Good Works-Comfort Blankets

Almost all quilters are generous people. We make quilts to give away, we help each other with problems and generally have generous happy dispositions...could it be all that fabric we have in our closet? I think maybe...smile


The women in our guild are no exception. We've made quilts for Breast Cancer survivors that have served as signature quilts for the survivors. We've raised money with raffle quilts and
we've made hats for chemotherapy patients. Last year we made items to sell in a charity store, where 100% of the money went to the Kosair Children's hospital, during the Festival of Tree and Lights. All these projects have seen a number of the ladies cheerfully contribute their time and money to these worthwhile causes.

Our newest good works endeavor is making Comfort Blankets. These are a pillow case type of lap quilts that is only sewn on 3 sides, so the patients can put their feet in them-cause there's nothing worse than cold feet in a hospital bed or wheelchair. This idea came to us from one of our ultra smartie smart gals, Sheelah. We have a lot of smartie smart gals in our group that we are truly thankful for.

STEVE IRWIN Meets ROSS the Intern

It's not embarassing anymore...

Whew! Busy, busy, busy, little bee I've been.
Cleaning, cleaning, sewing, sewing, I've done...
Yoda talk...smile...




What fun these two acts are if you are in the mood for doing them, and boy I have been. Well, you know the weather is miserable, baby it's cold

outside, so there's nothing better to do than sew, but, the mess was finally more than I could stand.

So, in order to enjoy my sewing more, I had to clean up my sewing room. There is nothing like posting your mess on the Internet, to have people keep reminding you to do something about it.


Oh, Julie I saw your sewing room...why did I do that???? Ah well, it got me busy and after I completed my cool tote bag, I was enthused to clean. Not a lot of purging, I'm still a pack rat. Is that a quilter thing? I think it may be, but, you know we will put that fabric in a quilt or use that pattern/book...someday...won't we? YES!

work on tote bag

While it snowed outside, our group was toasty warm inside the church, busily making a new crazy quilt tote bag. Normally you would start with a 5 sided piece for the center of a crazy quilt square, sewing and flipping as you go.

This new method takes 12 inch squares and cuts them up, shuffles them, then uses stickers to keep track of your place in the sewing process. I don't make or sell the patterns, but, if you are looking for something new in the crazy quilt style, this might interest you.


First you stack the 12 inch squares and cut them, using freezer paper patterns.

Next you use stickers to keep track of the pieces and sew the whole thing using the chain method of sewing.

You next take those units and sew them together to make 9.5 inch squares and sew them together-6 squares, front, 6 squares back.

That's silk and the dreaded polyester, donated by a local interior design studio that no longer needed their samples. I normally don't touch the stuff, but, for a crazy quilt-anything goes.

That's as far as I got in our class, tomorrow I'll try to finish my tote bag...

It's embarassing...

Okay, there are some really lovely sewing studios out there in blog land-lovely pale yellow colors on the wall, with organized shelving and a clear walkway all the way through. Oh how do they anything done? Me, it's an organized mess, but, that's all about to change. Like I told one of the fellow beautiful studio bloggers, I'm inspired by their work spaces and will begin cleaning...soon.

My poor hubby can barely walk through the room without tripping over fabric. Thankfully he's not running around barefoot, like in the summer. Then he accuses me of leaving pin traps for him, and NO I don't do it on purpose. But, if there is a pin on the floor he'll step on it.

Cleaning this area is the first step in organizing my mess. Next the closet and bookcases must go under the Swiffer Duster(the best thing to clean). Which means take it all down and dust it all off and through out all the books/fabric I probably won't use-who am I kidding? I'm a pack rat and I like it that way! I do plan to start using up all the fabric and you have to have patterns, so that's what the books are for. I'm giving her all I've got Captain and I can't do anymore-I'll just straighten it up.

It's snowin!

A cold gray day in Kentucky can only be made better by the snow. The faeries seem almost melancholy about it. Thankfully we can stay inside and visit blog land and see all our friends and what they are up to.

Rotary cutting wheel flat tire...

One of our gals in our quilt group went dumpster diving-not really, she was visiting an interior design shop when they were about to discard their sample books/swatches. It turned out to be a bonanza for us. Thanks to their generosity, we were able to get new free fabric to make tote bags, for about 12 people. You have to remove all the stickers and staples from the fabric, because, a rotary cutting wheel running over a staple, will cause, what I call a flat on the wheel. You know, an annoying nick that you notice when you think you've got this nice long strip cut, and you go to pull it away and you end up pulling your nicely matched up 8 layers of material away from their neat edge and you want to scream....at least, I do.

The rotary cutting wheel is the greatest tool for quilters and has done more to speed up the process of making a quilt than any other tool. If you are new to quilting, by all means, you must invest in one of these wheels, you will also need a special self healing mat and a clear plastic 6 inch wide by 24 inch long ruler.