Today we continued working on the Autumn placemats for the Sheriff's Youth Ranch. For those who haven't heard or read about them before, this is a place for good kids removed from bad situations. They are kids recommended for the ranches by police officers, usually because they have been abused or their parents are in jail. They attempt to give the kids a stable environment and instill Christian behavioral principles. Although they are a Christian based organization, they respect the religious beliefs that the kids come in with. There are several of these ranches around Florida.
Live Oaks is the ranch we predominantly support. If we give them more than that ranch needs, they give the overflow to one of the other ranches. Live Oaks has 5 cabins, one for girls and 4 for boys. The girls' cabin was set up so siblings can be located at the same camp. Each cabin has 10 kids and 2 adult "parents". Most of these kids come in with nothing and are amazed to get their own toothbrush, pillowcase, towels, etc. Simple things like placemats, pillowcases and bright quilts of their own bring a bit of normalcy and happiness to a child who feels alone.
Show and Tell:
Charlotte Cecilio finished her placemat without a pattern. She looked at the picture of option 3 and made it from that. Great work.
Van Hathaway was back with us today. She made some belly bands for the dogs
and showed a bunch of table runners made for herself and for friends.
Mic Pickard and Lynne Degado teamed up over the week to make a coordinated set of placemats, following the option 2 French Braid design I showed last week.
As an aside, Lynne talked about another method of duplicating patterns. Audrey had some "Sulkys Iron-On Transfer" pens that they had never tried to use. They used these pens to create a reverse pattern on paper, then laid the paper onto a piece of batting and ironed it, thus transferring the pattern to the batting. Lynne said she was able to transfer the pattern 5 times without degradation. (Such a great idea, I went home and ordered a set of pens from Amazon.)
Mic also put faces on 3 stuffed toys I gave her last week.
Lynne also made some pillowcases.
Audrey Phillips finished a placemat using the option 3 pre-printed batting, some pillowcases.
and her border fabric table runner,
She backed the table runner with red, white and blue butterflies.
Carol Thurston showed a panel she made that she would like to turn into a quilt and asked for advice. (We told her to just keep adding borders.)
Ellen Hein finished her pre-printed fabric placemat and another lovely fleece blanket.
I showed a French Braid table runner I finished,
a set of 4 placemats made from the pre-printed batting,
a bunch of zipper bags made from a long strip of donated home decor fabric I found,
The other was a "cheater quilt", meaning the fabric was printed to look like fabric pieces sewn together. I just had to add borders to make it wider and quilt it.
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Next week we will continue the placemats if needed and take a count to see how many more we need. We will also switch gears and I will demo how to make an organizer that can be used as a bedside caddy or a sewing machine tool caddy. The pattern is the same. I will send out info separately over the weekend, but the main thing you need besides fabric is a piece of non-slip rubber matting, I'm guessing a piece 5" x 20" should do. You should be able to get this at the Dollar Tree, Target, or Walmart.
See you next Wednesday.
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