The guild received a lovely thank-you note from Navy Lt. Bren Doreck who found time and energy to send the note during his recovery. (Click on the note to make it large enough to read.)
This superhero-themed quilt was made by a member of our guild (anyone want to take credit so I can add your name here?) and was given to Lt Doreck at Camp Bastion, a British airbase in southern Afghanistan.
Lt Doreck mentions that the quilt accompanied him from the emergency room at Camp Bastion to Germany and then Walter Reed. The transit flights are minimally heated and the quilts are greatly appreciated.
Today I received an email from Barbara Hayes of AfterSkoolKids.org. The website provides resources for “how to productively use afterschool time.” Barbara is also a 4th Grade teacher, and her students are working on an extra-credit quilt project. One of the students found our SBQG Links page as well as another resource page to share with us — “A Guide for Quilting Fanatics“. I’ve added the new resource page to our Links page, and I’ve found a number of interesting websites already! A brief history of Yo-Yo quilts, paper craft quilts for kids, and the Academy of Quilting. Thank you to Barbara’s student for suggesting this link to us, and I want to send best wishes to everyone in the classroom as they continue their quilt project! Happy quilting!
I make quilts and baby clothes from scraps or used clothing. Does that make these new or used clothing? Can they be given to child protective services?
The purple fabric is made from one of my husband’s old t-shirts that had frayed at the neck. The navy set on the bottom is made from a gigantic t-shirt found at a local Goodwill. It is printed with the name of a plumbing parts supplier in Gardena!
Because each adult t-shirt contains a great deal of embedded water* and chemical input**, I prefer to reuse cotton as long as possible. Water is heavy and cotton is often grown in deserts and irrigated with water transported over mountain ranges and across long distances at enormous energy cost. Then the cotton is (literally!) transported around the world to chase low labor costs before being brought to market. Why not mine the embedded energy and water found in gently used clothing right in our backyard?
See more examples of post-consumer waste sewing.
If clothes like these are deemed acceptable by child protective services, we can hold a sweatshop at my house to churn out dozens of these.
* Depending on where the cotton was grown, it takes about 650 gallons or one CCF of water to grow the cotton used in one adult medium t-shirt.
** More chemicals are used to produce cotton, pound for pound, than any other cash crop.
Don’t miss the San Pedro Bay Historical Society‘s annual quilt show at the Muller House museum.
From the Muller House website:
Open from 1:00 to 4:00 PM every Sunday except holidays, the Muller House Museum offers guided tours, monthly exhibits, discussions of historical interest and special events. See our Calendar of Events for specific activities. Admission is free, but a donation is encouraged.
From the press release:
Sunday, April 29, 2012, 1 to 4 pm
Quilts by Artists from a Friendship Group of the South Bay Quilters Guild, Redondo Beach, including:
Carol Berg
Dee Evans
Margaret Schucker
Carollee Schuegraf
Traditional & Art Quilts
142 Beacon Street
San Pedro, CA 90731
Suggested Donation $4.00
Exhibits at the Muller house rotate monthly; be sure to see the quilts before the end of May.
