Quilting group
 

I am seriously considering starting a quilting group in our church that would just make donation quilts. I am envisioning others donating unwanted fabrics, scraps, leftover batting, and unwanted sewing supplies. I would like for these quilts to be made for no cost, or at least very little cost. Any ideas on this? Have any of you belonged to a group like this. Positives and negatives to this idea. I know it would take a lot of coordination and organization to get started. All who would be involved would have to bring their own machine and equipment and would have to have some knowledge about sewing.

I'm a member of a couple of groups of quilters who do this. The biggest cost is batting. We get plenty of donated fabric, plenty of tops, plenty of people who are willing to piece and tie the quilts. But we very rarely get donated or at-cost batting. So to help with this, we do some fundraising, such as auctioning off a few quilts. We also pitch in a few bucks ourselves.

our group is the same as Peckish

Bbet, my group does this. We solely exist to make donation quilts for primarily 3 local charities. There are about 12 of us who are active, yet in the 11 years we have existed we have given away 2739 quilts, to date. The members pay for their own materials or use their stashes, but we do have fabric donated every so often. The church buys us two rolls of batting per year, and after that's gone we pay for it ourselves.

Maybe your church could budget to support you with some batting, yearly. You will have to get the group established first, and produce some quilts out of your own pockets. It's worthwhile.

I also encourage you to find local charities to support, so there is no mailing involved. I believe in supporting our local communities.

ours is a small church and there is a group that is helping a larger organization to make quilts (all sizes) for foster kids. they get fabrics and some bat from the larger group. But I am the only long arm quilter in church and so I get asked to do the quilting. This is ok, but I can't keep up with them and with my own and others too. So seems like I always have about 10 to work on for them.

We have 1 lady that does the piecing at our church. Although, I think her daughter helps make tops occassionaly. I know others have offered to do piecing but this seems to be her calling. She says she receives donated fabrics of all types from those who know she quilts. I don't know if she buys the batting. She brings the tops and backs to church once a month and a ladies circle in the church helps tie the quilts together. I believe most of our quilts are donated through our church Synod which sends them overseas.

She also makes quilts for all the high school seniors each year to have a quilt from the church to take to college.

We use a small SS classroom with tables setup to assemble the quilts and store quilting items. You may want to see if your church has space available that can be dedicated to quilting so you could lock the room.

There was a church across town that had a group making quilts. I was the square cutting lady... hundreds, thousands... Millions of squares! Their quilts were donated overseas, also, thru the Synod. They did a bunch for local organizations too. They had a dedicated group of ladies and a few hubbies that worked together for years, once a week, but eventually they dwindled in numbers and it disbanded. All fabric was donated, but the batting had to be bought. They auctioned off a few quilts a year to church members to pay for it.

I tried to start a group at my church when several ladies approached me to teach them to quilt baby quilts for Crisis Pregnancy Centers. I set a date, gathered materials, etc. and only two ladies showed up... one to help me with the teaching and one who wanted to learn to make bibs for babies. We showed her a couple of ways and had fun, but that was the end of our church quilting group! :(

I wish you better success! It's hard, but well worth the efforts. It helps folks receiving the quilts and it helps the quilters keep active and have a social good time.

We started our group 7 years ago making comfort quilts for cancer patients. We started in a member's house but eventually moved to a room at our local cancer support center. We have used our own fabric as well as generous donations of fabric and money from families who have lost loved ones to cancer. The Support Center has also donated money to buy our batting. We started out putting $5 a week in the kitty and have had as many as 20 people in our group. We now put in $1 a week, which gives us enough money to buy emergency supplies. It was a slow process getting started. We have fairly strict guidelines on the quality of the quilts we donate, i.e., "if it's not good enough to give to your mother, it's not good enough for a cancer patient". All of our quilts are machine quilted. There is a local person who will long arm a few for us every year. We still have most of the original group but if new people want to join us it's wonderful. Only requirement is they must have some experience with quilting as we don't have time to teach. And we have had to talk to people about the quality of their work, too.

One church group here has quilt group and they have an annual fund raising barbecue at the church once a year to buy needed supplies.

This sounds like a wonderful idea. I suggest getting the word out to the church members (quilters & non quilters) via the weekly bulletin or a stand up announcement before your church service & make it known that donations would be what keeps the group going & ask for donations at that time. Occasional gift cards from Jo-Ann's or Walmart would even be nice to allow you buy the supplies you need at particular times. Maybe even specify the most needed items like batting or whatever is needed most. Maybe others in the church would be willing to help even if they aren't a part of the group. Sometimes batting manufacturers will donate some batting for charity groups. Sometimes in cases where funds are very limited you may just have to make quilts as donations come in and that might not allow you to make quilts all year round but just when supplies are available. Thrift stores (Salvation Army - Goodwill - etc) are a good source for fabrics & even sewing machines at times. If your church is involved in Home Schooling it might be a way for making the quilts to be included in the curriculum. The more people involved, the more likely you will have the supplies needed to carry this project for little or no money.
I wish you the best with this endeavor.