My church has a Piecemaker's group Wednesday mornings. They occassionally cut out uniforms for girls in Sierra Leone. Sometimes they work on a special project for the church like making items to sell at an annual craft sale. But usually they knit and chat and enjoy coffee and each other's company. I was told by the leader of Piecemakers a few weeks ago that I could help myself to some donated fabric there if I had a use for it. I took a large bagful and spent a lot of time prewashing it. I spent several hours ironing and am not done with it. A lady at Piecemakers helped me iron fabric.
I have gone to help twice when they were cutting out the uniforms. The cut pieces are packed and go off to another church to be sewn up. I don't knit so I only went a few other times.
I really would like to make some super simple clothing for needy children. I bought some patterns on sale such as a "knot dress" Simplicity 2171. It does use contrasting fabrics but I don't think it will add that much time to sew. Today I got two Kwik Sew patters for pullover woven tops ( 3235) and shorts or pants with fake fly for boys and cut sleeveless T shirt pattern for knits.
I am thinking, sleep pants, simple shorts or elastic waist pants, pullover woven tops and the print dresses. I started to think in terms of doing it on my own and then thought, how crazy! Surely there will be someone at Piecemakers willing to help me cut out and later sew!
I was inspired by a woman on patternreview.com who made over 50 a line pullover dresses to go to Haiti. She won 1st place in a 2010 "use up the stash" contest. I don't know how they were shipped. Years ago I distributed some sewn donated clothing to kids in respite foster care. Ladies made items from left over fabric and brought it to a local fabric store for me to give away. Children of the poor love new clothes, even if it's a T shirt! They don't take it for granted to have nice clothing.
A year ago I got several huge leaf bags full of children's clothing. We have a huge number of refugees in St. Paul that have recently arrived from Nepali refugee camps and Myanmer. I originally was trying to find shoes for the little girl of the refugee familiy our church sponsored. All of this clothing was for young children as it came from one family. I saw these children running around barefoot outside each week when I came to visit the refugee family we sponsored. There is a large cluster of apartment buildings that are mostly inhabited by refugees. I started to pull out some clothing I thought would fit some children I saw. Soon I was surrounded by children. I tried to fairly distribute what I had. Soon some of the grandmas came, who didn't speak English, who would point to a child, wondering if I had something for this older boy? I felt bad. I did try to get clothing donated from clothing not sold at garage sales, but only once did someone call me to pick up things.
Some women at my church have been bringing some donated items of all kinds to put on a free table where English classes are held. So some of my ideas on how to distribute these simple clothing items would be at the free table, out of the back of my truck again, through food shelves or finding needy children through the local schools.
So far I've bought patterns, fabric , and have prewashed fabric, ironed it and cut out about 6 items.
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