Fuzzy Wuzzy

I recently had a customer ask me if I would do a quilt for her daughter for her birthday, then she said what she wanted was a throw like the one she had that they both loved and it was fuzzy.  Well being the savvey person that I have learned to try to become I asked what she meant by fuzzy and was she speaking of fake fur material.  What I understood from her was what she was really talking about was polar fleece that she had purchased at Walmart and she had picked out the colors that her daughter really loved.  Well my next step was to tell her that I would have to see what she was talking about before I would be able to quote her a price and tell her if this was something I could do so we set up a meeting at the local quilt shop.  Fortunately for me I always get telephone numbers to call in case something happens and I am detained or not able to make the meeting for some reason and I give the customer my number in case they have problems and will not be able to keep the appointment.  The local quilt shop that I go to is a 15 minute drive from home and with the price of gas being what it is I do try to keep unnecessary trips to a minimum. 

This was just one of those days when it was not going to happen in any normal manner and I guess I should have just walked away, but............  After waiting 15 minutes past the scheduled appointment time I called the number I had been given and of course I had to leave a message and I started to drive back home.  Now there are two ways I can go from the shop to my house and they are not close to each other.  It is like opposite directions and one way is by the interstate and the other way is over the mountain, which I don't do in bad weather.  Well it was a pretty day so I decided I would drive over the mountain and started down the road.  Needless to say my cell phone rang and it was the customer who had a multitude of excuses as to why she was not there but everything was okay now and she could meet me, but instead of the quilt shop she wanted to meet me in the parking lot of a local truck stop, (which is okay, not a bad place to meet) but in the opposite direction from where I was going.  Okay I agree to meet her and she says she will be there in 10 minutes and I said okay it will take me about 10 minutes to get there also so I turn around and drive back the way I have come and head to the truck stop/minute market/restaurant.  I get there and pull in the parking lot at the front of the lot and wait.  After waiting another 15 minutes after I arrived I tried to call her again and again I got the answering machine.  I headed home and ........you guessed it, my cell phone rang and it was her and she is on her way and will be there in less than 5 minutes so I turn around again and go back to the truck stop.  I still had to wait on her another 10 minutes and was ready to leave again before she ever got there...............I'm beginning to question is this really worth it?

Well the customer seems to be a very nice younger lady and she shows me what she has and tells me what she wants which is really not bad.  2 Pieces of fabric, fake fur and polar fleece that is the same size and she just wants one on the front and one on the back and a little quilting but wants to keep it fluffy so not a lot of quilting.  Yes I can do this and it looks like with minimal time and effort.  I quote a price and she says thats reasonable.  The she asked when will I have to give you an answer in order to have this back by Sept, because her birthday is in Sept.  Okay I'm 6 months out on my quilting so I have to know by March in order to have this back by Sept.  Oh, it's only February!  She says well I'll give you a call if I decide I want to go ahead with this.  To me this sounds like Okay, if I can't find someone to do it cheaper before then I'll let you do this.  Not what I wanted to hear after all of the trouble I had already gone to and the driving around and inconvience.  I tried to be a good person and just said, Okay, let me know and left.

Well, you guessed it, she called back and wanted me to do the darn thing for her.  She wants a fluffy throw.  She brought me a thin poly batt.  When I explained that the thin poly batt would not add any fluffiness to the throw she wanted to know should she go buy something else.  I told her it was her choice if she wanted something really fluffy she would need to get another batt, but I could use the one she furnished but it would not be like a duvet with that kind of loft.  She decided not to purchase anything else and gave me what she had already bought for the "quilt".

I brought it home and when I got ready to start on the throw and pulled the fabric out I discovered it wasn't even the same size.  I am here to say I do not like fake fur and fleece.  They are stretchy and hard to work with to say the very least.  But I got the job done.  I sewed the two pieced together and got the batting in there and then put it on the quilting maching and did a little quilting to keep the pieced together.

Since the customer specifically said she did not want binding but wanted the back and front sewn together on the sides at least that was one less worry.  Here is what the end product looked like.

We have the green fake fur on one side and a zebra print on the other.

 

 

It is a very fluffy throw and when you feel, it just makes you want to cuddle!

 

As you can tell, very minimal quilting in the throw, just a very large meander.

I'm sure the daughter will enjoy this on cool nights in front of the television.

Remember when you are thinking about different things you can do, be open to new ideals and think about them and if they will work for you and your lifestyle.  This will be great I'm sure for the customers daughter, but in my house you would have a mass of dog hair all over the thing and I would not be a happy camper.  For me, I'll stick with the cotton fabric where I can toss it in the washer and drying and get the doggie hair off!

There are so many things you can do with your quilting and this might be just the thing for a Christmas gift or winter birthday or for the kid who is going off to college!  It isn't expensive and it's easy to make.  Ya'll have fun now!





Quilts for Kids

Quilts for Kids is a wonderful organization made up of volunteers who quilt quilts to give to kids who are hurting.  Now as you would expect most of those kids are in hospitals, but sometimes there are others in need.  A little over a year ago a devastating tornado hit Ringgold, Georgia and many people lost their homes and most of their belongings within just a few minutes.  There were also lives lost in that terrible storm and the mental damage done to many will forever be there.  The Georgia Chapter of Quilts for Kids donated quilts to those who suffered in that storm.  As wonderful as it seems to have volunteers who will come in a sew these quilts, this organization reaches out to people who do not live near them by mailing kits out when requested.  They will mail you the fabric to make the quilt top, the backing fabric, and enough fabric comes with the backing to put a binding on the quilt.  The volunteer then sews the top and quilts the quilt and puts the binding on the quilt and washs it and then mails it back to the Chapter.  I think it is fantastic that they have volunteers to cut the fabric kits up and get them ready to mail out to outlying volunteers.

When I first heard of this organization I e-mailed them and they sent me a kit for me to sew which I did and mailed it back to them. Later I asked for some kits for the guild and they mailed me more kits which the guild has been work on. These are really easy quilts with just an alternating 9 patch pattern.

Quilts for Kids

This is one of the quilts that was made by the guild.  The colors are bright and cheerful and I'm sure that they will help brighten the day of that very ill child and give them something warm and cuddlie to hold to.

If you don't have anything to do, and want to add a little cheer to someone else's life you might consider looking these people up and sewing a quilt for them.  You furnish the sewing, the batting, quilting,  and of course the cost of mailing the quilt back to them.  You can purchase a twin quilt size batting and that will be more than enough for 2 of these quilts so your cost is not very large and that is the only cost to the volunteer other than the time they spend.

Here are the 3 quilts the guild made and I did the quilting and tried to make each unique!

This one is so definately a girl quilt I had to do the flowers.

This could be either a boy or girl so I went with leaves in the border.

But then in the alternate blocks I did the meandering hearts.

This one made me think of the beach and the little bubbles that they always show rising to the top from the fishies. lol

In the small border here I just did the ocean waves around.

Just simple meandering in the alternate blocks.

Nothing fancy, but made with lots of love and hope and prayers for the child who receives these quilts they will know the comfort of Jesus through their illness.

Now the wonderful guild which I am privileged to be a member of purchased the batting for the quilts they volunteered to make and also allowed a member who had requested a quilt for herself to use so all she had to do was sew the quilt top, bind, wash and mail it back. 

I am blessed beyond measure to be able to help a few others along my way!  I hope you all have a wonderful day and much happy sewing and quilting!

Pillows anyone

I recently had a lady call and ask if I could make a pillow for her mother who is almost 90 years of age.  She wanted a picture on the pillow.  Well I haven't done a pillow before using the Printed Treasures but I though it really can't be that hard.  Guess what, it wasn't hard at all.

First I will say I love the Printed Treasures, which is Fabric Sheets for Inkjet Printers.  This stuff really works very well!  I've used it on memory quilts many times and they turned out great.  Just had not made a pillow with them before so.....

My customer mailed me a disc with the pictures on the disc and I simply downloaded them into my computer and printed them onto the fabric paper.   Now what could be easier....well easy for someone who has a little bit of knowledge about using a computer.  Now you don't have to have a lot and if you are reading this blog then I bet you have plenty of computer savey to get this done.  It also works very well when you have a copier.  You don't have to have a scanner, or even a computer if you have the picture that has already been printed.  You just copy it onto the fabric sheet with an ink jet copier.

The next step was to add a frame around the picture and the color I used is the color that would match the two different fabrics sent to me by my customer.  Let me back up and tell you that she had fat quarters of 2 different fabrics that she wanted used and we had talked about putting one fabric on one side and the other fabric on the other side. Simple huh!  The fabric I picked for the frame matched up well with both of the pieces the customer had sent. 

In all my purchases for the project were 2 sheets of Printed Treasures fabric paper, which I buy by the pack and get 5 sheets and the last I bought cost $18.99.  I purchased the fabric used to frame the pictures and used a fat quarter for that and also a pillow form (16" x 16") from Hobby Lobby for $8.99.  So basically $8.00 for the picture fabric $3.25 for the fat quarter for the frame with fabric left over, and $9.00 for the pillow form so $20.25 plus tax for a memory pillow and just a little time to sew it all together.

I really hope my customer's mother enjoys her pillow.  They are so simple to make, hummmmm these might be something I could do for Christmas or Birthday presents.  Now if I can catch a sell on these forms or use that 50% off coupon.  There's an ideal for the little ones floor pillows.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and lots of fun sewing and quilting.  See you next week!!

I'm Back

Hi everyone!

I have to say I am so sorry that I have been away so long.  I have been quilting, and quilting and quilting.  Of course I've been doing a little gardening along the way also so I've really been having a busy spring and summer.  Unfortunately I also had a computer crash, yuk, but now I have a new computer and if I can just learn how to use this thing then I've got it made.

I will not be posting any pictures of quilts today because I really don't have the hang of getting those pictures on my computer yet, but I will learn that in the next few days.

What I would like to do for just a few lines is to tell you about some of my wonderful summer quilting.  First I had received some information about a program called Quilts for Kids which I did a little research on to make sure this was a legit organization and was really impressed with what I found.  This group of volunteers amass fabric and money from their resources and then they have volunteers who match the fabric and cut out for quilts to be given to children who are ill or hurting or in extraordinary circumstances like storms or floods and have lost their homes.  There are different chapters in different states.  Since I live in Georgia I wanted to check on a Georgia Chapter of Quilts for Kids and I found one at Waycross.  The lady who heads this chapter is Cheryl and she is awesome.  I talked with her and got a package to make a quilt to donate and then presented the Organization to the members of the quilt guild to which I belong, Quilter's Etc.  It was decided that we would request 10 kits from Quilts for Kids for the Guild to sew and quilt.  We were all impressed when we found that this group in Waycross had actually donated quilts to the Tornado Victims in Ringgold, Georgia which is extreme North Georgia and Waycross is very South Georgia.  Ringgold is very close to where we all live 25-30 miles to the north and we often travel through and shop in Ringgold in addition to having friends and family that live in that area.  Our local quilt shop was also located in Ringgold and the shop was totally destroyed by the tornado.  We were very fortunate that there were very few deaths and the major damage was property damage. 

Well, I've been working on those quilts, as has some of the guild members and they are coming right along.  We will be shipping some of the completed quilts back to Waycross next week.  In addition to this outreach program the guild has been involved in providing some pillowcases for children at one of the local hospitals.  Jackie presented this to the guild and we had a wonderful response to that request.  Currently the guild is working on quilts for the Crisis Center which does not had adequate bedding for those they are sheltering.  Hopefully we will get some quilts completed for this site in the next couple of weeks.

We all love to reach out to those around us in a beneficial way so this has been a summer of outreach for us and I hope it continues on into the winter!  I'll be posting some of the pictures of the Quilts for Kids with the next posting (I hope).

In addition to that I have continued to do quilting for other people and have been saving up some pictures of those quilts so I will have something to post when the time arrives.  I've also been spending some time on Facebook which I really enjoy because it makes keeping up with friends and family so very easy!  I really think I am getting better aquainted with my relatives!  In addition to that it gives me another way to find out about the wonderful world of quilting.  I just had to like "Chattanooga Quilts" and "M'lissa Hawley".  There are also several other sites that are a real treat to visit on Facebook. 

Well this will be the end of my rambling tonight and now that summer is over and the kids are have started school (today was the first day here), I'll get back to my blogging and wishing all of you a very happy quilty day.  Let's pull out those projects that have been on hold while we had some summer fun and get down to work for real!

Happy quilting!

Anna