9 Little Thank Yous

I finally get to share my "secret sewing".  It's a long story, but you don't mind...In late August there was a fire at the School District Bus Barn.  24 new buses burned down to their metal frames.  It was awful!  And school was going to start in a week and a half!  Needless to say, someone's job at the district office just got a LOT harder.  But neighboring districts started calling in..."Hey, we've got some extra buses, want some?"  (Imagine that conversation  - Hello, school board? We'd like to loan some buses to another district for several months - for free).  In all, my district borrowed buses from 9 districts. We were and are so blessed! 

I emailed a longtime friend and "boss" and asked if we were doing anything to say Thank You.  Other than just saying "thank you".  Nope, we didn't have any plans.  Well, that seemed like an underwhelming response.  I asked if I could make a quilts/wall-hangings for the districts that had shown us such kindness.  And they said yes! 

I had a series of email conversations with the head of transportation, and gave her a series of pictures (Do you like the one on the left, or the one on the right better?) and got a sense of what she was thinking.  She went for cute!  (Yay!  Applique - here we come!) I sketched out a design, and framed what they would say, and we were off to the races.

Making 9 wall hangings that are all almost the same wasn't difficult.  Boeing says, anyone can build a plane, it's doing it repeatedly, identically, and reasonably priced that's the challenge...Pretty accurate. The first, and the second, and the third were fine.  The fourth, and fifth, and sixth I was slowing down.  And then there was seven, eight and nine to go! I did it assembly line style, 18 wheels, 9 frames, and 9 Ts, 9 Hs, etc.  Again, not hard...just long.

I worked this fall on it.  It was pretty much all I did for a good while.  I am thrilled with how they turned out.  I handed them over in early November.  Our district communications team heard and did a story (here) and it was exciting!  And the local paper saw it, and they did a story (here).  The recognition has been fun, but mostly I'm just thrilled I could do something nice for folks who went above and beyond when they didn't have to.  I place a high value on kindness, and I'm grateful my bosses let me do this. 

Now, whenever I turn on my computer at school in the morning, and pull up the attendance and gradebook programs, it opens to the district web site, and there's my face!  I jump a little each time. I cut my hair after seeing these photos...I worked hard on my hair that day, and it was good, but not doing what I wanted it to.  Also, I've been working on losing weight.  This encouraged me some more to keep on keepin' on.  I laughed at "marrying into the well-known Mahaffie family", but it is true.  My husband is from an old family in town, and there was a family business in town for many decades.  My husband (and his brothers), his parents, and his grandparents all grew up here, and went to Puyallup High School. My son will be 4th generation when he attends PHS.

I was given  a copy of the article, so I'm mailing it to my Grandma (she's 99!).  It really is true, I come by my quilting habit honestly.  My Grandma and Aunt on my Dad's side, and my mother all sewed and quilted.  I remember being 7-ish learning to hand sew - bear paw pattern in yellow and yellow calico, 4 patch, as a pillow - with Grandma.  I really didn't stand a chance of not sewing.


And, yes, that is my classroom down below.  It was the only place with enough floor space to stretch them all out!