Welcome to the Sewing Hands for Ile a Vache Blog

The leaves are turning colors and the temperatures are dropping here in Tennessee.  Our thoughts are quickly changing from barbeques in the backyard to baking cookies and hiding away Christmas presents. As the winter looms closer many of us quilters are looking forward to binding our stash of quilts just so we can snuggle under them!  This winter however I for one will be at my sewing machine making drawstring shorts for the Haitian orphanage that my brother visits. And that brings me to the purpose of this blog.....

This past summer my mother and I decided to start a project making "pillowcase" dresses for the girls in the orphanage that my brother Bob helps through his ministry New Horizons.  Quickly our plans grew to include drawstring shorts for the boys.  With 400 children at the orphanage we knew this was going to be a huge task but we already had seen the smiling faces of the kids in the Bahamas when they got last year's pillowcases and stuffed animals - we knew that the dresses and shorts would be genuinely enjoyed and thoroughly appreciated. 

I started showing Mom my favorite quilt stores in the area. Since Patsy and I practically live and breathe quilting I thought Mom would get pretty tired of being taken to yet another store but boy was I surprised!  We went to Mountain Stitches in the Gatlinburg Arts and Crafts Loop.  My Mom didn't stop saying "oohh, aahh" the whole time.  When we told Susan what our plans were she immediately jumped on board - making our first dress so we could see how to do it. donating bolts and yardage of fabric as well as a massive amount of rick rack.  This was the beginning of more stores, more donations and more wonderful people committing to helping out.  Please see the Stores and Sewers pages to see who is now involved.

If you would like to be involved we would love your help.  Just email me at sewinghands4ileavache@gmail.com .  In the coming weeks I will be adding pictures, embellishment suggestions, pattern instructions and a count of what we have done so far.  If you are already one of our sewers please send me pictures of your work and let me know how you are doing so I can add it to the blog.

Happy Sewing,
Sharon