Save our Sewing Circle

When Pearl invited me to the church sewing circle, my brain scrambled quickly for ways to turn her down politely.

“I don’t really sew,” I tried. She assured me that it didn’t matter. Many of the members didn’t sew. I could help knot comforters, and they could teach me if I wanted to learn to hand-quilt.

“I don’t have anyone to watch my son.” That didn’t matter either. He could play while we worked, and I could tend to him as needed. The members all brought their kids when they were younger, too.

Out of excuses, I told her maybe, and went on my way.

I really didn’t think sewing circle was the place for me. There’s a pretty good chance that you think the same thing.

But one week, I found myself going a bit stir-crazy at home, and I looked at the calendar and saw that it was sewing circle day. Sure, why not? I thought to myself. At least it will get me out of the house.

Fast forward a few months, and I now count myself as a regular member.

It’s hard to describe sewing circle to an outsider. It’s not a club for people who like to sew, as I thought it would be. Half the ladies there don’t even sew. Sewing is a means to an end, rather than the end itself. These ladies do nothing for themselves. Everything they work on together is for someone else. Their comforters go to families in need. Their quilts go to the Mennonite Central Committee so they can be auctioned off, and the proceeds can be used to send the comforters overseas. It’s a mission and a ministry.

Sewing Circle is not just a social club for the older ladies in the church, although that element is present. While their hands are stitching and knotting, their mouths are talking, and their hearts are sharing. Once upon a time, they shared their parenting struggles, and gave loving advice to one another. As their families grew, their stories changed, but they continued to be there for one another. They held each other up as they became widows, prayed for each other as they received bad news from their doctors, comforted each other as they watched their friends go home to be with the Lord.

Our sewing circle is dying. Both literally and figuratively. Every year, there are fewer members and fewer finished projects. This is the 62nd year of the sewing circle at our church, and it may very well be the last. Our president has terminal cancer, and when the Lord takes her home, there is no one to take her place.

Maybe sewing circles are a thing of the past. Maybe their time has come and gone. Maybe today’s women just don’t have time to sit around making quilts. And if that’s all that was going on at sewing circle, maybe we should just end this chapter and close the book.

But sewing circle isn’t just a social club. It has a heart that beats with love for people in need, near and far. And if no one takes up the torch, that heart will stop beating.

I’m asking for a favor: Help me save the sewing circle. Come to a meeting. It doesn’t matter if you know how to sew. Sewing is just a means to an end, remember. And if you care about that end, we can work together on the means.

I don’t know what sewing circle will look like in 20 years. Maybe it will look exactly the same as it did 20 years ago, with ladies sitting around the quilting frames, chatting and sharing, while their children play together off in the corner. Or, maybe we won’t even be making quilts anymore. That would be okay, though. Because the quilts are nice, but the quilts aren’t the heart of the sewing circle. The people are.


The Sandy Hill Sewing Circle meets on the first Tuesday of every month in the Fellowship Hall. Come any time after 8:30, and stay as long as you can. We stop to discuss business and have brief devotional time around 11, and we break to eat lunch at some point after that. Bring a bagged lunch if you’d like to stay longer. If you need directions, they are available on the church website.

Simple Sit-Upon Tutorial

HADA Days 16, 17, and 18 didn't happen. I've decided that days with Girl Scout activities take up too much of my attention to do anything extra on those days, and this week, we had a meeting on Thursday, and an overnight Friday-Saturday, so those three days were out. So, in lieu of a HADA post today, I am making a tutorial for the sit-upons we made at our overnight.

First off, if you have never been a Girl Scout, you might not know what a sit-upon is. It's basically a square of something somewhat squishy and waterproof for you to "sit upon" at outdoor events where there might be nothing more than hard ground or damp picnic tables to sit on. The classic sit-upon design involves sewing around the edges with laces, but I wasn't sure my Daisies would have the patience and/or dexterity for that, so we went with a duct tape edging. This still required a bit more dexterity than many of them had, but I think the end results were pretty decent.

Gather your materials

For each girl, you will need:

• Two 13"x13" squares of sturdy vinyl tablecloth (the dollar store kind is not sturdy enough). I traced my square cutting board, which happened to be exactly the right size.
• One 12"x12" double layer of quilt batting. (Or other padding of some sort.)
• Four 13" long strips of duct tape.
  Tip #1: Stick the tape on wax paper, so you can distribute them to the girls without them getting stuck to everything and each other.
  Tip #2: Buy them in the hardware section, not the craft section, where they are twice as expensive.
• One 24" long segment of parachute cord (or other sturdy cord). Melt the ends to prevent fraying (if you use a lighter, do this at home, before the meeting, because lighter fluid is not allowed at Girl Scout events).

You will also need:

• Sharp scissors
• Some sort of hole punching implement
• Sharpies

From GS Crafts

Assembly

Place your two squares of tablecloth together, with the pretty sides out. Tape along one edge, so that the duct tape overhangs the edge, and sticks approximately half to the sit-upon, and half to the table.

From GS Crafts

Unstick from table and flip over. Press tape down over onto other side, sealing edge closed.

From GS Crafts

Repeat until three edges have been sealed with tape, leaving one edge open.

Slide quilt batting into opening, taking care to flatten it all the way into the back corners.

From GS Crafts

Close the fourth edge with duct tape, as directed above.

Punch two holes a few inches apart on one edge of the sit-upon. (If your puncher is having a hard time getting through the layers of plastic, try putting a piece of folded card stock behind it.)

From GS Crafts

Thread your para cord through the holes and tie off, to use as a hanging/carrying handle. I used para cord because it is great for practicing knot tying, and could have a variety of uses on a camping trip.

From GS Crafts

Write your name on it in Sharpie.

From GS Crafts

Done!

From GS Crafts

PVC Fort

When I saw that a company was selling giant plastic tinker toys as a "blanket fort kit", my first thought was, "Why didn't I think of that?" followed quickly by, "How can I make that myself?"

The fort kit I saw for sale seemed pretty flimsy, so I went for 1/2" PVC pipe for my fort frame. You could go for 3/4" or even 1" if you want an even sturdier fort. Once you have the fittings, you can buy more sizes of PVC to make different sizes and shapes of forts, too. The 4'x4'x4' fort we made is actually pretty big, a 3' cube would probably have been just fine. You could also make any measurements you want, just make sure you have 4 pipes for each dimension (so, for example, to make a 3'x4'x5' fort, you would need 4 3' pipes, 4 4' pipes, and 4 5' pipes). We spent about $25 on materials for this project, coming in at about half the price of the retail fort kits, and twice as sturdy.

Materials Needed:

• 12 4' segments of 1/2" PVC pipe (We bought 6 10' pipes and had a friend cut them for us with his circular saw. This left us with 6 2' segments, which I use to make a smaller fort/tunnel.)
  Cost: 6 * $1.68 = $10.08 Link


• 8 1/2" side outlet elbow fittings
  Cost: 8 * $1.18 = $9.44 Link


• 8 1/2" male adapters (The elbow joints we bought had threading on one outlet, so we had to get these to make a non-threaded outlet.)
  Cost: 8 * $0.31 = $2.48 Link


• Blankets/sheets to cover (We used three twin flat sheets, one tablecloth, and one queen flat sheet.)
  Cost: free from our linen closet.

Total Cost: $22.00 (plus tax)


1. Assemble the frame. Make sure the longer sides of the joints are all pointing in one direction (ours are all vertical), so that they don't throw off the lengths of the sides.





2. Drape the smaller sheets/tablecloths over the sides. (This gives a little bit of "grip" so the roof sheet doesn't slide off too easily. I may add some velcro strips one day, to add to the grippiness.)



3. Drape the biggest sheet over the top as a roof. I didn't bother making a door, because the girls were content to enter and exit via the corners.





4. Collapse and store in the closet when not in use. When disassembled, the pipes only take up a few inches of space in a corner.

Notes:

• I have seen fancier PVC playhouses elsewhere on the Internet, but I really was shooting for the simplicity and modifiability of an old-fashioned blanket fort. If you want to keep it assembled as a semi-permanent structure, you could make panels for the sides, more like this PVC playhouse.


• These pictures were taken outside because there wasn't enough room in my house for me to get pictures of the whole thing at once. This really is designed to be an indoor fort, however. If you want your fort to be used outdoors on a regular basis, you will have to secure the sheets somehow, otherwise your sheets will keep blowing away. I know this from experience.