Final Quilt Day for Japan

Today was the final gathering of the Binky Patrol workers for quilting for Japan. We worked and ate and joked and cut fabric and sorted and sewed and got a lot done! The ladies came through for me and I am buried in boxes.

This is Carla and her youngest daughter. There is no way I could have accomplished 1/10th of this project without her support and encouragement. She listened as I whined about my sore muscles and put up with all of these people in her house so many times. We really do make quite a mess out of the place! I should have taken a picture of her husband too. That guy lets all of us ladies invade his space and just smiles! He cooks for us and chats with us and then goes in another room and hides. He is a smart man! We can get a little crazy with our rotary cutters and sewing machines.

These ladies came all the way from Lodi with a car full of quilts and a Grande Mark cutting machine. It is the exact same machine as the Accuquilt Studio, except for the name and the price tag. She got hers on ebay for $350 plus 12 dies! I have to admit I was a little jelous, but after these ladies cut 1/2 of a box of fabric scraps for us, I was so thankful they had found us and joined in the fun! I'm now on the lookout for a great deal on dies like this lady found! Watch out ebay...here I come!

This is Carla's robotic quilting machine. It was working away as we were cutting, sorting and pressing fabric. It would stop at the end of the row and wait patiently until someone would come and move it back to the beginning again. It is much faster to quilt by yourself, but it sure is nice to be able to walk away from the machine and do something else too.This is Betty. She used to teach at my high school and is now retired. She always brings cookies :) I like Betty...a lot! The lady in the background takes the leftover pieces of fabric and turns them into the most wonderful creations. No pattern, just her imagination! (Carla, what is her name?)

Sorry, dark picture, but the lady on the left, I just had to give the worst time to. She loves to talk. Her name is Josie and she worked that Accuquilt Studio cutter the whole time. She was cuttting quilt kids for 4 hours! I kept telling her she wasn't working fast enough. There was a 12 year old there who is the sister of one of my students. She and I were pulling fabrics for more quilt kits. We would pull about 5 kits for evey one Josie would cut. By the time we were done, Josie was so far behind us. It looked like she hadn't done anything! Plus, a lady came to the meeting and left with most of the kits Josie had cut. We told her she couldn't take any of the old, stale kits, she had to take the fresh cut kits that were just made today. Poor Josie. She just couldn't keep up with all of us. She had a great time getting teased! She loved being the center of all of the attention...I hope! She was a great help in getting lots and lots of boxes for me too.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this huge project. The end is near!

I am hoping to have a final count of the quilts that are done by this weekend. There are still about 100 quilts that need to be quilted so the project will go on into June, but please don't send any more quilts after May 31.

Thanks