Field trip

 My fourth grade son and I took a field trip today to the closest California mission.  Sonoma Mission is about an hour away from us and we zipped out there to learn a thing or two about California history.  My son has to build a mission this year.  It was good getting out and seeing first hand how people lived long ago.

He loves Youtube and we decided he would make a video as part of his project.  I can't wait until he is done. It is going to be really cute. At first, he wasn't excited about the trip, or the work over vacation, but by the end, he was having fun.

getting them done

 7 more quilts ready for the binders.  I'm making a pile for next week once school starts.  I hope I don't scare them when I bring the pile :) everyone deserves a vacation, even the hard working binders. I guess.

it's official...I'm insane

 Meet the three newest members of my sewing family.  Most people go Black Friday shopping and come home with New TV's New IPhones or tablets or New anything.  I go thrift store shopping and come home with Old sewing machines!  My family already thought I was crazy, but this prooves. it.

 This blue Brother I got for $30 at the Goowill in Dixon.  Not on sale, but for $30 it was a deal.  I have no idea if it works yet, but it is oh, so pretty.  It's name is Mark.  My brother's name is Mark.  Get it?  Yeah, I passed up on one similar about 4 years ago and have been kicking myself ever since.  I've been lookind and waiting and watching and promised myself if I ever saw a blue sewing machine again I would get it.  Well, I thought since I was there and had a minute, I would look around and they had a gorgeous old Singer, but no foot pedal, so passed on that and there, on the floor was this beauty.  Has the cover and everything and oh, so pretty.  I laughed when I took the cover off and thought, here's my birthday present.  I practically skipped out of the store, except the thing weighs 50 pounds!  I love these heavy old machines.

Then, I went to Savers and they had the next two machines.  This pink one (color washed out in the picture) was only $15 and on sale 30% off.  What a steal.  It will need a new belt.  It's an Atlas, never heard of it before, but I guess now that I'm a collector (NOT A HOARDER) I should learn a thing or two about old machines.  All the pieces seem to be there and look, it even comes with thread...bonus :)  Her name is Erin, my brother's wife's name.  Aren't they a cute couple?

And finally Ken, the Kenmore.  He was $20 plus 30% off that.  Cheap!  I have two just like him.  My old standby that I sew on every day is the exact twin of this machine.  They are a real workhorse and I just love mine.  Carla worked on my backup machine last week at Binky and got it working most of the time. 

Now I have three more machines for when we have sew days with the teenagers.  I just need to spend some time working with them to get them running.  Another excuse not to grade lab books.

Every scrap is used

 The tiny scraps of leftover fabric that can't be used in quilts are used as stuffing for dog beds.  My dogs love the fact that I'm a quilter.  My little scruffy poodle mix dogs got new green pillows today.  Harper has made a sleeping spot in my daughter's closet.  Two new pillows here to make her cave a bit more comfy.

Mandy, the boxer/lab mix who is about 15 years old got a new orange pillow today.  She loves getting new pillows.  The old one goes outside until it gets so old and stinky that it goes in the trash.  I don't feel bad throwing them away after about a year because they definately get used well.  The fabric was donated for blankets, but is really for making rugs.  It is too rough and scratchy, but the dogs aren't complaining.  We always find a home for all of the donated fabric we get.

I guess I should put the chain saw away.  Funny how you don't notice something until you take a picture :)  Maybe Mandy will learn to use it and chop down a tree or two.  Or, maybe not.

Can you have more then one favorite?

 Because I just love this quilt.  Pink and purple are not my favorite colors, but I just love, love, love this quilt and I know the little girl who is getting it is going to love it too.  Her mom was killed last week by the ex boyfriend and now she has no parents.  I'm sending it out today.

 I love the quilting design on this one too.  Just look at those gorgeous flowers.  It took a long time to quilt up, about 30 minutes per row, but so worth it in the end.  I'm going to have to make one of these for me in reds, white and black.

I guess it is ok to have more than one favorite.  I have four favorite children.  I just love how using up all these different scraps of fabric work so well together.  Just like lots of different people working together on a project make the project better.

I'm not a hoarder

I am a collector of necessary items.

 

 Would a hoarder do this?  $79 worth of cans and bottles recycled today.  Yes, they were in my garage for the past year and It took me an hour to sort them and it was my $79 invested in recycling fees, but I finally got around to taking them in.  A hoarder would have held on to them for at least two years :)

My husband thinks I should get rid of the junk in the garage, but I think the solution is to build more shelves.  Especially since I have such a great shelf building son.  We built two sets of shelves today and they are actually straight this time.  We are getting better.  Not good enough to go into buisness quite yet, but getting there.  We were too lazy to find the level, so yes, maybe I am a hoarder because I think we have three levels around somewhere, but I just can't find them, but after we build a few more sets of shelves, I know we will come across them in all the treasures we have out there in the garage!

Look, the boxes are all nicely on the shelves and there is even an empty spot.  Did I bring anything out from the house yet?  Oh, no, so I must build more shelves.  I am not a hoarder, but I must have a shelf building disease.  Don't get too close, it may be contagious.

My son actually suggested we get the garage clean enough to park a car inside.  Silly boy, that's not what garages are for.

At least now I can see the boxes and take one at a time and empty them out.  That makes me happy.

I think I will wait until Christmas vacation to build more shelves.  I'm so sore from all the day's activities.  And I have plenty of work ahead of me with all of these boxes that I can get to now.  I bet I could empty half of them.

Supporting Margaret's Hope Chest

One of the charity groups I send quilts to is Margaret's Hope Chest
They have a website
http://www.margaretshopechest.com/

and a blog

http://margaretshopechest.blogspot.com/

They support several programs, one is a program for children who have a parent in prison.  I teach high school and work with kids who have a parent in prison.  It isn't the kids' fault the parent made bad choices, but often the kid pays the price.  They feel guilty for the things their parent did.  Margaret's Hope Chest gives quilts to these kids from the parent in prison to let the kid know they are loved.  Kids need to know that.  EVERY DAY.  Even when the parent isn't around.

Another program they support is A Mother's Hope where new mothers who are going through Post Partum Depression are given a quilt of their very own to have and hold.  Often new mothers are looked over and the focus is on the new baby.  I just experienced depression brought on by some medicine that was supposed to help me and boy, was that a scary thing.  I didn't care about anything.  I don't want anyone to feel like this and if a hand made quilt can help these women, let's work together to make many more quilts as fast as we can!  Depression sucks!  Seriously. 

So, here's my offer to you.  Have you wanted to help out, but thought, I just can't work fast enough?  I love to make quilt tops, but have no way of finishing them off?  I can't afford a long arm quilter and I can't quilt them myself on my little/old/simple machine?

Well, for my 25th anniversary, my husband got me a robotic quilting machine.  I LOVE IT. Oh, I mean I love him.  Yeah, that's what I mean :)

Well, that thing (Rebecca the Robotic Quilting Machine) is super great and loves to work.  We want to help you out and help Margaret's Hope Chest too.

If you love to make quilt tops and love to help MHC (Margaret's Hope Chest), you can send me your quilt tops and I will quilt them up, pass them on to my binding buddies and send them on to MHC for you.  You can include backing if you want, but I do have a lot of fabric here.  And I do mean a lot.  A friend just gave me half her stash.  I'm building shelves in the garage to store more stuff and I need to work 36 hours a day to work through what I have.  So, if you have the perfect backing fabric, send it, but don't feel bad if you don't have the perfect fabric for backing or binding.

What size to make?  Kid size is usually 48x60 up to twin size-ish 72x90.  mom size is in the 72x90 range.  I just made one about that size for me--my first quilt and I LOVE IT, almost as much as I love my husband and quilting machine, in that order :)

How about batting?  Well, you can pay to ship batting to me, or you can purchase a roll of batting if you want and have that shipped for free usually from JoAnn's.  I love the Kodel batting.  Yes, it is polyester.  Yes, it does not shrink when washed.  Yes, it is the cheapest batting out there.  Here's the link.  It is 50% off right now and if you spend $50 it has free shipping.  Of course, it is only $47. 
http://www.joann.com/kodel-traditional-loft-polyester-batting-48inx50yds/9812066.html
I hate when they do that to you, but I'm sure you could find something to spend $3 on.  Maybe thread.  I just got some and got glow in the dark thread.  Like I need that, but hey, it is fun for the kids!  If it works...

Only send batting if you plan on sending lots of quilt tops.  I have batting now to last me a while.  50 yards of batting will make about 15 quilts. 

Now, I'm not super woman.  I do have a full time job teaching high school.  I do get migraines almost every day, but find that quilting actually helps take my mind off them.  If I sit around feeling sorry for myself, they are worse, so you will be helping me out. 

I am the area coordinator for Binky Patrol and do a lot of quilting for local kids, kids far away and for specific needs that arise.  I won't be able to quilt 100 quilts a month for MHC, but would love to help anyone out who wants to make some quilts and just hasn't because you didn't have a way to finish them off.

I don't have a quilting business because I don't want to have to deal with the taxes and money stuff.  So, I'm not trying to get rich here :)  I just love quilting and love MHC.

So, contact me for my address and let me know you will be sending me some quilt tops and/or batting and/or backing fabric.  I'm excited to get started.  Once I have about 15 quilts done, I will get them in the mail.  Much cheaper to mail a big old box standard shipping than to mail them individually.  I have 5 or 6 done already of my own, but would love to put yours in there too.

our little piece

I told you our piece of the puzzle was little.  This was the pile of boxes headed out to the Philippines from just on LBC location and just from this morning's drop off.  Ours are the brown ones. 14 boxes of toys and quilts.  Not much when you think of the enormous need and even this large pile seems insignificant.  But to the child receiving the quilt or the toy, it will mean the world.  So, what can you do today?  Can you check the LBC website and see if there is a location near you?  You can call the 888 number and see if they will come pick up the donation from your house.

I'm sure you won't have the same troubles I did.  It took me about 45 minutes to drive to the drop off location, about an hour to drive around and around in circles to find the place.  GPS took me to a hotel.  I called and they told me it was inside a Circuit City.  Well, that has been bankrupt for about 2 years.  I called a different number, same story.  Inside a Circuit City.  How is this possible?  Drove around some more.  Finally called my husband who told me to go to a place where there was a lot of construction.  The building used to be a Circuit City and is not a Seafood City.  I guess the accent, I was having troubles understanding what they were saying.  I should have looked it up before I left.  GPS has gotten me lost many times before.  So, then there was the paperwork took me about an hour to fill out everything.  Crazy!  I thought my hand was going to fall off :)  And I write a lot on a daily basis.  Just know you will have to fill out some paperwork on the boxes you send, but it is oh so worth it.

Become a small part of the solution today.

Only a small part

I am only a small part of the big picture.  I have so many helpers to get everything accomplished.  I wish I could show you all of the behind the scenes people that help me put everything together.  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you've seen many of them, but probably not all.

First, the quilts.  I'm the area coordinator for Binky Patrol.  We are one group of many www.binkypatrol.org across the country and there must be well over a thousand ladies who work tirelessly to make quilts and blankets to give to kids in crisis.  That's our motto.  We don't judge on your situation.  If you are a kid (and who isn't) and you need a quilty hug, you get one.  I don't care if you are 2 or 92 and I hear about a need, I do my best to get you a quilt.  Now, there is no way I can do that on my own.  I rely on my many members to help me out.  We have our regular meetings, the 3rd Sunday of the odd months and our special meetings, whenever Carla is feeling generous.  We work at home and there are probably 30 regular ladies who work to make crochet, knit and fleece blankets and afghans.  There are ladies who take home scraps that the high school kids cut out and sew them back together into quilt tops.  Carla and I quilt those up and then we send them home with now 4 binding buddies who put the binding on them and bring them back to me.  I say we make about 100-200 quilts a month, plus the fleece and crochet/knit blankets so maybe 250 blankets a month.  That's a lot to find homes for.  I wish I was better at math and could keep track.  February 26 will be our 10th birthday for our chapter.  I'd say we have made and given away probably 20,000 blankets since we started.  That's just a rough estimate since in the beginning we were much slower and then there was the whole Quilts for Japan summer where we went crazy :)

But, I'm just a very small part of that.  Are you kidding me?  There's no way I could do all of that myself!  I mostly organize things and store fabric at my house.  My husband is very patient and has resorted to staying in the 'man cave' where he reads comic books and plays poker on the computer and watches football.  Oh, how I love football!  No, I don't watch, but it keeps him from asking me for things so I can quilt.  Yes, there was a game on last night and I loaded up enough backing fabric for about 10 quilts.  Yay>

So, then there's my high school.  I have an endless resource of energy there.  All you ever read about in the newspapers and hear about on TV are the bad things teenagers do.  Well, let me tell you, these kids have so much good in them and energy you wouldn't believe.  Just find a way to tap into it and you don't need to sell it, you can harvest it and put it to use.

I discovered a way to use it about five years ago and we've been putting the kids to work ever since.  They cut fabric and some even sew.  Not perfectly but if perfection is your goal, move on :)  Feeling depressed?  Get around about 20 high school kids and you won't need medication.  These kids are crazy in a good way.  Just give them some food and they go and go.

Give them a task and a little direction and they will collect boxes of stuffed animals and give with their hearts. They will make cards for our wounded soldiers and stuff stockings and bake cookies. 

So, you see, I'm only a small part of all of the good things going on around here.  I encourage you to become a small part in your neighborhood.  Lots of little pieces working together.

Do you want to be a part of our group?  We'd love to have you make quilt tops.  You can fit quite a few in a flat rate box.  You can get those for free from the post office.  Go online and ask for the Game Boxes.  They are long and skinny and self sticking.  I think they come 10 to a pack and they deliver them to your door for free.  What a deal.  Then you can pay for shipping online and it saves you a few cents and the post office person will evn pick up from your house.  Cool.  Message me for my address if you want to join in.

I'm off to mail the stuffed animals today and then build two more sets of shelves and take some aluminum cans to the recycling.  I'm procrastinating because I have 5 boxes of lab books to grade.  You can come over and grade lab books if you want.  That' would be totally cool too.

What love looks like

I wanted to get a picture of the boxes before they got shipped, so I am actually glad I can't do math.  I tried calling LBC express, the company that will ship the boxes for free to the Philippines to Project Pearls (projectpearls.org) for the relief efforts.  Nobody answered the phone and I called Saturday and left an email on Sunday.  I double checked the website over the weekend and they left instructions that the boxes had to be no bigger than 60 inches.  Well, I had measured these and they are far bigger than 60 inches. so today I called again and talked to someone who told me which of the LBC express locations near me is accepting donation drop offs.  It is about a 40 minute drive from me and I talked to the lady on the phone and she explained the dimensions of the boxes again.  I knew I was going to have to go out and get some more boxes to transfer everything into.  What a job.  The kids had done a great job of packing everything up and I wasn't looking forward to redoing everything.  Bummer.

I went to WalMart and bought 15 boxes.  I've never bought a shipping box in my life, but wanted to make sure I got the right size.  They had to be 60 inches, total.  The lady on the phone said 18x18x24 was perfect (for one side).  For some reason, that didn't register in my head when we measured in class last week.  I got home and looked at the boxes we had packed.  These things are 16x14x14.  What?  That's no where near 60 inches total.  They are way under size and are perfectly fine to ship.  Anybody need 15 boxes?  There's no way I'm taking them back :)  I will just have to fill them with more stuff :)  I can now pack one more box with quilts because it is too late in the day to drive--traffic is terrible this time of night.  So, I will pack one more box with quilts, get them ready and go in the morning.  It's a good thing because I tested out my new quilt with a nap this afternoon and it worked great!  I dreamed my daughters came home and found quilts all over their beds.  I woke up in a panic and sure enough, there are quilts all over my daughter's bed.  I need to get it cleaned off before she comes home for Christmas.  I delivered 55 quilts this morning to Nurse Family Partnership, but it didn't even make a dent in the pile on my daughter's bed.  I have another request for quilts for a local foster group giving quilts for Christmas, but it looks like I had better get busy getting these delivered.  They aren't doing anyone any good sitting here.

my first quilt

 I'm so excited to have my very own quilt to have and to hold and to keep for myself.  After making over 1100 quilts and giving them away, I think it is time I kept one :)  Hubby agrees.

 I had to lay this in the middle of the street to take a picture.  Good thing a car didn't come by and drive over it.  I probably would have jumped in front of it to protect it.

 Don't you love the quilting pattern?  The 8 hours it took to quilt were worth it in the end.  And the miles and miles of thread, yeah, I had this 6,000 yard cone of white that I never though would get used up, well, it's about 3/4 gone.  Not just from this quilt, but since I got Rebecca, it has gone fast.  I'm thinking of going into the Long Arm business, but there are a lot of things to think about, the price, the taxes, business licence, the cleaning the house! Ugh, too much to keep track of.  But, if I made money quilting, I could pay someone to clean my house.  That would be nice.  And I could pay someone to do my taxes.  But, then I wouldn't make any money on the quilting business because I would be paying it all out on other things.  How about I just trade?  You clean my house, I quilt for you?  You cook my dinner, I quilt for you?  Sound like a deal? :)  Even better, you grade my papers, I quilt for you!  Yeah, I have 5 boxes of lab books to bring in from the car.  Each box has multiple labs in it that need attention over the break.  Depressing.

Oh, look, more pretty quilting.  That's better.  Let's not think about depressing things.  Let's look at pretty quilting instead.  There's plenty of time for depressing things later.  Click on the picture and be happy!

To comfort a child

http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sacramento/police-officers-respond-to-reports-of-shooting-in-winters/-/12969376/23030718/-/is4s29z/-/index.html

The little girl whose mother was shot and killed a few days ago will be getting this quilt soon.  Turns out her mother was the friend of my childhood friend.  I had no idea my childhood friend lives so close to me.  She posted on Facebook that they were looking for the killer of her friend and I happened to read the story since it is in a neighboring town.  I offered to make a quilt and asked for her favorite colors. Pink and purple.  I love the star blocks in scrappy colors.  I think I have found a new favorite pattern.  I worked on this yesterday and today while my quilt quilted away.

It took Rebecca all day today to quilt out my quilt.  Cockatiel feathers takes a long time, about 40 minutes per row and more than one bobbin per row.  I timed how long one bobbin lasted and it was 34 minutes.  So, I set a timer for 30 minutes so I would come back just as the bobbin ran out and I wouldn't waste top thread.  Since there isn't a sensor on the machine (for $17,000 you would think they could include a bobbin sensor!) I figured timing the bobbin thread was the easiest way to keep track.

I am just so in love with the look of this quilting design.  I'll have to remember where I bought it and post a link.

I can't wait until tomorrow when I pull the thing off the machine, put the binding on and take it out into the sunlight to get some pictures and then curl up under it for a nap.  Yup, that's the final test of a good quilt!

Oh, and I ordered some bobbin thread to keep me from changing the bobbin so often.  I think I grabbed a spool of quilting thread and that's why the bobbin was running out so often.  The top thread and bobbin thread are both 40 wt.  Yeah, not much thread fits when it is 40 wt.  Bobbin thread is either  60 wt or 70 wt depending on the brand.  Can't wait until that gets here now.  I got white and black.  I think I have some 70 wt bobbin thread around here somewhere.  Just have to find it.  Tomorrow I'm off to the LBC to ship the boxes to the Philippines, off to Nurse Family partnership to deliver quilts and then hopefully making some more shelves for the garage so I can organize some more.  Included in the day will be quilting the pink and purple quilt and getting the binding on it.

And crossing my fingers my migraine is gone.  I've had the same one for three weeks now.  I've asked the doctor if I can get acupuncture.  Maybe that will help?  I've thought about sticking a knitting needle in my eye.  What could be worse?

keeping busy

 and running out of space to take pictures of quilts!

 I guess that is a good thing :)

This was a special request by the Nurse Family partnership.  They wanted any Christmas quilts I had, so I had to quilt it up quickly and even put the binding on by myself today :)  All while my personal quilt is quilting away.  That thing is taknig forever.  It will be worth it when it is done, but the quilting is taking tons of bobbin thread.  It won't make it a whole row without running out of a bobbin.  I'm using a feather pattern called Cockatiel feathers, in honor of my friend Clod, my cockatiel I had when I was a kid.  My parents said I could have $35 for a class ring in high school or $35 for a bird.  I picked the bird.  He could whistle and was always so happy.  He would get started on a song and then get stuck in the middle and just repeat and repeat the same couple of notes over and over and over until you went crazy!  I loved that bird.  He lived a long time and finally got a big tumor near his leg.  Of course, I went off to college, got married and had kids.  My parents ended up taking care of him for most of his life.  My dad built a small aviary off my bedroom window and they enjoyed his whistling for many years.  I'm sure the neighbors 'loved' it too :)  Now I will think of him ever time I cuddle under my quilt.  I knew the perfect quilting pattern would come along after searching all the sites and thousands of patterns.  I can't wait to show it to you.  It's gorgeous, but man it is taking forevr!

First project of the vacation

This is my garage, a huge pile of mess where everything ends up to be sorted 'later'.  Well, today is later.  Because I have received so many donations lately, I have to make room for more so I decided today was the day to start organizing.  Off to Lowe's to get some wood to make shelves. Good thing my son is handy with tools.  I had the guy at the hardware store cut the wood for me to make it a quicker job.  All I had to do was attach the pieces and, although they are crooked, they do hold up a bunch of boxes and bins which make it easier to get to things I need.  I will be making at least one more set of shelves soon, maybe tomorrow even.

As you can see, it didn't really help with the organization inside the house.  It looks like a fabric shop vomited inside my house!  I'm not complaining, I just wish I had a couple more hours in a day to quilt.  I really need to make more quilts so I can use up fabric quicker.  I've figured out a way to quilt and cut fabric at the same time with the Accuquilt Studio cutter and I'm making lots of kits to pass along to my quilting buddies who will sew the tops back together

 I love working with my son on projects like this. Even though it came out crooked, we do have fun laughing at ourselves and making memories.  For $57 the shelves hold a lot of stuff.

Here's my car stuffed to the brim with boxes for the Philippines.  I'll be taking them for delivery on Monday.  I can't wait to get them out of the car and on their way.

Boxes away

We packed boxes today and I didn't get a final count because I'm still packing boxes of quilts, but I think there are a dozen boxes of toys the kids brought to school.  These boxes are pretty big so I'm guessing about 300 stuffed animals are on their way to the Philippines to help comfort hurting kids.  I'm proud of the efforts of the kids at my high school.  I challenge you to work with your local high school and tap into the energy the kids have to offer your group.  They can make your day better!

Feel Good Charity fight

I was watching a TV show a couple months ago and there was a line in it that has really stuck with me.  It is pretty strange because it is about dog poop.  You see, there is this lady cop, talking to a bad guy and the bad guy thinks he's 'all that'.  You know, super important, causing all kinds of trouble and the lady cop says to him, that for now, he is really important and she is spending all her time worrying over him.  But just like a walk in the park when everything is going along great and you step in dog poop and for that brief moment in time, you life is all concerned about that dog poop and how you are going to get it off your shoe and you are so concerned about the poop, but by the evening you completely forgot you stepped in it, she will go on with her life and forget all about him and so will the rest of society.  He really isn't all that important. 

Sometimes I get so worked up about the little things and I remember the dog poop.  In the big scheme of life, I step in a lot of dog poop and get too worked up about it.  In a week, or a month or a year, is it really going to matter?

Yesterday I stepped in a big pile of poop.

Right now we are working to collect stuffed animals and toys and I'm bringing in a bunch of quilts to send to the Philippines.  The kids of National Honor Society have been working really hard to get the kids at the high school excited about this and have worked to help make the quilts.  Yesterday one of my students came in and said her teacher told her that we shouldn't be sending things to help the kids of the Philippines because it was only 'feel good charity' and it wouldn't help the people there.  He told his classes not to bring any toys or stuffed animals.  What?  I was shocked and almost cried in front of my class.

I held it together and wrote a nice email asking him if this was true.

He wrote a reply saying it was part of a lesson in economics (in his history class).  I asked to see the article he passed out which he sent me which said not to send things to people who had to way of distributing them and to send all your money to the Red Cross.

I asked why he hadn't asked me about our project before telling his classes not to help out because I had researched and found an organization (Project Pearls) that was asking for items and had a way of distributing them and that the Red Cross actually takes a large portion of money off the top.  (They have not even given out all the money that was donated for Superstorm Sandy yet and that was over a year ago.)

We had an email battle back and forth yesterday and he would not back down from his position that giving kids toys and quilts was not going to help them in the long run.  He had not done any research before making this decision and was fine with sabotaging our efforts to help the hurting children.

I went to the principal who tried to defend his position.  I'm trying to decide if I should file a formal grievance.

I am still trying to wipe the poop off my shoe and move on with my efforts to help hurting children.  It's what I do.  We will be boxing up the toys and quilts today and I'm looking forward to getting pictures of them in the hands of the kids.  For those children, I know they will feel the love that went into the efforts.  For the kids who did particpate, I know they will feel like they made a difference.

boy quilts

For those of you who make charity quilts, do you find making quilts for boys the hardest?  Seems for every boy quilt we make, there are 10 girl quilts made.  These three quilts are sure to please some little guys needing hugs.  The top quilt has the cutest quilt design.  It has cars and trucks.  I just got it today from Digi-Tech and it was 50% off.  I think it was called Rough Road.  It quilts up fast too, which makes it great for charity quilts.  I just love my robotic quilting machine and I love feeling better.  I've had a massive migraine since Thursday night, but I've been so happy to not be depressed.  I'd rather have a migraine than not have interest in doing anything I love.