"If there’s a world here in a hundred years, it’s going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!"
- Pete Seeger, in YES! Magazine

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Project Linus #3 - a setback

If you've been reading about our little project, you may recall that the girls and I have been working on some quilts for Project Linus. Well, I didn't think very far ahead when we started this. Sure, we have LOADS of scraps, but what about batting? And with no LARGE scraps suitable for a small blanket, that means piecing both sides - seems kinda odd, but OK. So, if any of you readers have extra blanket batting lying around in the garage or Grandma's old sewing room and you don't know what to do with it, send it our way. We'll use it for the project - I promise!

The project:
In spite of this shortcoming, I decided to move ahead with my quilt. While E worked on her math, I sat at the table with her, busying my hands with the trimming of 81 four-inch squares from matching scraps of varying, random sizes.

Time:
90 minutes - some of these scraps date back to BEFORE the girls FINALLY learned to cut their pieces from the EDGES rather than right from the center, so I had some creative problem solving to do in order to get enough squares for this blanket.

Why bother?
It's fun and creative and gives me something to do at the table while the girls work their way through their schoolwork.

Worth it?
I think it will be. Today's effort made for really quite a relaxing morning, and I look forward to the finished product. It helped that I set a timer so I wouldn't obsess too much on it, but move on with my day when my time was up.

4 comments:

  1. I got a timer widget, and I LIVE by it. I have found that I am a project starter, then get too many going and get overwhelmed. Every evening, I pick a couple to work on, then throughout the next day I set my timer...I've made some great progress! Your project sounds like a winner!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We had some problems with last year's Linus project. They were very specific about the 20 blankets my daughter and her friend made. They were too big and only supposed to be one layer. Sadly, but then happily, we found another charity to give them to. The abused family shelter really, really needed them since some of them flee the husbands without even shoes on the children's feet. It felt good to give them to a place that needed them so much!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We called in advance and got the specs from our area leader. She said any size from 30"x30" to 36"x36". Must be made of washable materials, and all blankets should be washed before they're turned over to the project. I hope it all works out. If not, our local shelter, I'm certain, will welcome them with open arms as they do all the other things we donate there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. At the nursing home where I work we get a lot of donated lap blankets, but it seems we get most donations around x-mas, so I'm glad to see you giving such things any time of year not just giving season. I know the elderly are always happy to recieve a hand made item, I sure others feel that way too in times of need. Way to go with the charitable deeds, your such an insipration.

    ReplyDelete

It's a free country. Exercise your right to free speech here -->