Teagan's birthday donation

Well, it seems that since my kids love this blogging business, that if I should say, happen to announce one child's birthday service project and perhaps, fail to announce the other one...well, let's say that that might not be the most kind thing to do to two children! So, in all fairness, here is a blog about the service project we did for mine and Teagan's birthday. Our birthdays are in March, but we technically didn't finish the project until September.

For our project this year we decided that we wanted to use up some of our extra material by making blankets to donate to the children's hospital in Salt Lake. We had a goal of making 50 little quilts to donate. After cutting all the material I had in the garage, we were still about 10-15 short, so we posted on-line that we were in need of some material and lots of batting. It was amazing the response we got! People donated cute kid fabrics, flannel, and lots of batting. One man who runs his own non-profit organization donated $100 for Teagan to go out and buy some batting with! We also had a neighbor, when they found out we didn't have a quilting frame, donate and cut some wood boards for us to use as a frame. The outpouring of support for this project was just wonderful!
We had wanted to have them made in a fairly quick time frame, but it was a much slower process than I had planned! I was the one who pieced and cut the tops, bottoms, and batting together, and in the end I sewed the majority of them. But having Teagan sew them was a bit slower than anticipated. And then the tying took a while also! We had help from the Relief Society sisters (the ladies in our church)one night and they helped us tie seven quilts. And a Young Women's group in our area (the girls between 12 and 18 years old in our church) needed a project to do so we gave them 5 to work on. But other than that, the rest were done here at the house. It seemed like the quilting frame was constantly up in our front room and we were working on tying quilts for a very long time!

But in the end we were able to make 54 quilts to donate to Primary Children's Hospital. Some were newborn sized, some were pre-teen sized and everything in the middle. We made some newborn ones that were all white for the families who lost their babies, and we made some with soft flannel or fleece backing to add a comfortable feel. They were very varied, but they all were made with love.

I was very impressed with how hard Teagan worked at these. Garrett helped tie at times, and Owen loved watching. Sometimes the boys would lie under the quilting frame and would be in charge of passing the needle back up after Teagan or I pushed it through to the underside. This was a fun family project.

I didn't get as many pictures as I should have during this project. You would think since it took such a long time that I would have had ample time to click off some pictures, but such wasn't the case. And then when we finally got (the correct) directions to the hospital (after 2 successful attempts of following 2 incorrect maps) I realized that I had left the house without my camera, so there was another lost photo op! And now I can't find some of the pictures from her tying the quilts with Owen, and I just used them last week to print some off... I think I might have had a three year old helper help me delete some things! Yikes! But it still worked out wonderfully ~ pictures or no pictures!

She came up with a great project idea and it eventually came to pass (there was a point during this process when I had thought that maybe only donating 30 would still make a fine project, but she wouldn't have it... we had set a goal for 50, so 50 it had to be!)The pictures don't really look like there are that many quilts, but they filled up a black garbage bag to the brim and were most definitely 54!

Tig, you did a great job and Mommy is very proud of your wonderfully giving spirit. The blankets we made will bring a lot of smiles and memories to the kids and the parents in the hospital. What might have only seemed like a (fairly) easy service project for us will make those who receive the quilts feel loved and supported during some rough times. And that might make all the difference in the world to them, just to know that you aren't alone when life seems the hardest can be an enormous support. You are growing up into a beautiful young lady and I am loving watching the transformation!