Quilters are givers.

It has been my pleasure to be a small part of a most wonderful “good deed”.  For the past few months, my quilting friend Cathy Farris has been spearheading a grand quilting project for an orphanage in Mexico.

She started out making one “special” quilt for each of the 45 children at the orphanage.

She organized volunteers from her church, quilting guild, friends and co-workers to help complete the project.

Cathy spent hours and hours picking out and coordinating the perfect fabric for each child’s quilt…if a border or binding was not quilt “right” she would unpick and re-do.  She truly wanted each and every child to know that their quilt was made especially for them.  Orphanage workers who work with the children, helped hand select each finished quilt with an individual orphan in mind.

And this weekend volunteers finished up by adding a handsewn label with the child's name sewn onto each and every quilt.

Cathy also runs a long-arm quilting business out of my Cranberry Quiltworks Studio and my small part in this service project was to make available a few of my showroom’s Gammill Quilting Machines (see photo below) to help her quilt all of those quilts.

"Some of the other quilters in the studio caught the "giving fever" too and when all was said and done over 70 quilts were made, quilted, bound and donated.  They are going to be delivered later this month.

Cathy’s project made it into our local newspaper…and I thought I would share with you the story...here is the reprint from the Orange County Register newspaper in California.

By CAROLINA RUIZ-MEJIA, Orange County Register

Photos by Rod Veal. 

Quilting became Cathy Farris's way of healing after her son's passing in 2002.

"Quilting was my therapy to get over my grieving," said Farris, a Yorba Linda resident.

Now, Farris is turning her therapy into good deeds.

Along with her friends and co-workers, Farris has made 70 quilts for children at El Sauzal Orphanage in Ensenada, Baja California.

She learned of the orphanage through her church, Placentia Presbyterian Church. The church has been donating clothes and food to the orphanage for several years, including giving the children a pair of pajamas at the beginning of December.

If the children get excited over a pair of pajamas, they would sure get excited over their own quilt, Farris figured.

"I know (the children) are going to outgrow their quilts, but they'll still be their quilts," Farris said.

Continue reading on the next page. 

The orphanage houses about 45 children. Each will receive a quilt with a name tag as a gift Christmas Day.

"When the children find out that the quilts have been made especially for them, they're going to feel very special," said Erika Espinoza de Aguilar, granddaughter of the founders of the orphanage, Ramon and Magdalena Espinoza. "It's going to be something very unique." (Ericka and her husband are shown in photo above with Cathy-in back, myself and Pastor Roy V. Ketring.)

Roy V. Ketring III, who has been involved with the orphanage for 29 years through Placentia Presbyterian Church, said it will be very meaningful for the children to have their name on the quilt.

"I want to show these children they're loved because they don't have a lot of stability," Farris said.

The materials for the quilts came from an anonymous source that donates to the North Cities Quilt Guilds for charitable causes, from church members and Farris' friends.

Farris joined the guild after her son's passing and took classes to learn quilting. She now works at Cranberry Quiltworks in Yorba Linda.

"I have had tragedy in my life, but also been blessed," Farris said. "I can only try and give back a little bit of what I've received."

Thanks, Cathy for reminding us about what life should really be about!