This is the big room called the "Community Room" at City Hall. It's a great room to work in with lots of light and a big kitchen at the back. As you can see, there are projects in progress all around the room.
Here are two of the happiest gals I know - Joanie and Dorothy. They are tying one of the quilts made by Adella's neighbor lady. When they were done tying, Barb took over and trimmed the edges and added the binding.
In July, Anita brought this finished patchwork quilt top and then several of the gals did the tying. It is huge! I bound the edges and it was another finished quilt that will head off to Iowa.
This photo below shows some of the fleece scarves that we made. We got fourteen scarves finished and two pair of gloves and one hat. I had purchased some mittens but will go out and do a little shopping so that each scarf has a matching pair of mittens and perhaps a hat, too!
The last activity of the day was putting the stitches and loops for hanging on the Christmas stockings that Anita and Pastor Kathy had stitched together. I showed the gals to just take large running stitches with the yarn and it gave it kind of a decorative look. They were giving me a hard time because they said I made it look easier than it actually was when they started doing it. But they did it and when they are filled with some goodies, there will be some smiling faces for some boys and girls this Christmas!
Stitching on the stockings are from the left - Dorothy, then Darlene, and Joanie.
As the day progressed, we stacked the items made or collected around the piano in the corner of the community room. It was fun to see the piano disappear under such a volume of quilts, scarves, totebags and more. All of the quilts will go off to Iowa. We had talked that a couple of them might go over to Sibley County Services but the need is so great in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area that they will head south. All of the totebags and the pillowcases will also go to Iowa but about half of the scarves and stockings will go to Iowa and the other half will go to our own county, Sibley Services for those in need in our own area. In the future, almost all of our items will go to Sibley County unless some special cause arises that we decide to do some stitching for. In the meantime, I have received items from the Eastern Long Island Quilt Guild that will be added to our donations to Iowa, plus a few other items. I'll be posting those photos in the next few days - really, I promise I will not forget this time. As of this writing, about one third of the quilts have been delivered to Judy Heilers, our contact in Cedar Rapids and I am preparing today to deliver all the rest of them to my son's girlfriend's sister who is visiting in Minneapolis and she will take the rest of them to Judy. How's that for a convoluted sentence and an interesting path to get the quilts to where they are needed?
Thanks so much to everyone who donated time, talents, materials, food, etc. This has been a great adventure and there's still more good works and good fun to come!!!
