What have I been doing?

Well, this past week I kept putting along - preparing to work on charity quilts - but not only. While I like doing charity quilts, I do not necessarily find the creative part of me completely satisfied - but I get my that fulfillment out of the “other” quilts I make.

However, the thankful recipients and joy one gets from the gifting makes up completely for the plain ole hard work it is to finish up as many charity quilts as I do each year.

The fun comes in the giving—which will be later. Oh, don’t get me wrong - I really do enjoy finishing each quilt that I do. There’s a little adrenalin rush that takes place when I get one finished!

This is a photo of some of my choices of the polka dots I can buy from a local source here in Poland.

Right now I’m contemplating buying some stripes or some polka dots to use as binding for a lot of them. Those two things make such FUN bindings.

I did use up all that thread - made up labels out of the whole little set of a bunch of colors - all rayon Sulky embroidery thread, 250 yard spools that was given to me in 2014. I decided that I just “needed” to go ahead and use it up. And I did. I managed to get a total of 354 labels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wasn’t planning on making all of those and then I got to where the only two colors of thread I had left were the yellows/browns and grays/blacks/whites and I just decided to finish it up!

And yes, hearing the embroidery machine go at it all day long was actually tiring. I think it was the noise. While I didn’t have to stay in the room all the time with it (and I didn’t), if I was going to work on it efficiently, I needed to be in earshot so I could go in there if it stopped for some reason - which, those of you who have embroidery machines know that you have to kind of hover while it’s working in case of a problem. Either that, or you go back in a half an hour and find out that it stopped 25 minutes ago!

Here they are.

I also decided to go to the church building where I had put some of the tops and bring them back so I could finish up the ones that aren’t my ideal size. So, I spent quite of time on Saturday simply measuring all the tops I had, stacking them in piles and getting them ready to begin. I was overwhelmed with the wonderful quilt tops you all have given me. They are going to be HITS when I get them out there to the receipients.

I took a look at my backing fabric and am still deciding if I need to order a couple more prints (I probably will). I used to piece my charity quilt backings, but decided that not only is it faster to just a single piece of fabric, the Polish recipients love having a fun backing - they then often use them as completely reversible quilts. That makes me happy as well.

Here’s what I have right now as my backing choices. I see that I actually do have quite a few choices!! My biggest problem is always knowing what to put on the back of a quilt! I try to make at least some of them “not feminine” as it is easy for me to put a “pretty” backing on them. That’s my natural tendency, in fact.

I also got back 28 tops from my friend, Ewa, whose mom finished them since the the first part of August when we went to the states. That was wonderful!

I did have a lady contact me just a couple of weeks ago about quilts for 3 more older people.

The answer is “Yes, I do!” This week I’ll go and find her some and maybe we’ll meet at the end of the week or next week and she can take them to new homes.

I am getting more and more requests like this - so the outreach is spreading beyond just the Big Give Away. The people contacting me are people who work with the poor. I especially enjoy helping the older people simply because here in Poland they tend to be the overlooked.

They get really nothing extra from the government as they focus their efforts on financial relief for people with children. Since many of the elderly actually probably wouldn’t “ask” for help - I find it rewarding when a social worker knows of a situation and contacts me about them.

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I started sewing some strips together this weekend. I’m about to get back to my regular sewing. I didn’t sew during most of the time I made labels though I did clean up around my sewing machine - going deep - and I cut up a bunch of donated shirts!

So, these possibly unexciting things are now finished. I am so excited to start on these beautiful tops. I am so humbled that many of you have donated such amazing tops - and I am ready to begin to tackle them!

Our weather took a decided turn for the cooler today.

We got rain starting yesterday and it is wonderful as it’s been very dry here. But cooler weather means I don’t mind touching the poly batting. When it’s hot, it’s unpleasant.

So there you are! My latest “goings on” from here in my sewing room/home in Poland!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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