What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Well, I thought I was being cute on Tuesday with the video, but it didn’t get the response I thought it might. It was supposed to be a clue to let you all know a new mystery quilt along is coming in January, but only a couple of readers figured that out. I couldn’t do one last year, and I was hoping to get everyone excited for a new design. So, here is the announcement for real, coming in January, Scrap Dance Quadrille Mystery Quilt Along! The pattern is done, I just have to finish sewing the first ...

This is another busy week with not a lot of sewing going on. Last night I had the pleasure of speaking on Zoom to the Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild with my Well Loved Quilt Repair program, booked by fellow blogger Emily from Darling Dogwood. Such fun, and they had great questions! In the sewing room, I finished up the quilt repair and it is ready to be picked up, but I didn’t do any more pictures. Yesterday, I had lunch with my longarm friend, Chryste, and picked up this quilt for Safelight. She was helping with the quilting for ...

Last May, we began the Safelight Project 2021 collecting donations of sewn case sets, stamped cards and money to fund the spa bags for new residents of the local domestic violence shelter. The higher quality canvas bags are filled with full size lotions, facial cleansers, nail and hair treatments, new sunglasses, sets of spa size bath products, new hairbrush, pedicure kits, soap in crocheted holders with matching scrubbies, reader made case sets for cosmetics, tissues and sunglasses, and two handmade inspirational cards stamped by readers and me.

I had cases of some products from the first delivery in the basement ...

It has been a busy couple of weeks, with shipments and backorders arriving, case stuffing and bag filling for donation. Settle in for a long and picture heavy post. I had enough cases for the first delivery, and set some of those out on a large cardboard flat placed on the longarm to make it easier to match things up. The hairbrushes and pedicure sets were in colors, so I laid them out distributing the colors to coordinate with the case sets.

Here is a complete spa bag. The colors of the cases, hairbrushes and pedicure sets are coordinated with ...

We are making good progress to being able to deliver the first 50 bags of the Safelight Project to the shelter soon, hopefully in early June. This year has brought a change to the bags ordered, as the company I have been using doesn’t have the same ones I ordered before. So, I spent some time looking at their other offerings, but didn’t find anything as nice. So I began a search elsewhere, and ultimately ordered a new style from a different company. I actually like it better, and it was only a bit more in price, still ...

It is so fun to go to the PO box these days, lots of things coming in! By far, the most envelopes up to now have had monetary donations. I am excited that we are quickly getting close to our goal of enough to make 100 spa bags. Thank you so much to all the donors! Because of your generosity, we only need $200 to complete the bags. Every donation of $6 gets an entry in the drawings. All we need is 16 more people to give $12 to the project for it to be fully funded. Even if you ...

Checking with the Safelight Domestic Violence shelter in town this past week, they are running low on their spa bags. They have lasted a good long time this year due to the reduced capacity of the shelter. By the time we can get this project done over the next few weeks, they will be out of them altogether. So, it is time to do it again. For newer readers, Safelight is our local shelter for women fleeing abuse or violence with services of immediate intervention emergency shelter, counseling, job training, case management including help with acquiring legal services and accessing ...

Now that a couple of months have passed since the big delivery to Safelight, I emailed them to ask if they now had space to take the rest of the bags.  To my surprise, they said that new shelter resident needs have greatly slowed down, and they hadn’t used that many bags so far.  Their closet was full and they really didn’t want the rest right now.  But, I needed to finish this project and get the balance of the cases and bags out of my basement.  So, I contacted the domestic violence shelter in Brevard, next county ...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on getting our Safelight Project farther along.  As we left off in March when the lockdown began I had just delivered 39 bags.  The dollar store wasn’t doing bulk orders and I needed to wait until that began again.  In late April, I was able to again order online, but it took two weeks to come in, and not everything shipped.  So, I placed a second order, changing the items slightly with different brands and a different hair product, and that order arrived about 10 days later.

When I had ...

Strong storms roared through our area on Sunday night, with driving rain, thunder and lightening.   The winds were howling up the coves on both sides of our home for some time, and the noise was frightening.  The next day brought the damage to light.  We were counting our blessings that we only lost two trees, and neither of them hit the house.  One branch broke off and lodged itself high in an adjacent tree.  This branch will just have to come down on its own as it is about 50 ft off the ground.

The forest behind the house has ...

It has been a busy time for the Safelight Project.  Lots of packages have come into the post office, and another delivery was made.   I hope I get the names and the pictures right, so much has come in I might be a bit off, but know that I really do appreciate and am very grateful for all the contributions to the project.  Bright prints and fun designs came in these shipments from Sue Crane, Nancy Grimm, and Bonnie Coleman.

Theresa Beddy sent gorgeous cards with wonderful messages inside.

I think these were printed from a computer, then glued inside ...

Cards and case sets are coming in for Safelight, and it is exciting to see this project take off so quickly.  We hit our donation goal within 48 hours of the first announcement, and have now gone well over.  I knew that the shelter was completely out of bags for new residents, so I wanted to get some done right away.  I ordered the bags online, and put in a bulk order for some of the items from Dollar Tree.  That shipment will have the sunglasses backordered, and the other items are estimated to arrive on the 23rd.  I’ll ...

It was an amazing weekend, with the announcement of the start of the Safelight Project on Friday.  Almost immediately, the donations began pouring in, not only from readers in the US, but also one from England!  I was so grateful for the immediate support, and the number of contributors.

Thank you so much to these wonderful donors!  Pam A, Lesley G, Cindy B, Connie W, Vicki W, Amy D, Susan P, Sherrill P, Susan G, Loretta C, Bonnie H, and Linda D.  We were well on our way to the goal in under two days.  Then, on Saturday afternoon I ...

It is time to start the Safelight Project for this year, and I am hopeful that the fourth year of this project will be the biggest and best yet.  Checking with the Safelight domestic violence shelter this week showed that they are now out of the spa bags. Last time we managed to do 70 of them, but we still need more to get to a year’s supply. The shelter is constantly providing a refuge for new people, so the need is ongoing. The previous three years we have come together as a community to assemble spa bags for ...

Making small gifts for Safelight this month along with stamping a couple of cards for very special friends kept me busy at the stamping bench. If you are not a stamper, please read on for an update on this year’s Safelight Project.   Isn’t this stamp adorable?  It is called Darby Love, and is also available from Impression Obsession without the heart, called Darby (affiliate links).

I stamped him in red and mounted the image on red card stock.  Then I added the sentiment.

Pretty paper on part of the base creates interest with the image offset to the ...