The other day I was working away - kind of early - but not really early (between 8 and 9 am) and I got a phone call from our neighbor lady, Ela. “Becky, hello! I’m sorry for calling you now but I got a box for you yesterday late afternoon and I’m heading to Warsaw. Can you meet me at the gate and pick it up?”

So, I bailed out of the sewing room, and headed to the gate to get the box from Ela. I didn’t quite understand why the post office gave it to her, but it’s fine. She’s a really nice lady.

I brought it home, put it on the couch and went back to my project. I figured it would wait til I was in the mood to open it (and had my camera).

I know how many people on You Tube do box openings. So far I’ve not resorted to that. Actually, to be honest, I’ve not figured out how to do that much video yet. Guess I should watch some videos about how to do it.

Anyway, I opened it today and took photos along the way.

Fran, has indeed, been a busy lady!

As far as I know, Fran isn’t much of a blog reader, so I don’t think she sees these posts. Ever.

But her husband’s roots are from this part of the world and she has a heart of gold. She loves making us charity quilts and I guess probably hundreds of people in Otwock and other places in our area of Poland by now have been blessed by her work!

Note the cost of shipping such a box to me from Arizona. Now…quit complaining about the cost of mailing something in the US! :)

Fran makes me the small “middles” that I use to make into single size charity quilts by adding borders. She has also recently begun making rail fence tops. I told her they were nice and certainly for a change, if she wants to make that kind, they are great. She has some beautiful fabrics, and I know the people will love them.

So, this is what she sent me:

Two small quilt tops that I will add quite a bit to in order to make a twin size top:

Four large quilt tops: I will probably only add another two borders to make a super nice queen size quilt.

Two rail fence tops:

Another 2 tops that appears to be a size I’ve not had before. I will add to them to make 60x80” quilt tops. How fun are these colors? Super fun!

Plus, she put in a piece of fabric - backing fabric. She did that the last two times and I actually used that fabric for making the borders on several of the tops she sent along. I figure she just meant for them to be used for the project and exactly HOW I use them isn’t all that important.

Plus she sent a few leftover strips. :)

So, this bundle of treasure has been photographed and thought about.

I’ll try to get going on adding those borders to the big quilts as I’m especially trying to keep up with those since I got so far behind and had to catch up last year by adding 2 borders (a 2.5” and a 6.5” border) to each one (70+). I use those sizes of borders because it makes the quilt a nice size and I have those rulers so it is super easy to use the width of the ruler itself. Makes it fast and accurate to cut them.

So now you know! More delicious goodies from Fran with some fun fabrics along the way! People love animal fabrics - and so do I! So these will be a hit, for sure! I will be adding borders and then before putting them in my pile, will do a pretty thorough ironing with my steam generator iron.

I’m so grateful for Fran and each of you who have helped me with this charity quilt project. With all the help I’ve been getting, I’m able to do more than ever.

And for those of you who wonder why I would buy fabric for backings instead of using up what I have - the issue is time. When I buy the wide backing (62”) here in Poland, I can just use that fabric the width that it is without taking the time to seam anything - for the smaller quilts. It is faster AND people have a very nice double sided quilt, which they are very happy about. Win/win.

And there you are - more work for me and more blessing for the Polish people - coming up!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Stay safe!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!

Another box from Fran!