Operation Pillowcase originated in August 2004 when Sandi Carstensen's son-in-law emailed her from Baghdad and asked her to make him a dark pillowcase. She did and he was the hit of his battalion. She made a few more, then a few more. She mentioned what she was doing to on-line quilting friends and soon pillowcases were being sent from all over the United States and even other countries. As of December 2007, more than 4,000 pillowcases have been sent to troops in Afghanistan or Iraq.

With the success of Operation Pillowcase, our on-line quilting friends, now lovingly referred to as our sewing angels, decided they wanted to do something special for our troops for Christmas. In August 2004, busy hands began sewing homemade stockings which, in turn, lead to the formation of Operation Christmas Stocking. Our sewing angels work year round sewing independently or among groups sewing brightly colored stockings in hopes of fulfilling all the requests that we receive. As of December 2007, more than 7,000 Christmas stockings have been sent abroad to our soldiers in the Middle East.

Operation Cuddle-Ups was founded to make baby quilts for the new, little citizen patriots born to an adopted unit that has been deployed to Iraq. The first unit, adopted in 2004, was the 515th 1st Cavalry. 38 baby quilts were made and given to the babies born while this unit was serving overseas. Each year since, the adopted unit is that unit which has replaced the prior unit. We are currently providing baby quilts to babies born during the deployment of the 426th BSB, Ft. Campbell, KY. Since the inception of this project in 2004, almost 100 baby quilts have been completed.

We are a non-partisan group of dedicated volunteers, providing little pieces of home in support of our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you would like more information about any of these projects or would like to volunteer to assist, please Sandi Carstensen at quiltnweave@cis.net.