Estate Sale Burro

Okay, so this just happened. Last week Judi saw an ad for an estate sale of a master quilter — teacher, author, international judge. Judi had to peek and came home with yardage for about $1.10 per yard. She went back on the last day — half price day — and came home with more yardage. As she paid for the last purchase, Judi mentioned that she would take away what was left at the end of the sale to use with Project Linus. Judi knew others had said similar things, so she was surprised to get a call saying it all had to be moved by 6:30 pm.

I carried 875 pounds of fabric from the basement, through the garage, down the driveway, and loaded it into two cars parked on the street. The agreement was we had to take it all and we were not surprised that 175 pounds ended up in the trash. As we sorted, we found 180 pounds of non-quilting fabric that will be passed on to others who can use it.Let’s see, 875 minus 175 minus 180 — we ended up with 520 pounds of quilting fabric. Let’s linger here a moment. Since there are about 3½ yards per pound, we came home with 1,820 yards of fabric. The low-end quilting fabric at Joann’s is $6 per yard.

Let’s see, 1,820 times 6 — we came home with the equivalent of $10,920 in quilting fabric. Sure, it all had to be laundered, but even factoring that in we got a good deal. And as a bonus, carrying 875 pounds up from the basement prompted a good night’s sleep.

We called four friends who quilt for charity and they took 600 yards (170 lbs) of fabric. That leaves us with 525 yards (150 lbs) of yardage. All of the yardage will be laundered before I go to bed this evening and processed and stored in a few days. Over the next few months Judi will work her way through 200 pounds of fabric pieces that eventually will be used in scrappy quilts. We don’t waste a cotton pickin’ thing.

But here’s the deal — we’ll do it all again on June 4. That’s right, in just seven weeks we will be at the Overland Park Recycling Extravaganza to receive fabric and notions, yarn and needles from folks in the whole county. The last time we did this, nine organizations in the KC area benefited from the contributions — agencies helping refugees, occupational training for the sewing industry in KC, quilts for Project Linus, etc. So the last few days has been a tune up of the Sewing Goodness initiative that gathers resources to be stitched into care and kindness for our neighbors.