Club Notes - May 20, 2020

We had a mini club meeting this afternoon - just 6 of us.  Bev Minnerly, Carolyn Grasso, Charlotte, Cecilio, Diane Placek, Ellen Hein, and me.  The El Santiago rec center manager, Todd, greeted us and covered the 6 tables with plastic tablecloths which he could sanitize afterwards.  They limited it to 6 tables because the tables had to be 8 feet from the walls.  The staff told us we were the first club to come back for any meeting.   The pottery clubs cannot use the kiln so they cannot return yet.  I will wait another week or 2 before calling another meeting to see if they loosen the rules at all.

Pat Pipa and Laura Tomich were waiting for me in their golf carts when I drove into the parking lot.

Pat brought me a dog bed and 20 masks for the Youth Ranch, and picked up some fabric. 

Laura brought me 5 zipper bags and took home fabric to make masks.  I left several boxes of fabric and zippers in my cart, for the taking but most of it was still there when I was ready to drive out.




We spent the first half hour chatting and catching up with each other.  Then we started show and tell.

Carolyn started us off with 2 doggie beds.  I gave her a bag full of supplies for pillowcases, zipper bags and backpacks to take home. She asked for help in laying out the fabric for a doggie coat pattern and Bev agreed to help her at the end of the meeting.





Bev has been working on clearing her UFOs.  She finished a large stack of clothes for Giving Dolls, 


made 6 fidget walker bags using up a bunch of odds and ends,




and a drawstring backpack with an outside pocket.  She also took time to replace her worn neck pillow.







She also showed the mask she made substituting t-shirt fabric for the elastic. Bev said it is more comfortable around the ears, but you have to pick the right stretchy t-shirt fabric.

Ellen made a pink baby quilt and a patriotic one which will go to honor flight.

She showed a small size mask and another sleep sack for her granddaughter. 

 She also showed 2 Samba card holders, she made using 2 colors to separate the type of cards.

 Diane came with 3 cute stuffed fish and 2 drawstring backpacks.

 Charlotte showed a mask she made and a stack of patriotic dryer sheet blocks she put together. She has enough done for almost 2 quilts, just needs to make 4 more. She asked for one of the Cornerstone Hospice Veteran's center blocks, and for advise on how to put it together with the dryer sheet blocks.

Charlotte gave me a completed red, white and blue dryer sheet quilt top 2 weeks ago.  I backed and quilted it and gave it to Ellen to finish the binding.  Here is the finished quilt.

 I started by showing 2 baby quilts that B.J. Herter made.  She made a stuffed dinosaur to go with  each.  We all thought this was a cute idea,  and I had several other dinosaurs at home, so I pinned one to the baby quilt Ellen turned in as well.

Anne Knoff's friend Cindy Cooke left 2 sturdy large fabric bags full of a bunch of smaller bags at the rec center for us.   I counted a total of 48 totes and zipper bags of various sizes that she made with fabric Anne gave her.

I have started making quilts from our donated supplies. Here are some that I made and quilted.  Ellen has been doing the binding for me.

 The dolphin panel quilt was one I made a while back and misplaced.  I found it when going through the fabric boxes.  All four of these quilts will be put in storage for next year's Youth Ranch graduates. I plan to stockpile twin size quilts throughout the year so we won't have to rush them next winter.


I am organizing as many quilt kits as I can over the next days or weeks.  So far I have given 3 to Diana Gosselin to stitch together and have 5 more in bags ready to be stitched by anyone would would like to volunteer.  I am working with 6.5 blocks and so far have a green one, a red one, a yellow one, a pink one and a blue one.  In between I may still do some more cutting since I have several boxes of fabric I haven't gone through yet.  These are simple rows of squares, nothing fancy, just easy ways to use the donated fabric and make quilts to be donated.

Tomorrow Ray and I planned to deliver 25 dog beds to the Humane Society of Lake County. I still had another 24 I was holding for a separate delivery and received 5 more this afternoon, so I'm going  to add 3 more to the pile in my car, bringing tomorrow's deliver to 28.

The reporter who interviewed Ellen and me last week about the Youth Ranch donations called again and wanted to do an article on our work on the dog beds.  She sent a photographer and a videographer to my house on Tuesday to take pictures of the pile of dog beds in the back of my van.  The video is supposed to be shown on the Villages TV channel 2, but I don't know when.  I guess they are short on news to write about.

I will give an accounting of all the finished items I am holding in a later post.  There should be opportunities to deliver things again soon, but we are being cautious.