Make A Difference Day

 My energy was restored today after a whole bunch of us got together and sewed at Carla's house.

 The little guy in the blue jacket came all the way from Sacramento to #MakeADifference.

 My friend Nancy's granddaughter is 9 and she worked for about 4 hours cutting fabric and sorting squares for us to sew together.  She's taking a break to work on her math skills.

 Nancy and I worked on a couple of Christmas quilt tops made from 4 1/2 inch squares that were donated.  We sewed and sewed and got two good size tops finished.

 This is Nancy's daughter Liz.  I've known her size she was about 14.  She's all grown up now and has 4 kids of her own.  It's so cool to have three generations helping out and working together.  Liz was telling me that when one of her babies was born, she got a Binky Patrol blanket in the hospital in San Jose.  That chapter has since closed up and when they did, they donated all of their fabric to us.  They were very organized and knew exactly how much fabric the had.  They gave us 1600 yards of fabric!  We've used it all up to make quilts.  I think it's totally cool how she's giving back to the organization that gave to her when her baby was born early.

 We made 5 of these fleece blankets.  These were made from leftover fleece bits.  I had this die custom made because the rag die was giving us troubles.  The fringe kept getting stuck in the die and it was taking forever to pick out the bits of fleece from the die.  With the scallop edges we don't have that problem.  We made these double layer thick.  Some of the ladies had trouble with their machines because with four layers of fleece, their machines weren't happy sewing through so much fabric.  The one lady with the walking foot had a good time.  Others broke needles.  The next time I think we will make them only a single layer thick.

 We also worked on some string quilts from kits that were donated.  We get lots of things donated to us and we work with everything we get.

 Some people bring their own machines and some of us use the machines Carla has.  She has about 10 machines for people to borrow.  They are old, but they are work horses.

 Here's the two quilt tops Nancy and I finished.  We made 9 patch blocks and then sewed them together.  There's probably enough squares for another two quilt tops.  I'm not sure what the original purpose of the blocks was, but I like the look of these quilts and I think they are the perfect size to cuddle up on the couch with.

Now if only my quilting machine could get fixed so I could quilt them sometime soon, I'd be a super happy lady!