn't quite have it completely bound when I took the picture, but it was prior to the delivery.


This was what I delivered to the center last week.  There are 9 quilts ranging from hope to queen size, one comforter, and 33 pillowcases loaded up there.

Each and every item was gladly received and very much appreciated.  The director came out and personally asked me to extend a thank you to each and every person that has helped Iowa Comfort.  My guess is that when these donations are handed out they probably mean more to the recipient than I or we will ever know.

Thanks again to everyone!  Have a wonderful week.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Pillow cases

Yes we are still collecting pillow cases for the center.

Sherry doesn't quilt, but likes to work on pillow cases for us.  She asked for six pillow case kits, and worked on them off and on over the last couple of months.

Here are the completed cases ready for delivery.



These pillow cases were kitted with donated fabric.  So I would not call them beautiful....but I also would not call them ugly.  They are soft to the touch and functional which is really all they need to be.

As a reminder the center can use about 75 pillow cases a year.  I would encourage anyone looking to purge their stash of that fabric  that you look at and say " What was I thinking when I bought that!"  Come on you know we all have some of that fabric in our stash. Cut it down and make a pillow case out of it.  You end up helping someone and making room in your storage area.

 Penny W. mother made these two beauties for us.  These are bright and comfy and I am sure they will brighten up someone's day when they receive them.

Awesome job ladies!  Thank you so much for donating your time, talents and fabric to Iowa Comfort.

Have a great week everyone!


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Iowa Comfort has awesome volunteers!

Case in point, Kathy B!  Kathy is a local longarm quilter, that answered a call to quilt a top that was donated to us.

I do not free hand quilt.  

This top had some heavy crewel embroidery on it, and I was afraid that I might damage the top or my machine if I tried to plow through it.  

Here is the quilt finished.


It is double to queen size.  Just the perfect size for one of the family beds at the center.  See all that white in the quilt... that is what I knew I would be in trouble with.

Kathy echoed around the crewel to make sure to secure those area's.  Very nice!  I know I could not have done it.

I was actually afraid that I might have to find another organization to donate this top to.  I am so glad that Kathy offered her amazing services and quilted it so the quilt could be donated to the center as the donor had wished.

In addition to quilting and binding this quilt (yay the binding was an extra bonus).  Kathy found and rescued a comforter.  She washed it up and donated it to the center.
This comforter is twin size, and I see it on a little girls bed don't you.  I know I need to get it delivered prior to my granddaughter Lexi coming for a visit.  Otherwise we will have a battle on our hands... she loves pink and black and anything flowers.

Now of course Kathy has gone well above and beyond at this point...wouldn't you agree?

She wasn't done..... nope.  She also brought me a big bag of goodie toys!  You know the ones that we send along with the Hope quilts.  

Take a look:


This past weekend Owen and I attended the Conker Cancer event hosted by Adel Quilting and Dry Goods at the Adel Library.

Kathy brought these stuffed animals to the event.... and Owen had a great time going through the bag checking out each and everyone of them.  They all received his stamp of approval! (On a personal note, I am sure him playing with them allowed us to stay a little longer.  I knew I needed to be there, and I had forgotten that I had him on Saturday.  So I said we would go until he got unmanageable... he never did)

Like I said Iowa Comfort has some awesome volunteers.... and Kathy falls into that category for sure.  Thank you so much for time and talents in quilting this top for us.... and for all of your other treasures!

Hope everyone has a great week!


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Quilt donation

We received a twin quilt for donation.  Did you catch that I said quilt, not quilt top.  I get several a year but rarely are they twin size.

This quilt was donated by Jacque Johnson, owner of Adel Quilting and Dry Goods.  The quilt was used by her mother, and now donated in her mothers memory.

Lets take a look at this beauty.


If memory serves, Jacque told me that this quilt was one of a past strip club that she put on.

I love the colors in it, but then I have always been partial to blue and yellow quilts.  Such a lovely quilt!


Even the back is beautiful!  Love that floral print!  This quilt is so pretty that you could use either side.  Well I might.  :-)

Speaking of Jacque I wanted to let you all know that she is hosting a charity event this coming Saturday from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Adel Library.  September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.  So Jacque teamed up with Conkerr Cancer Org..  

For that four hours volunteers will be kitting and making pillowcases for children suffering from cancer.  Pillowcases are delivered to Blank Children's Hospital, Children's Cancer Connection, University of Iowa Children's Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House.

Saturday help is needed to cut, press and fold fabric for pillow case kits.  We also will need help stitching those pillow cases.

Even if you can't come for the full four hours, come by for a few minutes on Sept. 6th and help out some kids.  I'm sure it will make you smile.

Adel Quilting is supplying the fabric.  Contact Jacque at 515-993-1170 if you need more information.

I will have Owen that day, but I plan to bring him along and I will be there until he decides I won't be.  I plan on bringing my cutting mat and rotary along with me.

Hope to see you there.





Tuesday, August 26, 2014

4 little quilts

This post is going to be short and sweet because last week and this week was and is going to be hectic.



About a week ago De Soto got hit by hail.  Here is a picture of a couple of the smaller pieces that hit. ( I wasn't going outside to get the bigger pieces).  The storm lasted about 25 minutes, and at 4:30 in the morning my back yard was covered and 100% white.

So this coming week is all about insurance investigators and contractors. Very little time for anything else.

I do have 4 little quilts ready for donation.  So that is what this weeks post will be.




This little quilt was pieced for me by ladies of the Adel Christian Church.  The top is a warm and cuddly flannel.  Such a cute top!



No I didn't upload the same quilt twice.  These are two panels that were donated to us.  A couple of weeks ago I was able to get them quilted up and I finished the binding on them about a week ago.

The center asked for more toddler quilts that could be given to boys.  I am hoping that these two meet that request.  To help it along I quilted them in firetrucks and police cars.


Another flannel quilt for a little girl.  I just love those kitties and rubber duckies.


These are the toys that I will be sending along with each of the little  quilts.

Well as promised this is short and sweet.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!


Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Doggy bed delivery

Well I finally was able to deliver the doggy beds that I had on hand to AHeintz 57 rescue.



There were eleven beds of various sizes ready to be delivered.  Took both the cargo area and the backseat of my Escape to  get them delivered.  Lucky for me my granddaughter Lexi was visiting and helped carry them all in.

This past week I worked on using up that batting from Diane and I had a couple of sacks of precut scraps from Jacque and Joyce to use up also.  So I was working on more beds.


It is a good thing I have my own quality control dog on site.  :-)


Hawkeye takes his job really seriously.  These beds aren't even done and he is already testing them for comfort.

These five beds still need their shams.  That is what I am going to work on this week while I am quilting my customer quilts.  The plan is to get the pillows measured and the shams cut out at night.  Then sew the sham together while Fonzi is doing his thing the next day.


I pulled these two panels out of my closet this week also.  I have used them previously to audition different quilting patterns.  I was able to get them bound (practiced my machine binding), and they will be delivered to AHeintz 57 also.  My guess is that they will find there way into the puppy pool.

I also was able to quilt and bind another small quilt for CIAC this past week.  I will try to get it photographed sometime this week... maybe I should plan on getting their donation ready also.

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here.  I have had several calls from customers to quilt for them.  I think I will have about 7 to do in a 2 week period.  Works out just about right.  It will be time to order batting before long.

Everyone have a great week.



Here is a photo from AHeintz 57 face book page, showing two of our donations being used.