Wednesday's Wanderings #40 - ConKerr Cancer

Pillowcases?

The Pennsylvania National Quilt Festival is a wonderful quilt show.  It's a local show for me.  My quilt guild acts as white gloves in order to sell raffle tickets to our fundraising quilt.  I was planning on going to the show for a quick visit on Saturday with a very dear friend, Miss H.

Then an e-mail came to my inbox asking for volunteers to sew pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer on the same day.  This is an organization that was started locally about 5 years ago.  Cindy Kerr's son, Ryan, was battling bone cancer.  She made some fun pillowcases for him while he was in the hospital to brighten his day.  Then, other kids wanted the pillowcases too.  Cindy began making pillowcases for them.  The need became so great that she enlisted local organizations, like quilt guilds, to help fill the need.  I was the community outreach person for our guild at the time.  I was approached by a member of our guild that was a member of Cindy and Ryan's church.  (Thank you Doris.)  That first year, my quilt guild made over 350 pillowcases for Cindy to distribute and we had the privilege of having Ryan visit our guild to share his story with his inimitable charm (and red high top sneakers).

ConKerr Cancer, a case for smiles, shot to national fame when Cindy was nominated and became a semi-finalist for The Martha Stewart Show's contest, Dreamers Into Doers. In 5 years, 115 chapters have been formed around the U.S., Britain and South Africa.  Unfortunately Ryan was not able to see how he inspired his Mother and hundreds of sewers to bring a smile to the face of thousands of children with cancer.  Actually, in 5 years, over 560,000 pillowcases have been donated.

I just knew that I NEEDED to go and sew pillowcases, just as I KNEW, I did not need to buy any more fabric at the quilt show.  And of course, much to my delight, the GOODest person I know, said "what time do you want me to pick you up"?  (Oh I love her!)

A room full of pillowcase makers

Cindy Kerr taking a new volunteer under her wing

I loved this serger.  It is a speed demon that helped me to construct 30 pillowcases!

We filled 3 bins.  The goal was 500 pillowcases.

September is Childhood Cancer Month.  Cindy's goal is for ConKerr Cancer to make 44,000 pillowcases in one month.  And why 44,000?  I am sad to say that is how many children have cancer. It costs a lot of money to buy the fabric to make that many pillowcases.  If you are in the Philadelphia area or know someone who is, Friday night is a big Pajama Party fundraiser at

The Please Touch Museum.

Kids will have the run of the museum as well as dancing and crafts and celebrities. 

And you can make a pillowcase or two.

Or if you want to make pillowcases on your own or with a local group, there are chapters all over the US.  Click here to see if there is a chapter near you.  There are other ways to help. 

 Visit the ConKerr website.

So let's get back to my Wednesday's Wanderings. 

 I knew I had to share all of this info so my weekly block is full of mini pillowcases.

Here's a close-up of one of the cases:

and here's the wonderful logo I printed on fabric and attached to the block.  (Note those red sneakers.)

 

Quilters have the biggest heart of any group of people I know. 

I am proud to be a member of this group.

We do good things.

Quilting Funk

I am quilted out.  Sometimes this happens after I have been working on quilts that require a lot of brain power.  It makes me nervous that I may never want to quilt again.  What would I do with all of that fabric that I have accumulated?

So I decided to work on a fun and quick project.  Pillowcases.  I started making pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer back in 2003.  Cindy Kerr lives locally and one of the members from her church belongs to our guild.  I was the Chairperson of our quilt guild's Community Outreach program and chose to support this project.  The goal was, and still is, to make pillowcases for children at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia  undergoing cancer treatment. It started when her son was diagnosed with cancer.

I scheduled a visit by Cindy and her son Ryan, to kick off the project.  Ryan, who was suffering from cancer and had already lost his leg, was engaging and so charming.   He sat on the stage and chatted with 100 women with grace and ease.  We were so lucky to meet him.  And in case you were wondering about the red canvas sneakers in the logo, Ryan wore those to his prom.

You don't need a lot of fabric to make a pillowcase - 3/4yd for the body and 1/3yd for the cuff, and they are so easy.  Click on the purple underlined directions below for great instructions.  I love the "hot dog" method.  It encases the cuff seams.

Directions

So to try and get out of my funk, I made 3 pillowcases.  One for my 4 year old skateboarding fool of a grand nephew, one for his brother that loves airplanes and one for ConKerr Cancer. It won't be until tomorrow til I know if I want to do some quilting, but it felt good to do something for someone else.