Charity Crafting Organizing, Packing, and Documenting

Back on Thursday, I caught up with some charity crafting organizing in here. It's a time-consuming part of the effort but it's not hard, just easy to push aside and overlook.

When I come home on Friday mornings from our two-hour sessions, I bring home anything anyone finished and turned in that week. It can be anything from scarves, baby jackets, lap covers, and so on. But it usually just comes inside, into a pile, and sits there. Then I get a day like Thursday when I get tired of staring at the little piles and say, "gee, there's enough in that bunch to make 13-gallon bag."

So I grabbed a few bags and began grouping the things. First I piled the hats, scarves and fingerless gloves onto the bed. I then counted each item: so many scarves, so many hats, etc. And I make a note on a paper to put onto the computer when I am done, and I write the contents of that bag on a piece of paper, punch a hole in the corner of the paper, and attach it to the bag. I do the same with all the baby items, and ditto, the VA lap covers. I had some baby quilts but that pile must go into a big carton, I think.

The finished bags go into 3 different spaces, depending on their intended destinations, inside the big closet. And I add the counts to my file on the computer.

I was so happy to pack a full bag of baby items, 2 full bags for the homeless, and put aside a lap cover for the VA but loose for now until I have enough to bag those. And the quilts must still go into a carton but I am sure I have one in another room.

One of the most tedious jobs was measuring and documenting those 15 little handmade and absolutely beautiful baby quilts from one of our park residents. I thought some of them would be the same size. Not. Of the 15, not any 2 were the same size. I always turn in a paper to these places when we distribute to help them know what's inside each bag so they can decide what to open and when. I measured all those pretty puffy little quilts and documented them... ranging in size from 17x26 to 32x32, so from preemie to maybe six months. I've included photos of those tonight.

My back and my legs held up for the few hours it took to gather it all, count and document and pack it all, and get it all stashed.

Done. For now...

Rolling along...