Ablevision at Wrapped up in Sports Quilt - A - Thon

I'm Chris Alfonso from Ablevision and we're at Fenway Park and I'm here with Lilly for the 2nd Annual Quilt-A-Thon. So, what are we waiting for? Let's go in and see what's going on. ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, the event today is a Quilt-A-Thon and it's our annual fund-raising event and we get a ton of quilters together to make quilts for about eight hours and all of the quilts will be later donated. We're just volunteering, it's our first time doing this so we're actually just trying to organize it by color for everyone who's actually doing all the sewing, and then there's different stations as the pieces of the quilt start to come together. ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm here to help make quilts for children just so they have something for themselves if they're sick or they maybe don't have a home of their own right now and maybe their parents are overseas in the services. Well, I don't actually quilt, so I'm helping cutting some fabric. Right now we're cutting up some T-shirts that are going to be used for panels and the quilts. Josh is my student, I'm a para in his school in New Jersey and he was in the hospital for quite a long time and I told Kate's dad about the story about my friend who's also an avid Red Sox fan. Kate heard the story and she sent him a quilt right away and I brought it to him as soon as I got it and he was just so thrilled that he uses it all the time and I have pictures of him with his quilt while he was in the hospital and now that he's home, he just loves to have the quilt. Sometimes I make them by hand and it takes months but these ones have to go into the washing machine so they have to be made by machine and be really strong. Well, the fabric can be like paint, you can make pictures and I like to make Fenway Park quilts, that's my favorite thing. I'm a particularly new quilter, I only been quilting for a couple of years and the people that are the experts are behind me at their machines as we speak. They have taught me an awful lot about quilting and matching seams and making things look perfect and when I once made a mistake, my friend Nancy said, "Nope, that just won't do, you have to rip it out and start over again", so I did and that's how I learned. This special ruler and a special cutter, so I can cut it very easy like that because if they aren't square, they won't match up correctly so I could put them together like that, then I have a bigger triangle, see how... you could do it so you can make all different kinds of designs, so it looks like an arrow, this is a star or spiral, Chris: What about a red one? Yeah, you have a red diamond. Chris: Yeah. All right. And then I lay this piece on top exactly where I wanted to be. I take this hot iron and I touch it and it dries the glue. Now it will stay in place while I'm sewing it and when I'm finished sewing it, it would be exact. I guide it with my hands, that's great, that's the perfect amount of pressure. I just guide it along the side of my pressure thread. What a fantastic job! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I am putting together a quilt, it's made up of multiple different blocks and in the center we're going to have a picture of a T-shirt from Papelbon. So 6 and a quarter inch blocks, I'm sewing one together and I've brought a patttern right here so they're basically going to be alternating so this is the row that I finished already. Well I think it's a great cause, I actually really enjoyed sewing, I've made several quilts on my own and you know, I just thought it would be a great way to spend my afternoon. Well, right now I'm the gopher for my team, but this is a kit that I can take home and make another quilt. Yeah. So, I'll do that when I get home. Everything comes in the kit. Oh yeah. And you cut the structure the t-shirt to match to size. Oh, you just add the colors to them. And the directions are there. And you are the one that sewed this piece? Yes I did, I put it all together this morning. How long did it take you to do this? About an hour and a half. I've been quilting for a very long time and one of the things I love to do with quilting is make charity quilts. How did this organization start? Well, I started making quilts for some kids at the Jimmy Fund Clinic and I really enjoyed doing it and the kids really loved them and so did their parents and their families so I decided to expand and make more quilts for kids, found some fellow quilting friends and now we become this great organization, we donated 400 quilts so far to organizations, housing, and assisting children, in need to at the Boston Community. Oh! (tapping on microphone) Yeah, yeah! Hi, I'm Carol Goodman, Executive director of Hospitality Homes. I'm Shannon , I'm Director of Development and Communcations for Hospitality Homes. Well, hospitality homes emission is very close to the mission of Wrapped Up in Sports. We provide free housing for families coming to Boston for medical care. So we have a network of 130 posthomes in the Boston area all over Brookline, Cambridge, the entire city and these are people that open their homes to families in need and so that's partly how we got involved and so those families will be distributing quilts to the patients in their homes. They help children in their families from 48 states in many, many countries all over the world, so those quilts will travel home. Oh my god! (laughter) ♪ ♪ ♪ (laughter) Chris: Wow, whoever knew mascots can sew! Alisa: Look at him, he's fast! Chris: Wow, I'm amazed! Chris: Wow, who knew he can sew that fast!