On Saturday was my ASG (American Sewing Guild) meeting/service workshop. We do this once a year and invite as many 4Hers or young people as possible. Last year we made pillow cases for a nearby children's hospital. On Saturday we had my BIL and his family here to visit, so 2 nieces and a nephew along with my SIL and then a 4H girl from our club came along for the event. My nephew only stayed for 1/2 and did the cutting for us.
We made several bags to ship to soldiers to use for shower stuff. They're drawstring bags, lined with gallon sized plastic zip lock bags. All different colors and patterns.
Now when I said "WE made several", I meant the whole guild, not "WE" as in my little group. It took almost 3 hours for my SIL and her 2 girls to finish one. The directions were pretty complicated because of the hole the drawstring was to come out of... I brought two of my standard sewing machines and my serger. Our little friend brought her standard machine.
I spent the 1st two hours keeping machines threaded and/or trying to explain the instructions even though I didn't understand them myself... Apparently there were so many different ways to make these bags that the kids were mixing and matching and I was totally confused. And a couple girls were getting downright grumpy.Plus I wasn't feeling so hot and kept excusing myself to the restroom....
I finally said, "ENOUGH! I'm making one of these bags myself now so I can understand how they're put together!" So my group backed fearfully away from me and I got to work. I got mostly done and then got a critique from a fellow ASGer. I had done the drawstring hole wrong... dang. The way I did it, the hole was going to unravel as the bag was used. She gave me another way to make the bag using my serger and suddenly everything fell into place.
I had my AHA moment! Of course, now it was 11:45 and we had to leave... The rest of my little group had finally gotten at least one bag per machine done. Maddy gave up on hers early on in the morning and just went around taking pictures or lining the completed bags of the successful people with the zip log baggies.
But now that I know how to do this project, I'm going to try and knock a few out this weekend. If anyone is interested in making some of these I can do a tutorial sometime soon. The serger way is pretty cool... Of course, now I understand the original instructions too. But I like this way a lot better.
6 comments:
That's a nice thing for you all to do! A local group did about the same thing for our school except the bags were to keep our emergency supplies in it (which they gave to us too).
so fun!
my grandma was a good dress maker~
too bad I'm not, perhaps one day when I had more time...
xo
What a great idea! Post the instructions, or email them to me. Chance is deploying to Afghanistan in October and I would love to make some of these to send to him and the guys he will be working with. What a great addition to a goody box!
It's a great idea and wonderful that you were helping out.
Sorry to hear that you weren't feeling the best. It's always frustrating when you're not feeling 100% and working hard at something.
My oldest daughter was making a scrapbook full of photos and fun for her friend who is going to be 10. The only thing that disappointed me was that her youngest sister wanted to help out and wasn't included, yet eldest daughter included some of the other friends in the neighbourhood.
What a great project! I wanna see one all the way done. :)
That's so great! Have you guys ever done anything with Project Linus? i just learned about them in the past 6 months.
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