July 2024 Work Day Recap

What a great way to spend a miserably hot Friday and Saturday!  Quilting with friends is always fun but quilting for God with sisters in faith once again fills everyone's hearts.  

The early starters on Friday were met with a wall of boxes and bags in the closet.  A donation had been dropped off but no one realized just how big it would be. Seven large garbage bags and three boxes of finished quilts were included.  These were all sent to Lutheran Services of Iowa to benefit their Immigrant program.  In addition, there were eleven smaller boxes of fabric to sort through.  It's always a joy to look through fabric and several joined us around the sorting table, picking up yardage for their next project.  Some were donated to the Ewalu Bible Camp Quilt Auction in October.  Two bins of yardage were also donated to LSI for the immigrants who have access to sewing machines and are outfitting their new homes with items like drapes or clothes.  So many people benefit from the donation and the donor is happy to have it well-loved by others.  

So the donation surprise set the tone for the rest of the crazy weekend.  We were also catching up since we weren't able to have HQ in June.  Show and Tell was awesome as always.  Not counting the donated quilts, HQ turned in 62 quilts!  Twenty-seven altar clothes were added to our count (209 so far!) The others will be distributed to Door of Faith, Families Forward, Agape, Ellipse, etc.  Fifteen baby quilts were also taken over to the NICU. 

Again we saw some new faces at HQ this month. Many who heard about us through the Palm Sunday altar cloth event and visited and still coming back!  This project has been such a blessing in so many ways. 

We were blessed with a visit from Yoelevi during the meeting.  She was on the mission trip to Ghana and told us a bit about the experience of delivering the altar cloths.  She shared her heartfelt description of the joy these people have obviously found in Jesus despite the very few worldly possessions or comforts they have in their lives.  Yoelevi is interested in helping in our mission and learning to quilt so we are working on getting her a machine and I think she'll be back again.   I hope you get the chance to meet her at future meetings.  You'll be blessed!  

Once again we are partnering with our favorite local quilt shop, The Iowa Quilt Block to make pillowcases for Ryan's Smiles.  Here are more details on the pillow case pattern and Ryan's Smiles cause https://www.facebook.com/share/p/3sYaNFv367HxNqFE/.  Any pillowcase pattern will work if you don't want to use this one.  Feel free to use HQ fabric to make your pillowcases. When you deliver 10 to the store you'll get a coupon from the store!   Shelley's goal is 1000 pillowcases by the end of the year.  We helped her last year and I know you'll take up this challenge again this year.   There are many kits already made and will be available at HQ.  You can also get into the closet at Hope this summer during church office hours.  The quilt shop also has pillowcase kits if you prefer.  And they have a GREAT sale going on, if you want to pick your own fabric.  It's worth the trip for sure!

There is much thankfulness for all of you and your servant's hearts.  Quilting weekends at Hope can be unpredictable and oftentimes hectic.   The amount of grace you've all showen as we work through the challenges of this growing group are humbly appreciated.  The Holy Spirit has blessed us richly and we will continue to ask for guidance as we grow and nurture this ministry.  Thank you for coming along on this journey!