Is there a limit as to how ugly a charity quilt can be?
01-17-2012, 03:00 PM
#22
Super Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Illinois
Posts: 9,312
It sounds like ( from your second post) your cup runneth over with the "No one else wants them" fabrics. A couple of suggestions . If you think the double knits are of use because of the warmth , and they do wash and in particular dry very easliy.... some one bring a machine and machine tack instead of tying. Machine tacking goes faster than tying!
As for the excess of less than desirables , it may be time to share the "wealth" with another charity .... GoodWill. That way a very good charity get what ever value or use that maybe in the fabrics ... to use for charible works. You may be able to get notificationfrom Goodwill when items that you can use come in .. such as batting! I have found batting at Good will on more than one occasion.
I would approach the issue that while your group has a "wealth" other orgaizations are suffering in this economy. Figure out how many quilts are your annual goal , and estimate how many "quilts worth" are in the stash ... come to a number of years worth is reasonable to store considering more fabrics will continue to arrive.
As for the excess of less than desirables , it may be time to share the "wealth" with another charity .... GoodWill. That way a very good charity get what ever value or use that maybe in the fabrics ... to use for charible works. You may be able to get notificationfrom Goodwill when items that you can use come in .. such as batting! I have found batting at Good will on more than one occasion.
I would approach the issue that while your group has a "wealth" other orgaizations are suffering in this economy. Figure out how many quilts are your annual goal , and estimate how many "quilts worth" are in the stash ... come to a number of years worth is reasonable to store considering more fabrics will continue to arrive.
01-17-2012, 03:04 PM
#23
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: 53 degrees North
Posts: 1,679
My view is that I would try to find a use for the new fabrics, but would match weights- absolutely no point putting upholstery fabric with tshirting
Fade marks can surely be cut out?
''nearly worn through' is not acceptable. The wishes of the donor do not take precedence over the needs of the recipient. If politics is a problem, use the very edge, ie least worn part of old sheets so you can point it out. The rest is great for washing floors.
It strikes me that it would be good to seek more info from someone on the ground. (Who is receiving and distributing these quilts?) Invoking an outside authority is often a good way to bypass disagreements.
Fade marks can surely be cut out?
''nearly worn through' is not acceptable. The wishes of the donor do not take precedence over the needs of the recipient. If politics is a problem, use the very edge, ie least worn part of old sheets so you can point it out. The rest is great for washing floors.
It strikes me that it would be good to seek more info from someone on the ground. (Who is receiving and distributing these quilts?) Invoking an outside authority is often a good way to bypass disagreements.
Originally Posted by Favorite Fabrics
Here's our situation: the stash consists of over a dozen of large boxes of "textiles" that have been donated over the course of I don't know how many years. In the boxes are everything from new fabric (cotton, blends, T-shirt knits, double-knits) to fabric that was on the shelf so long that it has really obvious fade marks to curtain panels, old tablecloths, and lots of sheets, from faded-but-serviceable to nearly worn through.
And a number of different thoughts were expressed at the meeting, such as:
"Why should we buy ANYTHING to work with, when we have so much stash already."
"Don't insist on just cotton. Those double knits we have would make great backs, if only we had some smaller quilts, because they're just not quite wide enough."
"Those double knits - it's just too hard to get the needle through them."
"All those fabrics were donated, and we really should use them as they were intended."
"We've become a dumping ground, every time somebody wants to clean house!"
"Well, if you think our quilts are ugly now, you should have seen what we were working with 40 years ago! We were cutting apart clothing to use..."
There is a wide range of ages in this quilting group, and some have lived through the depression and some haven't. (I suppose that changes one's perspective.)
The quilts are all going overseas. We're not actually quilting them, just tying through with perle cotton (or similar). I don't believe all the fabrics would wash succesfully, but the point was mentioned that if the quilts are just to serve as a wall or a rug, they might not ever get washed anyway.
I don't think we're even at the point where we're discussing taste or aesthetics or colors, really. The quilts are just 8" squares sewn together. We're talking REALLY BASIC quilts here.
A couple of the ladies cut the 8" squares (very accurately, I must say) and sewers get handed a bag of 108 pre-selected squares to put together however we please. Some in the group don't cut, or sew, they just help layer & tie.
And a number of different thoughts were expressed at the meeting, such as:
"Why should we buy ANYTHING to work with, when we have so much stash already."
"Don't insist on just cotton. Those double knits we have would make great backs, if only we had some smaller quilts, because they're just not quite wide enough."
"Those double knits - it's just too hard to get the needle through them."
"All those fabrics were donated, and we really should use them as they were intended."
"We've become a dumping ground, every time somebody wants to clean house!"
"Well, if you think our quilts are ugly now, you should have seen what we were working with 40 years ago! We were cutting apart clothing to use..."
There is a wide range of ages in this quilting group, and some have lived through the depression and some haven't. (I suppose that changes one's perspective.)
The quilts are all going overseas. We're not actually quilting them, just tying through with perle cotton (or similar). I don't believe all the fabrics would wash succesfully, but the point was mentioned that if the quilts are just to serve as a wall or a rug, they might not ever get washed anyway.
I don't think we're even at the point where we're discussing taste or aesthetics or colors, really. The quilts are just 8" squares sewn together. We're talking REALLY BASIC quilts here.
A couple of the ladies cut the 8" squares (very accurately, I must say) and sewers get handed a bag of 108 pre-selected squares to put together however we please. Some in the group don't cut, or sew, they just help layer & tie.
01-17-2012, 03:04 PM
#24
Super Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Kentucky
Posts: 3,422
I would not want to give something "ugly" to be used for a person of any age or situation. The "ugly" quilts can be donated to an animal shelter. The animals don't care what color they are as long as they are soft and warm.
01-17-2012, 03:11 PM
#25
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 862
I suppose it depends on where you are donating the quilts. Since I donate quilts to mentally challenged adults as well as teenagers in the children's hospital, I make nothing that I wouldn't want on my own bed or given to a family member. However, unless the fabric itself is poor quality, you can make ugly fabric sing with the right combo of other fabrics. If nothing else, use the uglies for the back of the quilt.
01-17-2012, 05:24 PM
#29
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Piedmont Virginia in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mtns.
Posts: 8,562
Originally Posted by sewmary
I view my charity quilts just like any other quilt I would make. In my world, if that charity quilt is not good enough to give to a family memeber then it is not good enought for anyone else. I don't believe that people who need charity deserve second hand quality or any old thing.
I work with a quilt guild of about 100 members. There is a sub-group called Queen Bees who do the community quilt work: receive and distribute fabric, make kits, design BOMs for the rest of the quild to make for these quilts, sew together one day a month, collect and distribute the quilts.
I see these tqo comments in another post: "All those fabrics were donated, and we really should use them as they were intended."
"We've become a dumping ground, every time somebody wants to clean house!"
We also have had this problem, but with careful weeding and further donation on to Goodwill, we have built a marvelous stash for our guild. It's ridiculous to hang onto something that one will never use. Of course, in our case, we are NOT quilting for animal shelters, overseas communities, or the homeless.
Our Queen Bees sub-group has about 12 regular and faithful participants who sew once a month, and receive help on blocks and assembly of quilts in the guild at large. We make between 250 and 500 quilts a year!!!! Every one of them is beautiful and is shown at show and tell.
We have so much guild membership participation BECAUSE we have this group that "manages" the community projects and designs BOMs and kits. The resulting quilts are attractive and that makes even more members want to participate. Some members make BOMs, some assemble tops, some machine quilt, some bind, some sew on labels.
500 quilts! Our biggest problem is keeping up with the batting purchase as the prices rise; that is our guild's largest expense every year.
Jan in VA
Last edited by Jan in VA; 01-17-2012 at 05:30 PM.
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