Charity Work - week's summary

Saturday - 28 minutes - sewing red pieces on to the Mickey Mouse main panel top. I sewed 12 on the sides and ran out of the red pieces - need one more to finish the red side

Sunday - (I did it on Saturday) 50 minutes - organized and put tops matched to backings on the upper shelf so ready to take off and quilt. Organizing the tops is the most fun for me at this point because I can actually then see my progress towards my final goal.

This is 45 tops and backings matched up so far. To get higher I will need a true ladder. Right now I’ve been using a stepstool.

Monday - 30 minutes - matched up tops with backings and put them on the shelf.

Tuesday - 33 minutes

I matched up a few more tops and backings and tore some new backings - waiting for just the right top. However, I didn’t have a full 10 tops ready to go up top as shown the last couple of days, so I didn’t take a photo of the shelf above yet. Maybe in a couple of days as I need to now add a few inches to some of my backings to make them wide enough for the 63-66” wide tops I have been given. The backing I use doesn’t work with those as I can’t get that much width without making the backing fabric wider. So, I prepared several of the backings for sewing that additional 10” piece on and I’ve got that as my task for either Wednesday or Thursday.

I didn’t take a picture of my simply tearing off fabric pieces and folding them for future quilt tops.

I have several bolts that are coming to the end (remember, I have to buy 50 meter (similar to a yard) bolts, so when I come to the end of a bolt, it is something! I had kind of overbought back in 2022, so I am looking forward to getting all my backing bolts to fit on the two large shelves I have in my long arm room. Right now I have had to use the two shelves plus a big plastic bin plus a few bolts that are upstairs. Naturally that means fewer choices for me when it comes to backing when I use up a few of them, but I’m still fine for choices.

Wednesday - one hour PLUS a bunch of time

I spent time sewing some extra fabrics on some backing pieces for the tops I had in the sewing room that are too wide for my 63” backings. I also matched up 3 tops/backings and put them up top. I then prepared many more backings in general. I also started to prepare 10 of the farm panel quilts by tearing the fabric at 59” to use as a panel. I will add to the top and bottom to get an 80” quilt top.

I now have 70 matched up tops/backings and all stacked up above!!

Thursday - 30 minutes and then I worked on a general cleaning in the Long arm room for another hour or two. I matched up 10 sewn together tops which I did on Wed. and folded them on Wed. and restacked the top so the piles now have 15 in each pile. There will be room for 105 in the above area without too much work. I then think I can slip in 15 more into various places between the piles and the ceiling.

I now have 81 all matched up with backing and folded and put up on the top.

Friday - a lot of time (way more than 30 minutes - I’m afraid I’m getting closed to the 120 tops finished so it is hard to think about other things when I so want to have this all prepped.) I pressed the farm panel quilts that I had sewn top and bottom strips on to make the 60x80 tops (10). I folded them and my husband put them up high for me on my shelf. So far, I’m at 91 tops all folded up with the backings and waiting for 2026.

Later I decided that I’m getting close to 120. I had been working day by day on my Mickey Mouse panel tops (13). I had to trim them to size and add borders. As of writing this, the 13 panels are all sewn- I just to have press and fold them with their backing and them on the shelf in the morning.

On Friday, this is how the stacks look now: Each stack now has 15 matched up pieces (top/backing) except for that last one, which only has one.

I ended up spending a lot more than a half hour a day on this project - and I’m getting much closer to having all 120 tops ready for next year.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!








Becky PetersenComment