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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Pillowcases for Charity

Every year the local quilt shop I like to go to has a "garage sale". For one night (usually a Friday) they fill their class room area full of fabric that they sell for $1.00-$2.50 a yard. Last year I dragged my husband and Logan to attend and went...ummm...should we say a little crazy. I was buying fabric I liked five yards at a time!

A year later and all this fabric was still folded up in my quilting basket - untouched. Then I read about "One Million Pillowcase Challenge" in one of my quilting magazines. The idea of this is to make and donate pillowcases to local charities in your community. The pillowcases go anywhere from homeless shelters, YMCA, YWCA, children's hospitals, cancer patients, foster children, the list goes on and on. My first thought was - "What a great way to use up some of this fabric."

So I got busy measuring and cutting out my five yards of fabrics and any other large pieces I had laying around from quilts I had made. I am currently at 11 pillowcases; though I think I will run out of large enough pieces of fabric at 14 or 15.

I always say that I was put here to make a difference, for a purpose. Though this is small in comparison to what some do, at least it's something.

Whenever I bring up volunteer work, my husband (who's "funny" about charity or volunteering) always says I picked the wrong life to save the world. If I want to make a difference than I should have never got married or had kids. My retaliation is always, why can't I do both? I'm not flying off to less fortunate countries, or abandoning and neglecting my family to help others. All the "small" things matter too. Whether it be cleaning up a local park, walking/running for a specific charity/organization, or making a few pillowcases. Besides, it makes me happy, and we all know "A home is not a happy home unless mom is happy."

2 comments:

beth said...

you can never have too much fabric - go crazy again this year! Plus you have the added bonus of saying your purchase is for chairity!

Shelly said...

I love your thinking!!

Since JP wants me to start making him shirts, I told him to pick some material out while we are at the garage sale this year.

He went to JoAnn's and picked out patterns this past weekend. And they are going on sale - 4th of July weekend all McCall patterns are $0.99!