Fleece Blanket Service Project

 Husband's work is doing a service project for the holidays this year - fleece blankets.  They are donating them to the elementary school where his office is.  We decided to make our own instead of buying pre-made blankets.  I love being able to choose the fabric you want - - and fleece is so much better now than it was even a few years ago. 

I cut the blankets and fringed them.  Husband was responsible for tying all the fringe.  These blankets always work up so fast.  Here is our pile, ready to go to the office.

The girl ones:

 And the boy ones:

Another Christmas project done - check!

More Pillowcases

I love making custom pillowcases!  I've made a couple of pillowcases for each of my boys here, here, and here.  My favorite tutorial for these comes from Little Birdie Secrets.  They're quick, easy, they don't take a lot of fabric, and they're super cute. 

So when my sister told me about a service project being put together by a gal that she knows, I jumped right on board.  This lady's son passed away just a few months ago - he was born with a genetic disorder and fought hard his whole life.  From the little bit I've read about him on her blog, he seemed like a wonderful son, brother, and friend.  Her idea is to gather pillowcases to donate to the local children's hospital where her son spent a lot of his time.  She's gotten quite a lot of participation from all over the country which is great to see.  I've been collecting some fun fabrics and have whipped up 25 pillowcases in the past few weeks.  Five of them will stay here for friends and family gifts.  The other 20 are headed to my sister's house tomorrow to give to her friend for the children's hospital.

Here are a couple of my favorites:  I searched all over the Salt Lake valley to find this line of fabric - Happy Ever After.  I actually ended up meeting the designer of the line.  More to come from this line of fabric in the next few weeks.  But I love it and couldn't resist making a pillowcase out of it.

This one is some cute monster fabric - I loved it because it says "Don't be afraid" right on it - I thought that was great to go to a children's hospital. 

Another boy fabric - spaceships. 

And some girly ones - flowers and butterflies.

And birds and more flowers.

And one more that I found just at the last minute that made it in to my pile.  Pirates!  Great for older and younger boys.

And here are my boys showing their personal favorite pillowcases.  This has been a good learning opportunity for them to learn about service and children's hospitals.  They were excited about these and loved helping to pick out the fabric with me.