Counting my blessings

Please click here to go to our Fat Quarter Shop sponsored giveaway --- a jellyroll of gorgeous Northcote Range!!

It's with a grateful heart that I write these words . . . we are drawing our Destash 4 Malawi to a close. I have been so overwhelmed and joyful that so many of you have responded to our call for yardage and for thread, for the effort to clothe the children in Malawi.

When I began this challenge, I thought to myself, "Self, I hope that maybe a few quilters will see the post, and maybe they will each slip one yard of fabric from their stash into an envelope or box, and send it on." My goodness, ya'll exceeded my expectations!!

Many of your comments and follow up emails revealed that you were sending one, five, or ten, or even twenty yards of fabric! I was astounded; and then I was so humbled and grateful to be a small part of this wonderful community of caring quilters!  Thank you. Over and over again, I would say thank you to each of you if I could.

Anita kept track of the boxes, fabrics, and thread. She posted everything at her little corner of the Flickr world, and you can click right here to go straight there . . . or you can check these out. And these are just a few of the lovely piles of fabric that came in!

I'm thrilled that many of you tucked in thread as you packed your boxes:

One suitcase of fabrics and thread has already made the trip over to Malawi. Here is what it looked like when Anita finished carefully packing it:

There are 36 pounds of fabric, thread, and notions in there! Wow! This one traveled with the Kropfs' son, as he journeyed to Malawi to see his mom and dad. I'm so grateful to him for being willing to assist us in our efforts to help Lois, his mom.

This is a picture of Lois, as she opened the suitcase of goodies!

And I know that some of you may have had your doubts about whether or not this was truly real . . . it is!  I thought you might like to see Lois as she works to make the clothes. In this picture, you can see the stacks of little white shirts on the right. She is readying the fabric for a skirt, to complete a dress for one of the little girls.

Here is an excerpt from Lois's note to Anita:

Dear Anita,

Here are two pix - one of  me opening the suitcase with the material inside; the other one is of me cutting up the material today and matching it with the white shirts.  I cut out 113 this morning; the material is lovely.  You can see the stacked dresses I had cut on one side.  I use the counter in my entryway for cutting.  It is marvelous for that.

With what I cut today, I have all of my girls' dresses for the right ages except for 9 and 10 year olds; and I have a lot of material left that he brought me to make those, so that is wonderful.  Thank the Lord and all the ladies!

The second suitcase of fabric and supplies looked like this:

This suitcase (with over 40 pounds of sewing goodies in it) made its way to the African continent with another couple -- they were headed for the country of South Africa. I checked on Google Earth, and there are about 600 miles between the borders of those countries, but that is a lot less than the 8,000+ miles from the US to South Africa! The Kropfs are hoping to travel to pick up that suitcase of supplies soon, so that Lois can utilize the goodies for the children.

In addition to the two packages already sent to Africa, Anita has enough fabric to fill two more suitcases, that our generous quilters donated. The Kropfs' son will be returning to Malawi after the new year, so a large suitcase full of donations can travel with him in January. Anita and the Kropfs will be exploring creative ways to get the last batch of fabric and thread over to Malawi, and into Lois' hands, not in anyone else's hands!

With well over 900 children to sew for (both boys and girls, I believe are in that count) the fabrics, thread, and notions that you have generously donated will be put to very good use! 

The last total that Anita gave me for the challenge is over 135 yards of fabric donated! I know that there are a few boxes still winging their way towards Anita, and we'll get those tallied up, too. She'll be sending me a list of all of our contributors so that I can be sure that everyone is counted, and has plenty of chances to win all of our wonderful prizes. (You can click here to see the post that showed the goodies in the giveaway!)

Anita is away this weekend, so I will update this post when she returns, and let you all know what our current total is. It will take a few days for me to get the number of entries tallied (some people didn't comment, they just emailed me, which is just fine!) and then I'll announce our giveaway winners!

Again, let me express to you my admiration and my thanks for your response to our challenge! Ya'll are just awesome!

Love,