Donating to Japan

I was just wandering around the web when I got a pop up from McAffee about the new scam on the internet.  Apparently there are now cybercriminals emailing folks to donate to the Japanese through them.  You can read about it here as well as a list of reputable charities. 

In the meantime, quilters may want to check out Quilters Newsletter Magazine and consider sending a quilt to Japan via the magazine.  You can read about that here. 

Have a good day and please share this info with all you can!

Sweet Dreams

Three more premie quilts completed:

This one looks more crooked than it is:



Scrap-licious!!!

This month, my "project du jour" has been to reorganize my scrap stash.  I know that some of you out in bloggyland can appreciate having cans and cans of scraps littered around your house.   


My world has become a scrap smorgasbord.  No sooner had I cleaned up after Christmas and I began hankering for fun projects to devour the scrap load.   

It all began at the start of the month with the desire to make 2 quilts to donate to the neo-natal unit at our local hospital.  We were told at guild last month that the hospitals really need them.  These quilts are great to do because they don't require a lot of fabric (total size is about 18 x22 inches) and we all know I love little projects (and so much more do-able with the chaos of my mom's illness).   Here are two I completed at the beginning of the month.  The squares are 2.5 inches:

 I made the "baby" section on my embroidery machine.  Just a small easy thing to do but I think it adds a lot to the quilt-let.

 I had some fabric left from Miles' baby quilt but they were strips, so I kept it simple and incorporated it just so.  I feel like the fabric is so cute it doesn't need a whole lot:

The inspiration for these quilts set up a whole new cycle on using up scraps.  More on that next time....

Our Giving Tree

 It's been a stressful year and stress makes me (somewhat stubbornly) productive.  This is our Giving Tree.  We (me and the poodles) made a lot of gifts for the patients at the Hospice that Seamus and I volunteer at:

Yeh it's over 100 different items and that is good.  It's important to make something positive out of challenges.  Tomorrow we have our volunteer breakfast and my coordinator asked me to bring these then so that the volunteers could take things for their patients.  I'll take a breather for a few weeks and then start all over again for valentines and the regular (birthdays, hugs, thanks to veterans, etc) for the patients. 

In other news, Mom is home again from the hospital and still requires a lot of care.  My brother and I share responsibilities and it has been working out very well.  We are both bushed though and Mom is very weak yet.  It'll be a long haul for her, I'm afraid.

Have a wonderful day!

Premie Quilts......

Peter met his best friend when she was only 6 months old. Linda, Bob, and Jana lived up the street from us when we met them. Peter was about 18-20 months old.

Jana May was a premie baby. Linda was only 7 months pregnant when she went into labor and the contractions could not be stopped. The new Mother got to touch her before the baby was flown to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. Linda used to tell me how she knew that Jana was going to be okay because her color was so good. I think she was less than 3 lbs when she was born. Photos of her during this time illustrate how small she was: all of her fit in one of her father's hands.

When I met Jana, she was 6 months old and smaller than Peter had been when he was born. It was intimidating to hold her tiny body. Since that day, Linda and I have been friends and our children, Peter and Jana, became best friends. They were and still are like siblings, not unlike the relationship between their mothers.

I have been thinking about those days because I made 4 premie quilts this week during the rain. The guild donates them to the hospital for the premature babies. The blankets are only 18 by 24 inches. I really like to make these little blankies, they make me feel happy and grateful for the gifts--like Jana--in our lives.