Charity – Page 6 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Finishes – where do they end up?

5 Comments / Charity / By Melissa Dunworth

What do you do with all your finishes? I find that I make a lot of projects for the blog for sponsors and some for myself that truly have no purpose or intended recipient. For example I made last week’s Valentine’s Pinwheel Table Runner with nobody in mind, I just started sewing blocks and suddenly a table runner was born. What do you do with all your projects – you can’t keep everything, can you? I mean she who dies with the most quilts still ends up cold in the end (sorry, that was a bit morbid…).

So what do I do with my finishes? I have about 6 quilts in my house right now – these were actually made with my immediate family members in mind. Everything else I giveaway. I have so many wonderful people in my life and I love sharing with them, but what I love doing even more is donating to charity. My Valentine’s Pinwheel Table Runner is going to be going up for auction to benefit a mission started by my friend Sarah – THE Mission (Tanzania Health & Education Mission). Last year I donated one of my framed photographs:

(I call this picture “Cradling the Sun”, I took it while my hubs and I were on our honeymoon in Carmel, CA. It can be seen on the 17 mile drive if you are so inclined to go find this beautiful tree! Sunset is the time to go if you ask me.)

We can’t keep everything, try though we may and because we can’t I think it is important to find good causes that you believe in to support. The table runner above is being donated for auction, the money raised will go towards health supplies for the Tanzanian people and will help raise awareness about the mission. If you are at all interested in finding out more information about THE Mission, please email me (melissa (at) sewbittersweetdesigns (dot) com) or go to their website. I can put you in direct contact with THE Mission founders. Also, if you have anything you would like to donate for their annual auction, please let me know, any donation would be truly appreciated.

And don’t forget to start making your Valentine’s Day projects – I have now seen 3 of the ones from our esteemed guest bloggers and my oh my are they AMAZING! Get Working!

NOTE: Don’t forget, I am one of the bloggers who is going to lose Google Friend Connect in March 2012, please take a moment and follow me via Bloglovin’, Facebook, RSS or networked blogs. You are important to me and I want to be able to stay in contact with you! Check my side bar for all the best ways to stay in touch after GFC goes bye bye!

Weekend Sewing Update

6 Comments / Charity, quilt along, Sew Bee Blissful, SewHappyGeek, Valentine's Day Showcase / By Melissa Dunworth

I know, I know, it is Wednesday and I’m giving you a weekend sewing update in the middle of the week. Well, what can I say, there was some pretty important stuff I had to say earlier in the week 🙂

If you haven’t already, make sure you check out Monday’s post on the Valentine’s Day Showcase

Grab the button from my sidebar and show everyone you plan to participate – so far there are 2 great prizes lined up from my wonderful sponsors!

In sewing news, I was a busy little bee this past weekend. I worked on the first two blocks from Jenna’s Sew. Happy. Quilt QAL. The Snowball and Woven blocks. I have to tell you, I love how quickly these blocks came together – I was done with both in an hour!

I’m using Rendezvous for Anthropology that I bought from Julie at Intrepid Thread. It was painful to cut into these fabrics, but I couldn’t be happier with the results!

Next up, I worked on blocks for Quilting for Kids – this is a Flickr Group run by So Sarah Sews. The group is making two quilts right now for foster children. It made my day that I could participate and help make something that will bring comfort to a child in need.

Sarah gave us a great tutorial to follow and I learned yet another great way to make Half Square Triangles.

I also worked on my bee blocks for Sew.Bee.Blissful – the month we were give some gorgeous yellow and gray prints and some solid white fabric to create Garden Fence blocks. She linked us up with this tutorial from Hyacinth Quilt Designs.

Don’t you just love her fabric choices?!? Entering 2012 has lit a fire under me, I have to figure out what I want to do for my month…egads! My month is May so I need to have everything decided and mailed by the end of April – decisions decisions…

What have you been working on?

Giving Back – Hopeful Threads

4 Comments / Charity, Hopeful Threads / By Melissa Dunworth

Hello everyone! I am so happy today to bring you Kristy from Hopeful Threads. If you haven’t heard of Hopeful Threads let me introduce you really quickly. Kristy is a mom and a sewist. She likes to give back and every month she finds a new charity to work with. Read on to learn a little about how you can give back each month!

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Hello Sew BitterSweet Designs friends! I’m Kristy and I blog over at Hopeful Threads. When Melissa invited me to tell you a little about my blog, I jumped at the chance! Thank you again Melissa!

Like many of you, I am a very busy mama, with 5 in my nest ages 20months – 12 years. Sewing is something I love to do! It’s my creative outlet, my mama fun time, that’s why it only seemed natural when looking for a way to give back, to do so while sewing! Hopeful Threads was “officially” started just over a year ago as a way to allow me to use my sewing abilities to help others. Along with a group of very generous and talented creative bloggers, we have been able to meet a variety of needs through monthly sewing projects. Some of the projects have included, pillowcases for our local DCS, activity totes for Children’s Hospital and a variety of items like sundresses, cloth pads and diaper covers that have been sent internationally to Ghana, China and Cambodia!

In addition to offering an opportunity to sew for a specific need each month, I also like to share about businesses that give back or that support needs outside of themselves. For example, Create H.O.P.E. Designs is a project near and dear to my heart.

Create H.O.P.E. was developed for the sole purpose of financially providing for the needs of orphans and their communities. Patterns are only $5 and 100% of the money raised supports those in need! While I am not a professional pattern designer, I was able to contribute one of my more advanced tutorials to the project and have been so proud to be a part of the collaborative efforts of so many caring designers!

I will also introduce you to a variety of organizations that can use your support. While you may not be able to sew along each month, I do invite you to consider showing your support in anyway you feel led. The organization we are sewing for this month is Annabelle’s Wish an organization serving nearly 2000 children in foster and/or orphan care in China. They are humbly doing some amazing work!

In addition to our charity outreach, I also like to share various sewing tips, tutorials and pattern reviews, as well as, personal projects I am working on. I hope you will pop over and take a look around, and I’d love to have you join us if it looks like a place you find interesting! We do have a lot of fun!

And remember….every stitch matters!

Are you feeling inspired? Is 2012 the year you will focus on giving back? It is one of my goals for the year.

Giving Something Back

6 Comments / Charity / By Melissa Dunworth

When I was a teenager I was actively involved in community service. I was in the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls – a service organization for girls ages 11 to 20. It was a big part of my life. In high school I volunteered at my elementary school – helping with their yearly fundraising activities. I spent time working at another local elementary school helping struggling first graders learn to read. With several of my friends from school, I also made “vials for life” for our local hospitals and senior citizens. In college, I continued volunteering at local middle schools helping kids with reading.

Needless to say, volunteering and giving back to my community was a big part of my every day life. The last month of so I have found myself drawn to online charity projects and the more I think about it the more I realize just how much I miss the volunteering aspect of my life. I know how blessed I am in my life; for all our struggles, we are so very lucky. My husband has a good job, we have a beautiful home, and our daughter is amazing. With all the blessings in our lives I have done some deep thinking and prayer and decided that it is time to start giving back when and where I can.

Here are some opportunities that I have found – please leave comments with ones you have found. Let’s help make the coming holiday season wonderful for everyone!

This first one is easy peasy. You don’t even have to make anything. Lily Pad Quilting is asking for everyone to donate 1 yard of cotton fabric and if you can – to throw in a spool of thread. I don’t know about you but I had plenty of fabric in my stash to donate a yard.

One of my Bee Mates for Sew Bee Blissful, Lyanna from Purple Panda Quilts works with Foster Children – and she has set a goal to make 50 stockings by December 1st to donate to the kids she works with. Please take a few moments to check out her site and if you can, please make a stocking! Her first tutorial will be up today!

One of my favorite blogs – Zia Maria Designs – recently blogged about another charity crafting blog called Craft Hope. They do some amazing charity work and run the gamut with the different types of projects they do.

Another project that I do every month is do. Good Stitches, this is a virtual quilting bee and each quilt that is completed is donated to a specific charity based on which circle you are in. This bee is run and organized by Rachel from Stitched in Color. Every month you make two blocks and send them to the group quilter for that month. October will be my second month and so far I am loving it and the blocks are really stretching my sewing skills.

One of the blogs I follow – Tonya’s Sewing Room – is asking for blankets for her local chapter of Project Linus – can you help her?!?

Do you do volunteer? Are there other groups that I should have mentioned that I missed? I hope you will join me in doing some great work for good causes this holiday season. Let’s make this a great holiday season for as many people as we can.