His wife and children are in Waipahu. Maj. Art La Flamme is coming home from Iraq later this month. But before he does, the Hawai'i-based soldier has a mission to complete.

He calls himself the IBOL Guy. He started Iraqi Bundles of Love, a 6-week drive to get sewing supplies to Iraqi citizens who are happy for any scrap of fabric they can get.

"I made my first trip to this country in 1994," he explains on his Web site, which manages to be reverent, inspirational and really funny all at the same time. "I know, I know — 'Hey, Mr. IBOL Guy, Americans weren't really welcome in Iraq in 1994 — WTH?' I went into the Kurdish region back then, doing homework for a school assignment (really!). I saw that nothing was ever thrown away. Everything was re-used ... People made due. It's not like they had a choice."

La Flamme is the son of a quilter, the brother of quilters, the husband of a quilter and the father of a quilter-in-training. He believes people who sew, knit and quilt are inherently generous and love to share their craft.

"I believe in IBOL because I spent many a day, in my youth, crawling around under the tables and bins at Joann Fabric while my mom searched for that perfect deal, or that perfect piece of fabric. She made clothes, she made costumes, she made quilts. It seems to be a common theme in maternal nurturing, wanting to provide and seeing textiles as a piece of that. And just how many Iraqi women feel the same? Bunches, I am guessing."

So while he's in Iraq and can get mail through the U.S. postal system, he is inviting people to donate bundles of sewing and quilting supplies. He'll see to it that everything is distributed by U.S. soldiers and their counterparts in the Iraqi security forces.

The items will go to Iraqi people "who desperately need such things, and local sewing co-ops and other small businesses who have received grants or loans" (typically to purchase sewing machines, rent space, etc), La Flamme explains.

He wants to give the sewing supplies during Ramadan, which ends in two weeks, so the absolute deadline for mailing the packages is this Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Yesterday, he got a shipment of 77 boxes. He's had to secure a warehouse to keep everything. Photos on his Web site show him smiling in the desert with a truckload of of flat-rate U.S. Postal Service boxes.

"We've had volunteers from Hawai'i, Australia, and Canada, and Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, and all over the U.S. Maybe 2,000 volunteers, I figure," La Flamme said in an e-mail interview.

He doesn't want money. He's not even asking people to go out and buy supplies. All he's looking for is little bundles of raw supplies that can be used for sewing projects, even scraps from your own sewing projects. La Flamme says that just about everything will find a use. Iraqis tend to prefer solid colors and simple prints, but he says, "Don't worry about sending that orange fabric with green pineapples. It'll get used." Other things, like thread, needles and buttons, are also welcomed. The bundles of fabric and notions should be tied together with ribbon and mailed in a large U.S. Postal Service flat-rate box. The effort is Web-based, so to get the address, you have to go online to www.ibol.wordpress.com. Leave a comment anywhere on the site and La Flamme will e-mail you back with the mailing address. He doesn't mind if you share the address with friends, but he doesn't want it published because he'll be leaving Iraq soon and the project will be over.

"I can't guess how many of these bundles are en route — people are passing the details in their groups and guilds, and people are sending not one box but up to 12 boxes," he said. "It's a truly remarkable thing."