Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Tackle it Tuesday: Sewing for Charity

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Off to a slow start today, as I just got home from my daughter's high school variety show this morning, an annual event for "Snow Week." She sang Taylor Swift's "Our Song," and it was just beautiful! Someday maybe I'll figure out a way to upload videos to this blog.

Anyway... what I should be tackling today is my sewing room. I haven't made any progress since last week, though we did get our son moved into the room that I painted. I should be diving into that pile of sewing stuff today, but something else has come up.

And it's more fun.

And should is a bad word anyway. All it does is promote guilt. hehe

SO... here's what I am tackling today. I belong to a local crafting group called Charitable Crafters, which donates hand-crafted items to our local hospitals and other organizations. I was reading their blog last night and saw that the animal shelter is in need of Cage Cozies. Coincidentally, I had just replaced my youngest son's very old set of flannel sheets that were ready for recycling, and perfect for Cage Cozies!


So I cut them up and got enough 19" x 29" pieces to make seven cozies.


Then I dug into my pile of batting scraps and found that I have plenty of scraps for the project (stash busting, that's a bonus!). I layered one pair of flannel pieces with a piece of batting and stitched a 1/2" seam all the way around, catching the batting in the seam, and leaving an opening for turning it inside out:


After turning, I stitched a 1/4" seam all the way around to finish the edge and then quilted a couple of big hearts to hold everything together:


And here's one finished cage cozy.


Today I intend to finish the other six, and that's probably about all I'll accomplish today. I do have a charity quilt top that needs to be layered and pinned, but I'm not biting off more than I can chew today. If I get the quilt pinned, it's another bonus!

Update: 6:00 p.m.

Finished!


What a great feeling! There's nothing better than taking something old, and giving it new life for a good cause. We adopted our dog, Bayleah, from this shelter, so it's especially nice to be able to help them out in this small way. She even gave them her "seal of approval."



Once again, Tackle it Tuesday got me through the whole project, start to finish, in one day. Thanks to Janice and Susan, from Five Minutes for Mom, for the awesome motivation!

9 comments:

Courtney said...

Oh my goodness, those are SO cute and how perfect for the animal shelter!!! Great job, I'm sure they will be so happy :)

We put in bunk beds for our tackle this week :)

Nicola said...

They look great & what a sweet thing for you to do!

Melanie said...

Those are so adorable! What a great project.

Stop by my blog to see my first Tackle It Tuesday.

~Rhen @yestheyareallmine said...

That is so wonderful. WTG!
I just got my new sewing machine out last week and my first project is a simple dress for my 3 year old. I have big dreams that involves my sewing machine. LOL

~michelle pendergrass said...

Okay, the fabric was great, but the dog laying on the stuff. PRECIOUS!!!

I love it!!!

Unknown said...

What a great idea! You get to reuse old stuff and help out those cute little animals at the same time. Our dog is a shelter puppy too so we have tender feelings for shelters.

Anonymous said...

that is a great charity. your last pic tugged at my heart strings!

Mrs. Gray's Class said...

I am so impressed - I can't believe you got all that done in one day! The fabric is perfect and they will be some great for the animals. Great job!

Heather said...

Thank you all for stopping by! I'm loving the motivation of Tackle it Tuesday! I just know I wouldn't have got these finished without it. lol And yesterday, I actually got them delivered to the drop-box at walmart. Success!