Thursday, January 29, 2009

let's get it started... part deaux


After bemoaning my lack of creativity lately, life threw a little craft my way yesterday. There wasn’t much individual expression, but I was making things. Blankets, to be exact.

Our homeschool group dedicates the fourth Wednesday of each month to a community service project. This month’s charity was Project Linus, so I spent yesterday afternoon making a bunch of no-sew fleece blankets with my friends and their kids. Apparently Project Linus gets a lot of girl-themed stuff, so it was interesting to see that everyone listened to that and brought mostly boy-themed fabrics. (As the mom of a male only-child, I admit I took ONE set of fabric that was kinda girly. Come on, though! I never get to buy cute, girly stuff!)

I’m not sure how many blankets we managed to produce, but there was a pretty sizeable stack, especially considering the size of our group. What we lack in numbers some weeks, we make up for in big hearts.

I tried to increase my fleece donation by taking advantage of special buys from the “Remnants” bin. I scored some cool Florida Gators fleece, along with a piece of buttery yellow (which became the backing of the aforementioned sole “girly” blanket), and a light brown that matched up perfectly with a dinosaur print I got that everyone was coveting. The only downside of my bargain purchases was that my Gator fabric wasn’t going to be quite big enough for Project Linus guidelines if we did the standard no-sew, two-sided tied pattern with it. Instead, I took advantage of the big work space, cut everything down to size, including another blanket that we just kind of ran out of steam for (besides, our mom with the super duper fringe cutting guide had to leave—and there is no WAY I planned to cut all that fringe by hand!), and took the last two blankets home to sew.

I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself, because I actually came home and sewed one of them last night and finished the other this afternoon. Being a Procrastinator Extraordinaire, this is a BIG deal for me. I dropped both of them off earlier this evening at the mom’s house that coordinated this project for us. Check and check. Both blankets done and turned in. I rock.

I know. Tied fringe fleece blankets are hardly the Sistine Chapel, but it was something. And that’s what I needed. To create something. Now that the cobwebs have been shaken off, who knows what’s next.

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