Stacks of nine-inch fabric fill the room as a sewing machine rests in the window light.

A counter was set to about 500, recording the number of quilt tops Renton’s Lenore Lee sewed.

“She gives away everything she makes; that’s what we think is so special about her. Her quilting outlook is to give to others,” said friend Dee Anderson.

Though Lee finds satisfaction in donating her quilts, for her it’s a love of sewing.

“It’s good therapy,” she said with a laugh. “When all else fails, you can go up and sew.”

Completing the 500 quilts over about a seven-year period is a testament to persistence.

“Look at what you can accomplish,” she said.

Mostly made of nine- to 11-inch squares, the quilts are relatively simple, she said.

She takes the tops to a quilting group at the Lord of Life Lutheran Church, where others sew and tie fillers and backing to them.

“I initially figured I had to clean out my sewing room,” she said. So she began using the extra fabric to make quilts for local charities.

However, friends from the M.B. Quilt Club began giving her leftover fabric to continue making the quilts for local charities and the homeless, and the sewing room began to fill, rather than empty, with stacks of pre-cut fabric.

Being able to donate their leftover fabrics for a noble cause makes the women feel like they’re a part of something, Lee said.

“They make beautiful art quilts, but they let me join them anyway,” Lee said of the group.

At monthly quilt-club meetings, Lee shows her stacks of quilts, Anderson said. “We suggested she start keeping track.”

When she reached 500, the club threw a cocktail party and gave her a beautiful art quilt.

“They thought it was a big deal,” Lee said nonchalantly.

For Lee it’s easy to let go of her work.

“I have all the blankets I need… Where would I put them?” she said.

This isn’t always the case, especially with art quilters.

“I’d give my bed away before I’d give away some of my quilts,” Anderson said. “I just work on them for so long.”

As a rule of thumb, Lee doesn’t sew with used material, she said. “These people have nothing anyway. So why give them junk?”

Once a year the church fills its main sanctuary with quilts from the entire club in what they call the blessing of the quilts.

“She’s in her 60s. She’s a very active woman,” Anderson said. “She just has a very very full life.”