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,

Updates - for Destash for Malawi

I am so grateful and overwhelmed with the wonderful response so far, to our Destash for the kids in Malawi. I wanted to pass along a couple of updates that really cranked my tractor!!

First, Anita, the Kropfs' daughter-in-law, who is inventorying and packing the donated fabric and thread as it arrives, told me that she has received over 100 yards of fabric so far!! I think that ya'll definitely deserve a drum roll, or a trumpet fanfare, or . . . maybe some fireworks!!

I really feel honored to be a part of this awesome community of quilters, and to be able to help with this effort! I can't wait to see pictures from Malawi, can you?

Another update came from Julie, of the Intrepid Thread. She sent me pictures of the lovely fabrics that will go to new homes at the end of our challenge! We'll have a random giveaway, and all of these will be sent to generous quilters:

 

There's Lola's Posies, and Alphabet Soup (one bundle for a girl, and one for a boy project).  There are more bundles, too, of Prince Charming, Dazzle, and Hoo's in the Forest . . . I just didn't want to make you have to haul out the cleaner and the paper towels, after you added noseprints to your screens this morning!  :)

I'm so happy that our challenge is going well, and the kids in Malawi are going to have some great clothes for school! Thank you to each and every one of you that has donated so far.  We'll keep you updated on how it's going!  And if you want to be a part of this challenge, just click on the "Destash" button over on the right hand side of this blog!

Love,

Two Birds with one Yard --- A Challenge

Yes, yes, I know, the old saying is to get two birds with one stone . . . but we don't want to do that!! It's mean, and it's messy! :)

We're talking about accomplishing two things with one yard of fabric, here. How do we accomplish this bit of magic?

Well, you grab your favorite beverage and maybe a little snack, because I'm going to explain that right now!

All settled? Good. We're going on a trip to Africa! (Maybe you had better have more than a little snack on hand!)

Recently, I was introduced via Anita, of The Other Side of Me, to a wonderful couple in Malawi, in southeastern Africa. The Kropfs work diligently to educate, clothe, and house the many orphan children there, and adults, too, of course.  They live and work among the very poor. Here is an excerpt from a letter from Lois:

I have been measuring children for school uniforms. I have measured a little over 900 of them in the last month. I enjoy this. It gives me a chance to see their little faces and connect some names with faces.

I look at these precious little 6 year olds, not quite sure what this Azungu (white person) is going to do, their eyes wide with fright; the 9 year old girls give me shy little smiles; the boys put on a bravado.

There are so many teenaged girls in grades 5, 6, and 7, failing many years, and partly because when they become women, they do not have the necessary sanitation means to go to school, so they miss a lot of school. The boys miss a lot of school because they go out looking for odd jobs to buy clothes, shoes, food, etc.

Wow! Over 900 children to sew for? That is amazing! Here are some of those kids, showing off their new clothes:

Here is a picture of some of the boys, with new clothes and new school books:

Aren't they cute? Look at all those happy faces! You can see more of the Kropfs' work on this blog post.

Now, this is where the magic comes in . . .

We quilters sometimes need to de-stash and thin out the ranks of our fabrics that we pet, er talk to, well, love and purchase too much of.  And, with yardage, Mrs. Kropf can transform a tee-shirt into a dress for a girl, or create a pair of shorts for a boy.  She says:

I made a lot of tee shirt dresses last year, using new material for the bottom and used shirts for the top;  I made over 300 of them. That is why new material for dresses and tee shirt dresses is so much appreciated. I can buy material here, but it is not as nice as the states.

So, here's the plan.

1. Rummage through your stash, and pick out some one yard (or more) pieces that you can donate to this effort in Malawi. And yes, if it is almost a yard, that's good, too. (It does need to be cotton, and please, no decorator or heavy fabrics!)
2. When you decide on what you will send, email me (click on "Snoodles" under "Contributors" and then you will be able to click on "email") or leave a comment, either one --- and I'll give you the shipping information for the Kropfs' daughter-in-law, Anita, who lives in the United States. One yard is not too heavy; postage will be easy to handle!
3. By the by, if you are able to toss in some thread (any color) that will be much appreciated, too!
4. Anita will keep track of the fabric as it comes in, and make certain that the box or crate makes it into the hands of her folks. (We can't just ask all of you to ship to Malawi --- it's expensive, and it may not make it to them . . . )

Now, all of us that help with this challenge will be winners, because we've paid it forward, and helped someone else. It even ties in with the upcoming Make A Difference Day here in the US: October 22. But to encourage you to help out, we have enlisted the help of some sponsors, who will be contributing prizes for a random giveaway to those who participate!

Here are a few of the folks that have signed on to help us out:

Julie at the Intrepid Thread has generously donated eight lovely fat quarter packs!

QuiltSue has happily donated a copy of her new book, Pick Four! A great book for rookies and veteran quilters alike!

Padsworth has donated two twelve-month subscriptions to Ole Frog Eyes, the virtual design wall quilting site!

Amanda Murphy is donating a complete set of her patterns for the campaign!

Jacquelynne Steves at The Noble Wife blog is providing an autographed copy of her new book

Fruitful Hands for one of our winners, and she is sending yardage, too!

Mike and Shawna are generously donating fabric prizes, and also will be sending yardage for the Malawi effort!

Dewberry Lane will let a winner choose two patterns from their awesome selection!

We'll post pictures of the prize packages soon, and we are hoping to hear from EVEN MORE sponsors, too . . . so look around in your stash, and look in your thread cache, and let us know what you can contribute to the De-Stash for Malawi!!

Here is how we will count the entries: 

1. For each yard of fabric that you can donate, you can make a comment on this post.
2. If you can contribute thread, you can comment again. Not once for each spool, just one comment!  ;)
3. If you are one of our subscribers at the Old Frog Eyes site, and you contribute, you can leave yet another comment.
4. If you grab our "De-Stash 4 Malawi" button from the right-hand sidebar, and post it to help spread the word, you can comment one more time! Or if you tweet or Facebook the campaign, you can tell us that, instead!
5. And you don't have to, but if you would like to follow our blog, we'd sure appreciate it, and count another comment!

This challenge will run through October 15 (that's just three weeks, so let's hurry!), and the winners will be announced on or before October 22, for Make A Difference Day. (That will give us time to verify our lists, and confirm our winners.)

Updated: Here is a helpful note from Jacquelynne Steves, who suggested . . .

I suggest using a flat rate box from the post office- medium box costs 10.95 to ship and large is 14.95 to ship, no matter how much you put in. So if you can cram it full, you can ship it for the same price as sending just a little by first class or priority would cost. If they can't fill a box on their own, they can ask a friend to share a box with them. And if they have a little room left, they could take it to their local quilt shop and ask them to "top it off" before they ship it out.

Awesome! Thanks, Jacquelynne!

I hope that all of you special quilting peeps will contribute! It's a very worthy cause!


Love,