Two Winter Projects (and One Chewy Treat!)

Mother's Children

January/February 1982
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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Mother feels strongly that youths can be creative "doers" worrking toward more ecological and self-reliant lifestyles... whether their tasks be raising chickens on a farm or maintaining rooftop container gardens in the city. To support the endeavors of our often overlooked "underage" citizens, we're glad to publish well-written articles from younger children and teenagers concerning projects they've undertaken. However, we recommend that all young authors query (that is, send us a letter telling about the story you'd like to do) before writing a full article. Article Query; Mother Earth News; 1503 SW 42nd St.; Topeka, KS 66609; or letters@MotherEarthNews.com.

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Stephen, Tirzah and Rachel Ball

Steven's "Packing Peanuts" Quilt

My dad used to run a health food store. He saved all the peanut-shaped polystyrene foam packing pieces that came in boxes of vitamins because he thought that maybe they could be used somehow. Well, one year Dad's birthday was coming up and I needed to make him a gift, so I used the packing bits, and some leftover cotton material from Mom's rag box, to make a patchwork quilt for him.

To create the birthday comforter, I first cut 240 8" X 8" pieces of material and then stitched the squares into 24 strips. (I used the sewing machine.) Each one was 10 squares long. Then I sewed the strips together, side by side in groups of four, and doubled each one lengthwise to make six big tubes. Each tube was almost 16" wide. I stitched the tubes together, side by side, to make the unfilled quilt . . . and then sewed the bottoms of all the tubes shut.

Next, I had to stuff the comforter. I filled all the tubes one third full with Styrofoam peanuts and sewed all the way across the quilt, just above the stuffing, to hold the packing bits in place. Then I filled the tubes up to the two-thirds level and sewed across them again. The final step was to stuff the last third of the tubes and stitch the open edge of the bed covering shut.

When I was done (I didn't work on the project all at once, so it took me a pretty long time), I had made a nice snuggly quilt for free. And best of all, Dad says it's very warm.

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