2022 Q2 report on charity quilting

We’re halfway through 2022 and here’s a report for the board of directors (that’s you) on the charity quilting of Judi and Keith. To date in 2022, we’ve completed 90 charity quilts, 56 for Project Linus and 34 for auctions, refugees, etc.

In the last quarter, however, our greatest contribution may be in the fabric broker work in which we have engaged.

First, Judi left a business card with an estate sale company offering to receive any fabric left over when the sale closed. The woman who previously lived in that house was a quilt instructor, international quilt judge, and quilt designer. Judi was surprised when the estate sale folks called less than an hour later. “Come and get it,” the caller said. Judi was given three requirements: you have to take all fabric items, you have to provide your own “burro” (self portrait), and it has to be done by 6:30 pm. We hauled 875 pounds of fabric from the basement of that house including 175 pounds that went right to the trash can. Judi has a system for storing fabric that steamlines the selection process for a project and she recorded about 950 yards of fabric added to our stash. And we gave more away than we kept.

Second, Judi and I received fabric, notions, and yarn at the semi-annual Overland Park Recycling Extravaganza the first Saturday in June. We received 660 pounds of stuff in six hours. Interestingly, the fabric type most donated was decorator fabric, probably directly related to the socio-economic reality of Overland Park and Johnson County. We received 62 pounds of yarn — do you know how little a skein of yarn weighs? That’s a lot of yarn! From this event, we kept only a few pieces of fabric and all of the unfinished projects (some of which we have already completed).

The items from those two events went to a number of agencies and individuals: Stitching Change, The Sewing Labs, Scraps KC, and volunteers working with Project Linus, a hospital service group, church groups that use sewing in some way, a community service organization, a woman who knits items for distribution to the homeless, etc.

Third, a friend in another state who knows of our quilting work contacted us about where he might donate the fabric left by his recently deceased mother. We put him in contact with the closest Project Linus chapter. He estimates they took away 100 boxes of fabric. It took a trailer, the back of a pickup, and an SUV to haul it all. I estimate that the quantity of fabric they donated could make about 1,100 twin-size quilts or 1,600 crib-size quilts.

So that’s our Q2 report. We’re quite comfortable on hot summer days in Kansas to be in our air conditioned basement creating comforters for folks in need of courage [comfort = com- “with” + fortis “strong”; give or add strength to].