September Community Service Sew Day

Remember the kits we've been making for Christmas Quilts for Hospice? Saturday was a Community Service Sew day to work on them. We don't have a total count of how many kits there are because some of the people making kits took them home to sew, but we think there are about 50. Wow, Quilters sure do step up when there's a need. 

We had a full house in the sewing room Saturday. I didn't take pics, so the pics here are courtesy of Hiromi, our Community Service Committee chair. 

We had teams of people on the long arm all day, under the direction of several of our Long Arm Committee members, and their plan was to get eight quilts quilted. Not all were Christmas quilts, but the To-Be-Quilted cabinet is so full that they just went ahead and worked on some of those. Moving them along creates more room for more Christmas quilts to be quilted as the tops get finished.  

A lot of people grabbed kits and started piecing their tops. In some cases, this was the second or third kit they had pieced. Judy's first one has a beautiful medallion center; it's now ready for backing and batting to be cut, and she's already on to the next top.  

We have teams of people who prep backings and cut batting. They had done a lot of that at the prep day a couple weeks ago so that finished tops could be quilted as soon as possible. 

Amidst all this, we had an iron go kaput on us. We do go through irons in this club. We have stations for up to four to be in use at a time, and they get used for many hours every day. This one only got slightly warm; I could do a better job finger pressing than with this iron, but I needed to press binding. Fortunately we had another working one available.

Ruth was able to get her quilt bound, labeled, and finished. Oops, we should have pinned the baggie with the quilt's info to the back for the photo. 

I had quilted one of mine at home and got it bound during the sew day. It's labeled, and in the finished pile. 

People who are working on kits will finish their tops at home, and our teams that handle backs and batting will move them along as they're ready. I'm scheduled for the long arm on Friday, so I'll quilt the other one of mine that I have ready to go, and also one from the To-Be-Quilted cabinet if I have time. I'll bind them myself, but for those who don't want to do binding, we also have people who do that. The cabinet system with locations for charity quilts in each stage of progress is working pretty well, although we do get bottlenecks sometimes. 

We have at least a dozen finished quilts now. They're due by Nov. 30 so they can be taken to Hospice in early December. 

Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that I've found my people in this club? 

Link up: Small Quilts and Doll Quilts