Once Again You CanTurn Bits and Pieces of Fabric into the Most Amazing Gift on Earth

Here's How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact on Hundreds, Maybe Thousands, of Lives 7,342 Miles Away

Dear Friend:

It’s my mother’s birthday, her real birthday.  My mom is one of the only people I know who can have her birthday mean an entire month of celebrations. 

Ever since I can remember, she has arranged for several celebrations during the month – various friends taking her to lunch.  There’s the dinner on the “real” day, and another dinner on one day of the weekend before her birthday.  Then a series of lunches with friends during the rest of the month.

When I was growing up, we lived in Los Angeles; the extended family lived in San Diego – grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins.  During those years we had the Los Angeles celebrations and the San Diego celebrations.

This year she is 85.  She still enjoys multiple celebrations.  Tonight I’m taking a special dinner over to her and my dad – pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon (now isn’t that healthy?) and potatoes au gratin (another healthy treat).  Maybe some kind of salad.  But we’ll be missing the cake tonight – that’s for tomorrow’s celebration, and she decided that one cake in two days was enough.

I am thankful for my mom, although I don’t tell her enough.

When I had my own kids, I realized how much work it really is, and there really aren’t ever enough “thank yous.”  The best one is when my kids surprise me with some special thing – a phone call, a card in the mail for no reason, an email (not asking for money).  Just fun, simple things.

I think my mom is the same way.  She likes surprises. She likes to surprise us. She hates it when we don’t call when she expects us to.  Hmmm.

Anyway, as I’m sitting here, once again surrounded by my loving animals (Pluto, the Siamese cat, and P-nut, the jumpy boxer dog) here in my safe home, once again I am reminded of the troops who are overseas defending our right to be here doing what we please.

It was only a few short months ago when we garnered our efforts, made patriotic fabric postcards, and sent them to troops in Iraq.  It seemed like August would be a good time to rally again, but somehow the time slipped by.

Now, school is back in session.  There is Fall in our San Diego air (as hard as that is to believe), and I see that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

I haven’t heard from my kids to know whether they will be in town for Thanksgiving.  It’s nice to know that they have that option.

Even with all of the annoyances of flying these days, they still can jump aboard a plane and be here in just a few hours.

Not so with our troops abroad.

Those guys and gals are still over there, carrying their guns, wondering whether some nut is going to blow them up with a grenade or bomb, and missing their loved ones here in the states.

Thanksgiving is coming around the world.  Or at least, November 23 will arrive around the world. 

On that day, pretty much everything in the US will be shut down.  Oh, there is the Macy’s Thanksgiving’s Day Parade, the traditional Detroit Lions-Miami Dolphins football game, dinner at grandma’s, maybe a movie or two.  But, in the whole scheme of events, not much shopping will be going on.

Thanksgiving is s a time for us to be with family and friends and spend time appreciating life, family and good friendships.

Thanksgiving Day is great if you are surrounded by your loved ones – family and friends.  But what if you are far away, fighting unpredictable enemies in a foreign land?

Even surrounded by your military friends, I would imagine that Thanksgiving just doesn’t have the same meaning.

And what about the “thanks?”  There you are sitting among a bunch of military folk, sharing turkey (maybe) and stories of Thanksgivings at home, hearing words of appreciation from each other – about protecting someone’s backside from attack.

Because the last fabric postcard drive was so successful, I decided that gathering postcards for Thanksgiving would be a fabulous follow-up.

We all know that everyone loves a quilt and appreciates the love and warm thoughts stitched into the design.  Full size quilts for the troops seemed pretty impractical, although I would imagine as the Fall turns into Winter abroad, some full size quilts might be much appreciated.

In any case, I decided that sending our thanks to the troops in pocket-size packets of love would once again be a fun thing to do.

This time, I started a little earlier on the project, so you would have more than just 3 weeks to get your postcards made and shipped to us.  Imagine that, it’s the last week in September, and Thanksgiving is 9 weeks away.  Given that it takes two weeks to deliver the post cards overseas, that means that you have 7 weeks from today to make a fabric postcard or two or three, and send them along to us here at www.How-to-Quilt.com / www.Fabric-Postcards.com.

And this time, I’ve put together more than just one pattern.  And, it’s not patriotic, so we don’t need to worry about any restrictions relating to our troops getting anything that looks like a flag or Americana.

The theme is turkeys.  And they are traditional patchwork – paper pieced.

Click here to get started!

In Only 97 Minutes, You Can Quickly and Easily Create a Quilt Guaranteed to Generate a Smile 7,342 Miles Away

Paper piecing is something new and different for many of the quilters at www.How-to-Quilt.com.  We are used to piecing traditional patchwork blocks – of a standard size (6,” 8,” 9,” maybe even 12”) – in a traditional way.  What I found for the Thanksgiving theme were 4 different traditional patchwork patterns all about Turkeys:

• Turkey in the Straw – two different patterns
• Turkey’s Dilemma
• Turkey Tracks

One of the Turkey in the Straw patterns seemed like it would work for a fabric postcard-size project, so I fired up my EQ5 software, and drew up the pattern.  When I looked at how small the pieces would be, I decided that paper piecing would be an easier method than traditional patchwork piecing, and would yield better results.

So, yesterday, I plugged in my sewing machine to test it out.  Within 132 minutes, I had a completed Turkey in the Straw fabric postcard.  There was time in there for:

• picking fabric from my stash
• ironing it
• cutting it
• sewing each of the units for the top
• ripping and re-sewing my mistakes
• sewing the units together to complete the top
• adding the borders
• ironing interfacing to the backing
• finishing the tiny fabric quilt

So, I feel safe in saying that within 132 minutes, you can also create one of these tiny Thanksgiving greetings to go abroad.  And if you decide to make more than one at a time, you can zip through and probably make 5 in the same amount of time.

Certainly you have 132 minutes you can spare to make a greeting to send to a soldier who will spend at least 259,297 minutes in a foreign country protecting our ability to create quilts in our spare time

AND, that 132 minutes includes time for taking photographs of each step along the way. You see, really anybody can make this tiny quilt, or a tiny fabric postcard of any design and send it to us for this project.

Just imagine the look on the soldiers’ faces when they see the amazing load of little quilts that they can carry around with them. A small reminder of home.

Maybe their grandmother made quilts or had a quilt collection.

Maybe they have a favorite quilt waiting on a bed for when they get home.

Maybe they read a book about a quilt when they were a kid and always wanted one of their own. One that was handmade by someone who cared about them and was praying for their safety. Some small reminder they can tuck in their pocket and think about home.

Maybe someone you know will receive one of these tiny quilts from home. 

Quilters have a history of sending quilts to soldiers, although mostly wounded soldiers who have been returned to hospitals ‘back home.’ Quilts were made for wounded soldiers in World War I and II, and currently, quilts are being made for wounded soldiers from Iraq. A group in Florida is making quilts for the families of soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq.

Now is our opportunity to send tiny quilts to active soldiers far away from home, and share with them a piece of our appreciation and thoughts from home. Maybe this tiny treasure will protect them, or give them the “lift” in spirits they need to make it through another day.

With your help, we should be able to get at least 250 of these tiny quilt greetings to go abroad. With all of your help, we should be able to get thousands of them.

Anyone can participate. This is not exclusive to www.how-to-quilt.com newsletter subscribers. Feel free to share this with all of your quilting friends and shops in your area. And you can make a fabric postcard of any design. Create your own, our pattern is just one suggestion,

Here is Your Invitation to Join Hundreds, Maybe Thousands of Quilters Make a Difference to Men and Women Half-way Around the World

At the click of your mouse, you get the patterns for 4 different Turkey-themed quilt blocks FREE! Instructions include where to send the finished fabric postcard.

Click here to join in!

That’s it! Make as many as you like. Share the pattern and idea with your neighbors. Kids can participate, too. Non-quilters join in! Heck, maybe a non-quilter will discover the fun and joy of quilting!

Design your own fabric postcard. Be original. Be creative. The patterns provided are just ideas. Make yours unique if you would like.

Hold on, I already know how to Paper Piece, I just want some Turkey Patterns

Well, we've got them, and they are FREE! I’ve put patterns together for you for all of the turkey blocks and they are free!  All you need to do is enter your info on what looks like an order form (with a 0 dollar amount), and you will immediately receive an email with the download information.

You will get:

• Turkey in the Straw – two different patterns
• Turkey’s Dilemma
• Turkey Tracks

Each block comes with a pattern for a 3" block so you can create a fabric postcard, and a 6" block so you can make a quilt, if you would like. The package includes a picture of the block, the paper piece foundation, templates, and cutting guides for rotary cutting patchwork blocks. In all, there are 53 pages of great pattern information, all for FREE. Imagine what other kinds of Thanksgiving projects you could make with those patterns.

Or, you could even make Thanksgiving Fabric Postcards and send them to your family and friends instead of Holiday cards. Just a thought!

This is a fairly large pdf file containing pictures of the various blocks, patterns for 3” blocks as well as 6” blocks, and suggestions for adding borders to a 3” block to turn it into a 3” by 5” fabric postcard. To get this, all you need to do is enter your information, click "Submit," and you will receive an email with a link to download the patterns.

It's as Simple as That

There you have it, the whole package.

Since there not muchtime between now and the Thanksgiving, you’ll need to act fast. If these tiny treasures are going to get overseas, they need to be delivered to the military bases by November 7. And that’s only a few weeks for you to make a huge impact in the life of a soldier.

Click here before time completely runs out!

Happy Quilting!

Penny Halgren
www.How-to-Quilt.com
Inspiration and Education for Beginning Quilters

www.Rag-Quilt-Instructions.com
Fast, Fun and Funky Quilts

P.S. Time is short. And I know that you all will either do this or you won't. It will probably take 1-2 hours from start to finish to complete one of these tiny treasures. Then just find an envelope and send it to us here at www.how-to-quilt.com. We'll take care of the rest. It will be delivered to our local military base at Camp Pendleton for delivery to troops in Iraq. Start here. Today.

P.P.S. The deadline to send us your fabric postcard is November 7 . These need to get transported to the Middle East, and that's not exactly like shipping them Overnight FedEx.

P.P.P.S. This is open to anybody who wants to participate - quilters from the US or around the world, friends and family of quilters, non-quilters, whoever! The only restriction on the postcard is that it needs to be fabric (felt counts, too!). 

Questions? email us at: turkeys@fabric-postcards.com