Redbook Magazine, April 2010

The April, 2010 issue of Redbook Magazine is on newsstands now, and on the last page is a paragraph that mentions our Guild! Check it out, and help us spread the word about Katie's Comforters Guild.

Guild Association Annual Meeting and Luncheon

The Seattle Children's Hospital Guild Association Annual Meeting will be held on April 22nd at the Westin Seattle. Please join Seattle Children's supporters from around the state for a celebration of guild contributions to the hospital.

Two of the speakers treated Katie when she was a patient. One of them is renowned cardiac surgeon Gordon Cohen, who took the tumor out of Katie's heart.

Registration & Displays begin at 10:oo A.M.

The Meeting & Luncheon begin at 11:30 A.M.

We would love to see as many of our guild members at the meeting as possible. If you are a member, you should have received an invitation by now that contains a place to request your seating. Feel free to request to sit with your fellow guild members, if you would like that. I hope to see you there!

S.C.O.R.E. Cards are Here!

Our S.C.O.R.E. cards have arrived! I wrote about this fundraising guild, the Seattle Children's Oncology Research Enterprise, and their wonderful cards, here. The ones that we ordered for the guild are here; if you would like to have one, please leave a message here (or email me) with your address, and I will send one to you.

I have also made business cards for our guild, if anyone would like to have some to hand out to friends, family and interested acquaintances.

Thank you, Sara, at the We Keep S.C.O.R.E. Guild!

facebook: 96 New Fans

Our first week on facebook yielded 96 fans!

That's outstanding!

Thank you to all who have become our fans. Please keep spreading the word, so that more people will know about us and what we are doing, and invite your friends to join us!

We would love to welcome new members, as well as those who are not "joiners," who may just want to knit, crochet, sew or make fleece blankets on their own to donate to Seattle Children's Hospital, or through our guild. The most important thing is bringing comfort to patients!

I've been making "business cards" for our guild. I am going to be speaking at a conference in Indianapolis in a couple of weeks, and have been invited to bring information about the guild. I think these cards will be simple and clear. They have our guild's name, address, and a photo on the front, and a brief paragraph explaining who we are and what we do on the back. If you would like to have some of these cards to hand out to acquaintances and friends, please leave a comment here.

Katie's Comforters Guild is Now on facebook!

We have a facebook page now! Check us out by typing Katie's Comforters Guild in the facebook search box. Suggest us to your friends and watch us grow!

A Sewing Bee

Today, a group of friends joined me at our house for an informal "sewing bee," or what we liked to call a "stitch 'n bitch," after the knitting books of the same name.

We had a potluck brunch: salads, fruit, veggies and dip, baguette and cheese, pastries, bread pudding with a fabulous hard sauce, mimosas, coffee, great conversation - and we made lots of quilts!

We started with a quick overview of how to make a quilt like Katie's,

and quickly moved on to sewing.

More friends arrived later, and we continued passing on the pattern and sharing the fun.

All in all, 5 quilts were finished, 7 were pinned and one is part-way pinned. We also cut 17 pieces of batting from a full roll, and they are ready to use.

This is a fun way to combine visiting with a great meal and making quilts for Seattle Children's Hospital patients. I highly recommend it to all of you guild members and your friends!

Thank you, Stitch 'n Bitches!

S.C.O.R.E. Cards

There is a guild at Seattle Children's Hospital called "We Keep S.C.O.R.E." The name stands for Seattle Children's Oncology Research Enterprise, and they offer a product that I have just ordered for Katie's Comforters Guild: S.C.O.R.E. cards.

The cards are super-easy to order online. You select a photograph for the front of the card, and then either fill out a questionnaire, or create your own information that will be displayed on the back. It takes just a few weeks, from the beginning of the order process to delivery. Ours should arrive in March.

The cards are used by patients to trade, like baseball cards, and by staff, to make introductions to patients and families easier. Patients can collect them. I don't recall seeing them when Katie was a patient, but it's a wonderful idea.

I plan to use the cards as an easy way to tell people about our guild, and to give the cards to our guild members who want them, so they can hand them out to explain who we are and what we do.

Here is the prototype for our guild's S.C.O.R.E. card.

If you would like to receive one of our S.C.O.R.E. cards, please leave a comment on this posting, or send an email to me.

BernatCares

The Bernat yarn company has launched a new charity knitting website called www.BernatCares.com. The site includes free patterns and charity information.

On the search page, you can type in Katie's Comforters Guild, and a paragraph about us pops up, including contact information: 
http://www.bernatcares.com/charity_search.php

Thank you, Bernat! We know you do care!

Good "Guild News"

The most recent issue (Winter 2010) of Seattle Children's Hospital's "Guild News" arrived in the mail today. On the second page is an article about Katie's Comforters Guild, including a color photo of our quilts. I don't have an online link, so I scanned my copy:

Thanks to the Editor, Keith Mack, for writing the piece and sharing the news about our Guild.

Guild Members, look for your copy in the mail!

A Donation from a Class in Michigan!

A lovely lady who I met through blogging is a teacher in the midwest. She and her class made a beautiful batch of quilts, and sent them to Katie's Comforters Guild for donation to Seattle Children's Hospital. We send a HUGE Thank You to those precious students!

Today, David had the day off from school (in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), so he accompanied me to help take photos for D.R.'s class. I made a movie of the photos for them. Here it is:

"People gain
so much hope
when they know they are not
experiencing something
alone." - Joyce Rupp