Can you help? Will you help?

Several months ago I saw a logo for a place called "Lily's Closet" on a friend's face book page.

I clicked on it. I don't really know why, other than the name caught my attention.

As I read through their "info" section I knew this was a ministry I wanted to support.

About	Our purpose is to reach out to broken, hurting girls with God's amazing, healing love, and to give them eternal hope.
Company Overview	Who we are: Lily's Closet is a ministry designed to reach out to middle and high school girls from Goshen living in difficult life circumstances. It is a store where these girls will be able to come and shop for clothes- for free! Each girl is paired with a staff member who serves as a "shopping buddy" for the day. When the girls finish shopping, the staff will have the opportunity to pray with each girl and talk with her about how much God loves her. We believe that in meeting a physical need of clothes that these girls have, we are able to meet the much greater spiritual need these girls may have. God has a huge heart for these girls and absolutely moves mountains for them! This is a huge opportunity we have to reach out to broken, hurting girls in our very own community! Follow us on Twitter :) Lilys_Closet
Mission	Our mission is to tear down walls of pain and hopeless with God's love by building relationships and providing clothes for girls in need. (via Lily's Closet facebook)

 I e-mailed Madison, the contact person listed there, and offered the services of our Crafting Hope group.  I thought maybe we could sew some cute spring scarves or simple skirts for them.

She e-mailed me back with a different request. . . hanger covers.

Hanger covers???

A quick internet search turned up a few things better suited to Grandma's Closet than anything else so I asked what exactly she had in mind.

(photo via: Taylors Closet)

She sent me a few photos and I set to work thinking through some very simple pattern making.

Once I had a pattern, I made a special request of our sewing group.

Lily's closet needed 250 of these simple little things by the first of November!

Seemed manageable to me at the time. . . that's 10 people making 25 covers, right?

Well, obviously I wasn't thinking.

People were sewing Christmas gifts in October. (I wasn't thinking Christmas until late November. . . ahem)

By November 1st we had about 65 of them.

I put out my plea again. . . extended my deadline to the end of November. . . but still, with the holidays it was just too much.

So I told Madison I would revisit the project after the first of the year.

And here we are. . . after the first of the year.

And this little Lily's Closet vision has grown a bit I think.

The request has changed.

250 hanger covers would be great, but they could really use 1,000.

And this is why I need your help.

On Thursday, January 26th at 6:30 pm the Crafting Hope group will be meeting at the Nappanee Public Library.  We are inviting out anyone who can iron, cut or sew to help us make as many of these in a two hour time period as we possibly can.

We will form an assembly line, so if you can't sew, don't worry! We'll let the non-sewers iron or cut fabric.  Working together we can do exceedingly more than we could on our own.

For more information, including a supply list, please go to the Nappanee Public Library website (or e-mail me,  402CenterStreet at gmail dot com).

If you can't make it that night or you just simply live too far away, would you please consider making a few of these for us on your own?

You don't need to be local. I'd love nothing more than to see this project become bigger than our little corner of Indiana. I'd love to see God's grace and love for these girls grow all over the country (perhaps, dare I say, the world?).

  

I will be posting a tutorial soon.  They truly are a simple and inexpensive little project.  Very little sewing skill is required. I promise. 

I am looking for 40 people who will commit to make 25 hanger covers.

I am praying specifically for this and I am believing that the God who multiplied the loaves and fish will multiply our faithfulness.  This job is too big for me. It is too big for the small group of seamstresses I know. But it isn't too big for the God we serve.

If you need further convincing, please take a minute and watch this local news channels coverage of what Madison is doing with Lily's Closet.

That's right folks, she is 17 years old. She had the first inklings of this idea "a few years ago" at a youth conference.  That would make her, what, 15 when she had this vision?

So what say you? Will you help us?

E-mail me if you will commit to making 25 (or more!) of these hanger covers.

402CenterStreet at gmail dot com

I will send you an address to mail the completed covers to as well as be available for any help you might need along the way.

And please friends, PRAY.

Lily's Closet opens on February 2nd.  

I'd love nothing more than for every hanger in that building to be covered in unbleached muslin and the prayers of the saints who sewed a bit of hope into the lives of the hopeless.

Thank you Friends.

Stay tuned for the tutorial.

~Lindsay

Minky & Me

Has anyone out there worked with minky before?  I hadn’t until 4 months ago…so why am I just getting around to posting about it?  Because I JUST finished the project.  I wish at this point I could at least say that it was a complex pattern I was making, but the truth is it was just a simple old baby blanket. Four straight seams and your done!

So the tale begins 4 months ago on Labor Day weekend, I was with my sister and mother fabric shopping.  We happened upon a fabric store devoted entirely to minky.

I saw this brown minky with paisley cut into it and could NOT leave the store without it, and a red with white dot print was its perfect compliment.  I had a friend that was due the following weekend and I knew these were the nursery colors she had picked out.

When I got home my sights were set high for this blanket.  I didn't want to make it too easy on myself, I wanted to jazz it up by embroidering Little Misses Name on it – I took a lot of pictures during this process…with the idea that I would blog a how to…

After several failed attempts on my own with both machine (with my normal sewing machine) and by hand I decided to seek help from the online sewing community.  What I found were several warnings to not even attempt embroidering on minky…and after several frustrating days, I would advise the same thing.

Even after all the issues I had, I still attempted the embroidery a couple more times unwilling to let the idea go.  After several more failed attempts I finally gave up and took some weeks away from the frustrating project.  When I came back to it I moved on to sewing the blanket itself.

I found the material impossible to sew to itself.  The stretch and the ply of the minky made it difficult at best to sew together without puckering and pulling.  Again I went online to look for answers.  I couldn’t find any tips for sewing minky to minky – it seemed that everyone was sewing minky to cotton.  And after my attempts to sew the minky to itself I can understand why there weren’t more people doing it.  So I was left to forge the path.

The best solution I came up with at that time, was to place heavy books (yes that is Taxation in Colonial America) on the material and run it down to smooth out the fabric along the way.  It worked better, but it still wasn’t good enough, there was still some sticking, stretching, and misalignment.  Additionally, the fabric wasn't cut precisely, so the pieces didn't line up perfectly.  I decided to us the white dots as my line and I cut all sides to straight lines.  Warning cutting minky will leave a mess at your work station.  Fabric.com's blog accurately refers to it as a "cloud of fuzz." After I got the pieces to the same size, lining up was much easier, but I was still having puckering and pulling issues.  I was ready to give up FOREVER – my sister convinced me to just step away from it for a while. So I took a few more weeks away from the project.

The next time I came back to it, was after a consultation with my sister (and brother-in-law) and we (he) came up with a possible solution.  To sew them wrong sides together.  It would leave the seams unfinished and in need of a finishing, but with the smooth sides together the friction that had been causing the sticking and pulling would be eliminated. 

I laid the first piece completely out on my dinning room floor (hard wood – smooth surface.)  Then place the second piece directly on top of that one.  I was now in a large enough room and space that I could move around the compete piece of fabric and pin it without moving the material around.  That ability and the fact that the wrong sides together were smooth and not “sticky” like the right sides, allowed me to get the whole thing pinned and ready to sew. And boy did I pin.  I pinned around the whole thing, to make sure there was NO shifting this time. Doing it that way, required every single pin that I own.

I also decided to use a zigzag stich, because of the  stretch of the material.  And it WORKED!  Finally things were looking up.  I had a baby blanket albeit with unfinished edges, but the two pieces of minky were together - and straight and not puckering or pulling!

I decided to finish the blanket with blanket binding and located and pinned a tutorial on blanket binding.  I have never worked with binding before, and even though I would highly recommend the above tutorial I had my own issues with tension, stitch length, and even pinning the satin binding.  I had to rip out my stiches more than I would like to admitt.  So (you guessed it)  I walked away from the project for a few more weeks.

Then came the holidays…I got some quilting pins – much better leverage for the satin binding pinning process.

As you can see I went a little pin crazy at this step too…I didn’t want to mess things up again.

I was enjoying the binding process, the tutorial really is a good one. Cornering was fun, the straightaways we going quickly.  Everything was going smoothly...as my husband would say - almost TOO smoothly! (he is a realist)

In the last 12 inches I had to sew on to complete the blanket - I ran out of thread…broke a needle…and some how pinned it so poorly that I didn't catch the back side of the binding with the stiches.  I had to step away from the project for an hour.  But the closeness of the completion of this looming project (and the fact that baby girl is now 4 months old) gave me a new motivation to get the blanket done. So I found some close to the same color thread, switched in my last spare needle and got back to work. 

And then I finish it!

Ding dong the blanket’s done! And I couldn't be more releaved.

The moral of this story – stay away from minky!

~Michelle

Dish Cloths for Mom

I had this post pinned on my "gift" board for a while. I thought daily dishcloths were such a great idea.

I decided to make them to put in my mom's stocking this Christmas.

Actually, I was going to make them for a lot of people. My mom is the only one who actually got a set. . . this year anyway.

My letters are a bit bigger than the originals because I cheated and used the die cut machine we have at work for cutting out the letters.  Hooray for short cuts!
Get it. . . short CUTS??? 

I took these with me and worked on the hand stitching around the edges of the appliqué while the Bug was in dance. It made for a good little waiting room project although I think if I make them again I would just use the sewing machine for time sake.

This is a nice little scrap buster project. . . although I'd have to start mass producing them if I wanted to bust all of my scraps.  Seriously, the scrap bin is out of control. I have this inability to throw fabric away and lack of time to make that glorious scrappy quilt in my head.

I am not sure, personally, that I'd be disciplined enough to use the "m" dishcloth only on Monday and then wash it, ditto for each day of the week. Nor do I ever do dishes daily. More like once a week when they get piled up and I'm all out of bowls for my cereal. 

But they are cute, right?

Perhaps a monogram or something would have been better?

At any rate, it was a fun little project and a nice way to dress up a rather mundane object that represents to me the most dastardly and dreaded of all household chores.

You think I exaggerative? You try living your entire adult life without a dishwasher and then see how you feel. (Grumble, grumble)

Hopefully these bring a bit of cheer to my mom's day. . . whatever day she opts to use them!

~Lindsay

Teacher gifts

I always struggle with what to do for the Bug's teachers to say thanks.
Food? A gift card? It all seems a bit impersonal.

So this year for Christmas, I made her two preschool teachers these little zipper clutches.

I figure, who CAN'T use a zippy little bag, right? 

I used the gathered clutch tutorial on Noodlehead. I've made these before and they really come together nicely. I still have room to improve in the zipper insertion department but I'm getting better.

And, you know, a gift card and some chocolate can't hurt, right?

(Candy bar wrap free printable found here)

~Lindsay

The Christmas Day Dress

This girl of mine, she is my muse. . .

I could not stop sewing for her if I tried.

Therefore, she has more Christmas dresses this year than any little girl needs.

You may remember the apron dress? Technically, that was last year but I made it big enough that she could wear it again this year and she did.

Then there would be the silver "test" model dress.  You know, the one with the too small neck? Yeah, I fixed it.

Then there is the nightgown turned Christmas Eve dress.

But all along this little purple number was the one I intended.

This time the neck fits. Thankful I made a muslin.

The pattern is the Sara dress by littledresspattern on Etsy. The fabric is a beautiful satin that I found at JoAnn's.

My cell phone photo doesn't do it justice but I don't carry my big camera to church--even on Christmas day.

I used the wrong side of the satin for the bow around the neck and for a band around the bottom. I think it's just the right amount of sophisticated detail.

She has lovely purple shoes that are just perfect for this dress.

However, when you are four there is no pair of shoes more perfect than the one that glitters.

My beautiful girl was thrilled.

She said, "Mommy, everything I am wearing today sparkles! It's like I'm going to a wedding. I look like a princess!"

Yes dear girl, you are my little princess.

~Lindsay

Sewing Gifts for Me!

I got a BUNCH of sewing related gifts this Christmas.

It's so exciting.

You know I MUST be thrilled if I am posting a photo of myself. I never do that.

The quilting book and Gingher pinking shears are just two of the things. I got a new 1/4" foot for my machine that I can't wait to test out and a new (larger) thread rack, a point turner, some marking pencils, some quilt basting pins and some binding clips.

All things that will make sewing. . . and quilting in particular. . . more efficient.

The most exciting thing for me was this quilt frame. I love to hand quilt but I have been using a large embroidery hoop to hold the quilt as I work and it's just not the easiest method.

This frame is light weight. It sets up and tears down easily and it isn't so huge that I need to devote a whole room to my current project.

Now that I can stretch my quilt all out and work on larger sections at once I feel like I'm getting so much more done! It's really exciting. I have been working on this quilt forever and I'm just dying to see it finished!

More than anything, I'm excited to give it to it's owner!

I also got a tripod for our camera so I am hopeful that my photography will improve a bit. I'm thinking about building a light box for photographing smaller projects, but at the very least, it will help avoid the inevitable wiggle of my hand when trying to take project shots.

It was a good Christmas for sewing.

Did you get anything exciting and crafty?  Does your family support and encourage your habit like mine does?  I am blessed, for sure. So very thankful.

~Lindsay 

Christmas nightgown. . . err. . . dress. . .

I am hopeless.

Really. . . how many Christmas dresses does one girl need?

In my defense, however, this one started out with the intention of being a Christmas nightgown made of the scraps of Christmas fabric I had laying around.

As I worked on it, it became clear to me that this was way too cute to be slept in.

Plus, the quilters cotton is just too stiff to be comfortable for snoozing.

Or so I thought.

It didn't stop the Bug from falling asleep halfway through Christmas Eve service.

The pattern is the Little Lizard King's Elizabeth Claire dress with the long sleeve option.

I love the bell effect created with the elastic halfway down the sleeve.

The skirt is less full because I was working with small amounts of fabric.  I should have pieced more in because it did not meet the Bug's twirl requirement.

In my defense, I thought I was sewing a nightgown and it just morphed into a dress. Twirling is less important in a nightgown.

I hope you all had a very blessed Christmas.

I'll be playing catch up here this week, posting gifts that were made and couldn't be shared, plus the real Christmas Day dress. . . yes there is another one. . .

~Lindsay