Maryland Community Newspapers Online
The pillowcases were donated for the latest challenge in the 13th annual You Be the Judge Contest.
Micki Palmer contributed 124 pillowcases designed with the help of her children and stitched with a sewing machine.
"This is the fifth year I've entered the contest," said Palmer, who won the challenge's "most popular" award last year for a blue denim bag she made sporting an image of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," a children's book by Eric Carle. At the awards ceremony, she learned that the 2009 challenge would be making pillowcases to donate to children hospitalized with cancer.
Her 10-year-old son Ben said, "What if you made a pillowcase every day between now and the next fair?" said Micki Palmer. "And I said: ‘Are you challenging me?' And he said: ‘Yea!' Then I realized how expensive it would be."
Her daughters, Macy, 8, Eleanor, 6, and Claire, 4, helped match colorful scraps from quilting and sewing projects to make pink-and-white polka dotted pillowcases. Each of her four older children made one pillowcase, Micki Palmer said. Eighteen-month-old Kate "helped unfold" she joked.
The Palmers also contributed three Washington Redskins pillowcases, a project Micki Palmer once used with Ben's Cub Scout troop. One of them won the contest for "most popular." Micki Palmer also made one sporting "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
Kathy McLaughlin of Middletown honored her mother, who died of cancer, contributing 40 pillowcases she made using material from her mother's collection, said Karen Gillis, who has run the contest with her sister, Jeanne, for its 13 years.
The annual challenge is designed for everyone, said Kunni Biener, a contest organizer who had officemates help make pillowcases using a pattern that did not require sewing.
"Most of the people in my office don't know which end of a needle to thread," she laughed. "But they can tie knots."
The 2010 challenge: Preemie blankets to donate to hospitals.
