...pillowcases and postcards

Yesterday my son and I packaged up 51 pillowcases and sent them to our American troops in Afghanistan. We are supporting Operation Pillowcase.

 I forgot to take a photo of all the cases before we put them into the boxes... But they were great looking with a wide variety of colors.  My son made several of the cases himself along with myself and several donations from friends.    If you live in or around the Blackstone Valley and think you would like to participate - you may email me. Otherwise go to the web blog and hook up with a team leader in your area.  This is an ongoing project that my son and I will continue to support by making and sending  cases.

I hope you join in.

Also, I had some fun this week making post cards.  I had several notes to send out and luckily I was able to stock up on a  lot of my supplies through my friend and Guild member Shari. 

Shari hosts a post card supply making swap/sale through our Guld.  She offers prestamped backs, precut postcard stabilizer and a wide variety of novelty fabrics. 

Recently Shari had a booth set up at our local quilt show and guests were able to make postcards and purchase supplies. The proceeds are donated to Women's Heart Health. 

I don't really care for cutting the stabilizer or stamping the backs...so I'm happy to get my supplies though Shari.  Her hard work makes for my easy.

-an example of a prestamped back

-some of the novelty prints, turned into cards and decorated with crystals.

-painted and embellished fabrics.

-painted batting (from 3 Creative Studios).

...and designs cut from the painted Lutradur. 

I used my friend Sue's new ruler to cut the shapes. She has a very cool cutting ruler with  many design options. 

More details to follow.

...these two were my favorites. 

operation pillowcase. . .

My friend Debra is collecting pillowcases for Operation Pillowcase.

I told her "You can count on my son to make some pillowcases during school vacation."

It got to be Wednesday of this week and with play time, snow time, sports time and down time we hadn't touched the stack of fabrics yet.

Yesterday afternoon we got set up and started.

Together we worked. I cut the fabrics and pressed, he stitched the seams, finished the edges and flipped  right sides out.

After a few finished cases he asked "Can I keep this one?"  I liked that the sometimes surly, really 'cool' acting preteen still saw the value in a simple handcrafted pillowcase.  But I reminded him of our mission and why we were making the cases.

 After awhile I could tell he was growing tired of the sewing.  And even though there were more fabrics to stitch, I didn't want to press my luck. It was time for him to do something else.  But before he went off,

 we stacked and counted our work. Together, we had made 12 pillowcases. 

I knew he was proud and I was proud of him.

When he wasn't looking I made him this.

Today is a new day and I think we can easily tackle the next stack of fabrics.

I mentioned Operation Pillowcase to the women in Guild. I know a few members will be bringing cases to the meeting tonight.  My friend Susan dropped off a stack she had made.  Working together I think we can help Debra put a dent in the next call for cases. It looks like they will need 500 for the next unit.