Old Fashioned Sewing Circle: Summer Journey Groups

It is Journey Group time again at Gateway Community Church. 

                             


In the past, we have sewn clothing and wacky creature toys for church groups in Africa. It has always been a fun time while working for a good cause. My co-leader Ginger and I, took a break from the last session. We used that time to consider our next project and fielded many questions about when the next round would begin. The wait is over, sign ups begin May 10th with the first group beginning June 1st.

The summer session will be a short 6 weeks for 1.5 hours each time. Given the time constraints, we decided to keep this session simple with an old fashioned sewing circle. We will have no specific agenda and no group project to make. The goal of the group is to be social with other people who love to sew. Bring your unfinished projects and get them done! Gain inspiration from other creative people! Machine or hand-sewing, knitting or crochet, embroidery or tatting, whatever you like! 

I have a few ideas of projects I would like to work on including:

The Sew Together Bag

                                

The Geo Pop Bag
             

                                
And maybe a few more of these Vogue 9112 dresses

Registration begins on Sunday May 10th. We will meet at 6:30 on Monday evenings. You can sign up here. This group fills up quickly, so if you want to join us be sure to register on Sunday.

Our previous groups have had no skill requirement and we taught what was needed to complete the project. This session will not be a teaching session. You are welcome to sew along with others' projects, but a basic knowledge of sewing is required. If you need help along the way we will be happy to assist. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below.

If you are interested in learning to sew you can register for my June lessons here.

Happy Sewing,
Bianca

Sewing is part of our Journey.

As you may know, I have led a Journey Group at my church where women, both young and old, have united in the common goal of sewing for charity. All of our garments were made for the children residing in the House of Hope at Starfish Kenya, who are orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Kenya. I wrote about the Summer experience here and beginning of the fall session here.

As with the last session, I went into this Journey Group session with a prayerful heart. I asked that the Group be joined by people who were excited about what we were doing, even if they didn't know what they were doing :). God answered with enthusiastic members who consistently showed up, worked beyond our time limits, and willingly took garments home to complete! I asked that I would get some help with administrative tasks and have a backup leader if I could not attend a meeting. God answered with a member who happily volunteered to read our devotional each week and has agreed to co-lead next session's group. I asked that we have fun each week and build good relationships with each other. God answered with great socializing each week and a fun social time at a local paint party.  Also, I asked that the group become self-financing beyond my fabric stash. God answered with financial and fabric donations that allowed us to purchase fabric and supplies to fund this session and part of the next. 

I have been so blessed with this group. This second session was different than the first, but it was no less rewarding. As with the first group, our registration reached capacity on our first day of sign-ups. This time we had many happy returners and added children accompanied by parents or guardians.  

Every week, I had the pleasure to observe the delight on someone's face as they worked on or completed a garment. I got to share in the joy of a parent or guardian guiding their charge on the iron, cutting fabric, or on the machine.

The skill levels of the members were varied, ranging from veterans to newbies. In this round of sewing, we shifted from pillowcase dresses to making shorts for outerwear; in addition, the shorts can function to enhance modesty under dresses. 

 

 

We spent many weeks working hard, and, midway through the session, we took a break. Karen and her staff at Arbor House Galley and Studio, hosted our group for a wonderful private paint and pour party. Here we were all guided in the painting of an antique Singer sewing machine, on which we could add our own twist. Karen worked with me to choose a suitable image that reflected our interests. 

 

While painting,  Kim Korenek of Tastefully Simple provided a delicious sampling of food for us to enjoy. A group member won party food as a prize at a home show and chose to share it with us.  It was and incredible time together!

After 10 weeks of sewing and 1 week of play, our Fall semester came to a close. In the 1.5 hours we met each week, we completed over 80 garments!

 
 Here is a small sampling of what we did.

I am proud of everyone who worked so hard to make this group a success. Moving forward, we are looking for a new and local group for whom we can to sew and donate items. The projects need to be relatively easy to sew to allow novice potential group members to participate. I am open to international possibilities, if there is a way to get the projects to these sites without added costs.

The Spring semester will begin sign-ups on January 19^th, and the semester begins the week of February 9^th.  If you are local and want to be a part of this group, please sign up; we would love to see you!

We are also accepting donations to help this ministry continue. We could use new or used sewing machines, cotton, and other apparel fabrics. In addition, we can us fabric, elastic, trims and other sewing notions. Please email me here, to make arrangements for local pick up of items you wish to donate. 

Monetary donations are gratefully accepted at Gateway Community Church, simply designate Sewing for... as the recipient and notify me here. 100% of the donations fund this ministry.  

If you wish, you can also donate to this cause directly below. I will email you a receipt for your records. Note, if you need a receipt for tax declaration of donations to a religious organization, please donate through the church.

 

Thanks for reading and happy sewing,

Bianca

Sewing for Starfish Kenya Second Session is on a roll.

Last summer, I began leading a sewing Journey Group at my church. You can read about last semester's progress here. We are at it again with another session and are sewing weekly until December. Anyone is invited to join with any skill level as long as long as they sign up before the group fills. Once again, the group filled up on the first day with people eager to sew for a cause. There is a wide range of skill levels and ages but a consistent level of enthusiasm!

We are continuing to sew shorts and dresses for the residents of the House of Hope at Starfish Kenya. This go round, we have started off spending the first couple of weeks just learning and cutting fabric. Next, we have moved onto the actual garment construction. It is really great to have varied skill levels in the group. The veteran sewits are happy to guide the novices and they are happy to be learning. The participants from the last session are thrilled to build on the skills they learned.

We are just getting into the swing of things, and we are all excited to keep working. Here are some work in progress photos. I will be updating as we move along.

Fabric cutting and cutting up!

 

I've got this!

So at home at the machine.

Some results and very proud women!

I am so excited to be working with such a delightful group of people! They are enthusiastic every week and generous with their time and resources.  We never seem to have enough time to work and I am always reminding them when it is time to leave. Fortunately, we still have many weeks to work and play together.

Happy Sewing,
Bianca

Sewing for Starfish Kenya

I began the summer with a simple question and prayer, "Lord, what breaks your heart? and "God, what would you have me do?" In answer, 1 Peter 4:10 was laid on my heart. "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms." That scripture helped me focus on who I could help. For the past ten weeks, I have had the tremendous pleasure of leading a Journey Group at Gateway Community Church. In this group, members united to make garments for residents of the House of Hope at Starfish Kenya. Starfish Kenya provides hope to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. 

Leading a group of this nature was a completely new experience for me. I am passionate about sewing, and I recruited my friends to the craft; however, I was skeptical about potential participants for this new group. I was pleased to discover that the group filled up on the first day of signups...with a wait-list!  Yes!

The group was open to novice, experienced, men, women and children from the community. Having a sewing machine was helpful, but it was not necessary. All of the fabrics and notions used in this group were donated by Journey Group members. Some were happy to do some stash-busting and others were happy to make purchases for what we needed.

 

We decided that making pillowcase dresses and elastic waist pants would be useful to the residents of the House of Hope. This type of  project would also be easy for newbies to learn and eventually sew independently. We spent the first couple of 1.5 hour sessions "learning to sew". The experienced sewers dove right in to help lead the beginners. There was always fun banter as the participants got to know each other. As the weeks went along, the newbies grew more confident and it was exciting to see them proudly showing off their completed projects.

Despite being told to expect a "loss of participants" in any Journey Group over time. I must admit that I was discouraged when, one day about midway through the sessions I noticed there were a few non-returners. I saw my goal of  "x" number of garments being completed diminishing. I also wondered, "What was I doing wrong?" I took a deep breath, looked around, and I saw a room full of people who were enthusiastic, excited, and happy to be doing what they felt called to do. I was reminded of why I was there. I was not there to reach a quota, rather I was there to reach those in the room as well as those overseas.

I have been so blessed in leading this group. I am so glad I did it! There were days when I was tired or unwell, and  I felt like not showing up. I pushed through, and I was rewarded with smiling faces, enthusiastically completed homework, fabric/trim that a group member "just had to buy," or kind words from someone thanking me for starting the group. 

 

I have enjoyed getting to know the women in this group, and I am so proud of all the work we did! Here are our completed garments!

 

We will begin another Journey Group semester the week of September 30th. Sign ups begin September 8th.

If you are local and would like to join us, we would like to have you.
If you would like to donate child-friendly fabrics, ribbon, patterns or elastic, please let me know.

Happy Sewing,
Bianca