Project Linus - Third Sunday Group - November

What an exhausting Sunday afternoon I had on November 16. Our 3rd Sunday group met at JoAnns in Independence, MO.

We arrived to find 3 bags of afghans that had been left for Project Linus. JoAnns is not one of our drop-off points. On those rare occasions when someone brings donations when we aren't meeting, the store has been kind enough to put them in the classroom we use.

These 2 bags contain 20 afghans. The 3rd bag, a big, black, 30 gallon trash bag was packed tight and tied shut. It contained 24 afghans, each afghan was one giant granny square.

I brought some fleece blankets to rework. Some were too small and needed to be stitched together into larger blankets. Some were 2 layers, which are too warm and heavy for hospitalized children. An 11 year old was joining us and changing 2-layer fleece blankets into 1 layer blankets was a project for him.

Jodie and I made 5 small fleece blankets into 2 larger ones before Nancy arrived with 61 finished blankets. Louise had brought Project Linus labels, so we switched from working on fleece to sewing labels on blankets.

Nancy ties all of her quilts and clearly buys in quantity when she finds a bargain. Here are some of her quilts with the Project Linus label sewn on.

And 3 more stacks.

This is just 2 examples of the string quilts Nancy made. They are all quite colorful. I don't enjoy stitching string quilts, but I love seeing what others make.

Nancy had some solid color fleece which was too plain and boring to suit her. So she decorated it. Ever have one of those preprinted panels with doll or pillow cutouts and you don't want to make dolls or pillows? Use it spice up some solid color fleece. Or applique it onto plain cotton for an easy applique quilt.

This fleece blanket is decorated with a strip of bright, bold fabric.

I apologize for the lateness of this report. I started writing this 6 days ago, didn't have time to finish, and just today got back to it.

My new Project Linus job is consuming my life. It will be a real challenge to have gifts to give at Christmas, not to mention a baby gift for my cousin who is expecting in January. I recently joked that I'm working on gifts 20 to 30 minutes at a time, every other day. The scary part is that is pretty much the truth.

I Have a Job

I have a new job. I get no salary. In fact, I'll probably wind up paying to do this job.

About 3½ weeks ago, I became the new chapter coordinator for the Greater Kansas City Area chapter of Project Linus. My predecessor, "G", went back to college full time and was falling farther and farther behind. The change in command happened so fast, my head spun for days.

I'm slowly catching up on everything. Picking up new blankets, attaching our Project Linus label to blankets, contacting recipient organizations and arranging deliveries. Sometimes it seems like the more I do, the more there is to do.

Once I had the volunteer addresses, both electronic and snail, I created an email distribution list in Microsoft Outlook. I updated both lists with all the bits of information that "G" saved during her 8 month tenure.

I sent postcards to everyone on the snail list to tell them of the change in command and other important news. I chose my words carefully and squeezed as much as I could onto those postcards. The email list received a similar message.

Part of my message was a request for cash donations to keep the chapter running and help pay for publishing a newsletter. (My pension check is a lot smaller than the paycheck I used to get.) I asked for just 5 or 10 dollars a person.

I've received several notes, thanking me for letting them know what was happening. Checks have been arriving in my mailbox. Just from a small portion of volunteers, but it already adds up to enough to cover a good portion of publishing a newsletter in January. The comments I've received reinforce the need to have a newsletter again. The volunteers want to know about what is happening and it's been too long since a newsletter was published.

When things are caught up and routines established for the week to week activities, life will be more relaxed again. For now, I've still got a lot of work to do.

Project Linus has taken over a lot of my house and my life. To make some room, I've gotten rid of things I'd planned to get rid of for weeks/months. My garage is cleaner than it has been for ages. As soon as I can get some shelving units and storage containers, I will move some things out there.

I will close with a couple of pictures of my living room. That's all I'm going to share, but certainly not everything I have stored in plain sight. Hey, the closets were already full.

First, some blankets all checked out, labeled, counted and bagged ready to deliver to a hospital or shelter.

And some incoming blankets, awaiting inspection, labeling and counting.