Sewing Kindness

Roseanne over at the "Home Sewn By Us" blog is one of my favorite bloggers.  Her kindness radiates through her blog and lights up my day.  She recently blogged about making a table runner for a friend who had given most of her stash to Roseanne and Sue.

I have a pretty good stash of fabric and friends have often come to pick out fabric they need for a project:

One of three cabinets.

Scout says: Wait what about this fabric? Yes some here and some vintage fabric there: 

 But if you look closer at the fabric, you'll find that a lot of it is fabric that is fairly old, like these blenders from the 1980s.

To be honest, most of it was donated to me.  For years, friends and their friends would ask me to take fabric from loved ones.  The fabric had belonged to late members of family or quilters who had to give up sewing for one reason or another. 

When this happens anymore, I just encourage folks to donate the fabric to a quilt guild or a sewing group who does donation projects.

But when I was building my stash, I always tried to make something for the person who had sent the fabric my way.  Sometimes I made the person a wall hanging, tablerunner, or quilt.  Just something to remember their mother or aunt who had passed on.

Often people didn't want anything back at all so I would make things to donate.  I'd still send them a thank you note but always enclosed a photo  of the projects I made with the fabric--like Teddy Bears and premie quilts for kids in the hospital:

One of the best stash distribution ideas happened in my guild, The Crazy Quilters.  Years ago, when a member passed, our guild sold the fabric for a special cause.  The late member had two cats she adored and when a family agreed to adopt both of them, special members of our guild (hello Lorraine and Sandy!), sold the fabric for the care and upkeep of her cats.

I'm an old quilter now and most of my family has had their fill of quilts and sewn items.  I choose to use my sewing now partially for the business, but mainly for donation quilts.  Besides making guild donation quilts, I've been making lap quilts. When a friend or acquaintance tells me of a family or friend who is battling cancer, I like to send a quilt over to them.  From what I've heard the chemo rooms are often a cool temperature and the quilts are a wonderful way to forward a hug from a stranger.

Recently I heard about the "I Found a Quilted Heart" project.  People anonymously leave quilted hearts with messages like "I need a home" and "You are loved" in public places.  It's a really cool idea and you can read more about it here.  It's definately on my list of things to make in the coming year.  What kind of donation projects do you like to make?