Progress! Dresses for South Africa

Yesterday was the sewing session at church from 2 until 8 pm (dinner included.) I could only stay until 5:00 because I told Shauna I would babysit the girls so they could go out to dinner with friends. Even so, I managed to make several dresses during the 3 hours I was there. Ladies came later in the day so I didn't feel too bad about leaving early. Besides, I brought the 4 dresses I already made and volunteered to sew extra at home if the group didn't get all 100 dresses stitched up. There is another group of people who volunteered to provide T-shirts for the girls to wear under their dresses and I discovered that these dresses and shirts will not be traveling on their way to South Africa until September. Plenty of time to finish!

I had purchased about a dozen pillowcases from the Goodwill (Wednesdays are 20% of days for seniors) so instead of $.99 each, they were only $.79. My friend, Kim, scoured through the stash that her church sewing group has accumulated and donated 5 partial bolts of fabric, but our church group didn't need any more fabric. Now I'm thinking! Another friend, Tamie, suggested that she and I begin stitching up a bunch of these sweet dresses (some out of pillowcases and some out of yardage) and find a missionary group that would like to provide dresses for needy girls. Shorts are super simple to make for boys so don't know why we couldn't work at that too. Might even find several more friends to help with the project. I will keep you posted about our progress in finding a mission to work with and PLEASE, let me know if you would like to be part of this. I feel like I'm putting the cart before the horse, but I have had this in mind for several months now. Just need the right venue! I know God has something in mind.

Here are some photos of yesterdays sewing. Notice all those dresses hanging up? By the time I left at 5:00 there were over 30 complete and many more in various stages of completion.

This is where I set myself up. Patty showed up about 45 minutes before I left and she sat at the other end of the table. I LOVE my nice little 12 lb. "travel" sewing machine. It is a Babylock Audrey model. Of course, I still had to make 2 trips in with all my stuff!!

Up and down, cut, sew, iron, find the binding, sew, iron, sew, iron and on and on!

There is the beginning of our finished handiwork.

Some ladies set up their sergers, some used sewing machines and some ladies only wanted to iron.

And yes, where there are women, there is lots of talking!

Wouldn't you know that I skipped going golfing with Dave and Dave and Sharron so I could go swim at the pool at 11 am with Kim and spend the day sewing at church. We didn't take into account that it was Spring Break and there were too many kids in the pool making it too crowded for us. There was no crowd on Monday and we got a good workout in, so don't know why it was so busy yesterday. Then after all the rain we have had, the weather got SUNNY!! And here I was stuck inside. The upside was that I got to spend the evening with Shauna's girls and that was fun. I am a blessed grandma!!