Charity Quilt

I love the idea of giving back to the community.  Wherever I live, I always try to be helpful.  Now that I live and have a family here, it's only fitting that I am a good citizen in this great country.  Besides church, I volunteered at both my children's schools from day one until they both went to college.  Along the way I made a lot of friends and learned many good things from the moms and fellow volunteers. 

After my surgery, I cut down some places of volunteering but one.  Every week I go to help at the TwinVision Library.  TwinVision is a part of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults: The Kenneth Jernigan Lending Library in Tarzana, California.  This is a very amazing place.  They have books from preschool through high school and young adults.  Their books are sent postage free to individuals, schools, and itinerant teachers.  They also produce braille calendars too.

Books are available in two distinct formats: Twin Vision or Braille.  Twin Vision books contain adjacent pages of print and Braille, making it the ideal form for teachers and parents to read to pre-school to fourth grade children.  Many of their Twin Vision books contain colorful pictures that can be enjoyed equally by sighted children with blind parents or by students with limited vision. 
Braille books are produced for the use of more advanced students and for upper grade readers.  Titles in this category contain many classics.

I enjoy working there so much.  Not only is it a worthy cause, all the volunteers there are super nice and really fun to be with.

Next month they're having a fundraising event.  I decided to make a Faux Rag quilt for them.  I don't know what quilt has more texture than a faux rag quilt!!

The front of the quilt

The back of the quilt

This is a very soft and warm quilt and gives a very nice feeling when touched.  One of my quilter friends who volunteers at the same place made a quilt with many texture fabrics so that the children can feel the different types of fabric.  Too bad I don't have a picture of her quilt, it looks amazing.

Have a great week and have some fun!

I link to Sew Fresh Quilts: Let's Bee Social and Kat & Cat Quilts: Sew Some Love.

Finished projects

I finally finished my son's quilt.  I first posted about it in January and you can read about it here and here.  As promised, I'm sharing my experience with the bamboo batting here.  Please share in the comment if you have used bamboo batting before.  I’m eager to hear about your experiences. 

While I was at the Road to California show in January, I bought 100% bamboo batting to try because it's said on the package that this batting has breath-ability and anti-bacterial properties.  I also like bamboo because it's a sustainable and renewable resource.  And this product was made in the USA.

The batting is very soft but when I opened it up to prepare the quilt top for quilting, I noticed some hard particles in  the batting.  They turned out to be bamboo wood chips.  They are hard enough that they could be felt through the quilt top.  Didn't want to risk breaking the needle, I picked them all out. Here is what they look like.

While I was quilting the quilt, lint from the batting that extended beyond the quilt top got all over the quilt as in the picture below. 

When I hand sewed the binding on to the back of the quilt, there was lint on the thread every time I pulled the needle up.
 

It was quite irritating to have to pull the lint off from the thread after every stitch.

Finally I threw the quilt into the washing machine.  When it came out, there was more lint on the quilt.  Lint came out through the seams.  I have to pull it off and use the lint roller to remove all the lint.  Do you see the lint that came out through the needle holes by the binding?

After much agonizing and all the lint was removed, the quilt is done and ready to be pickup by the new owner.

Another project that got done is the sofa.  You can read about the sofa here.  I'm happy to report that it's done now.  Here are the before and after pictures.

 

Go make something and have fun!

Link to busyhandsquilts, crazymomquilts and confessionofafabricaddict.