Packing up, shipping out

On November 10 our group met to count and pack all of the items we have been making to send them off to the Roma of Albania. We overshot our goal of 40 sweaters by far. We had 43 sweaters plus many other things that are sure to keep people warm on cold days. Thank you so much for everyone who helped with this project.

We hope that Megan and Moriah Mays and all the Roma girls from the Roma Project will appreciate and enjoy all the hard work that was put in to making all these lovely things just for them.

I don't have the exact number of everything we made, but I'll get that soon. Thanks again to everyone who helped us with this project. Stay posted to hear the already brewing news of our next project.

Also, we celebrated Vs's birthday and made a pretty cake for her, which was exciting. Happy Birthday Vs!

September 15, 2008

Sorry it took so long to put these up, hope you like them.

Map Wise

Hi there, there hasn't been much going on recently on the site, and I'm sorry for that. I promise to put up some new information and pictures this weekend. I just decided to add this post to put a picture of the map of Albania, where our current project is coming from. Now, I am not going to lie, I didn't really know where on the map Albania was and I'm pretty sure there are many more just like me. So here's a map, so you can get an idea. Oh, and the flag, too.

September Meeting

Just a notification that our next meeting will be on the 15th of September.

Our First Beginner's Class

On Monday, August 11th, we held our first beginners class for Keep 'n Stitches. We were not really expecting anyone to come, but were delightfully surprised to have four people come to learn how to crochet. Also, we had a couple of experienced newcomers stop by as well, which made us all the more excited.

I (J) was able to connect to the internet to show off our blog to our regular members and our visitors, and I was glad that everyone liked it. I'm hoping that this blog will be our main form of communication for those who don't know any other way of reaching us.

My mother (Va) was teaching the beginners how to cast on and do basic crocheting techniques. My sister (Vs) showed off the many colorful and creative scrunchies that she had decorated for the Roma girls. GMc, one of our members, decided to add a little extra fun to the night and brought blackberry crisp and watermelon for everyone to enjoy and asked my mother to bring ice cream.

We were so happy to have one of our long-time, but hidden, members finally come and meet the whole group. LS is a shut in of the church and rarely leaves her home, but she was able to make it to our meeting this week, to our great joy.

We are continuing headon with our project, and have grown our inventory not only to sweaters, though that will be the bulk of the delivery, but also scrunchies, scarves, hats, socks, and possibly even leg warmers. If you are not a member of our group yet and would like to join or would like to make a few things to help us out with our project, please contact the Spencerville Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Our deadline for this project is November, with our goal at 40 sweaters and whatever other goodies come along. So get stitchin'!

I will post when the next meeting will be as soon as possible.

New Addition to Project

Just something to let everyone know that we will be making hair scrunchies as well as sweaters for the Roma girls.

First Entry

Yay! The beginning of a new chapter of Keep in Stitches. The online chapter, ha ha.

This site has been created to inform and interest people in our group. We are a group, made mostly of women, from Spencerville Seventh-Day Adventist Church who come together once a month to knit and crochet items of clothing for a chosen project at the beginning of the year. We have been going strong for almost two years now, and our ministry seems to only be growing.

Previous projects have included making scarves and hats for the homeless and needy day workers of the Langley Park area and making afghans and lap blankets for the shut in members of our church, just so they know someone is thinking about them and that they are not forgotten. Also, we have made sweaters, scarves, and hats for women and children who live in a nearby abused women's shelter as well as making baby blankets for members of our church who had newborns. As you can see, we like to work not only for our own church community, but for the community around us.

Our latest project was "Baby Blankets for Africa," in which our group of 10-15 people made over 60 baby blankets in three months to be brought over to Maluti Hospital in the kingdom of Lesotho. The hospital has a dear connection to us, as a church we have decided to help raise the necessary funds the hospital needs to increase the quality of their equipment and supplies as well as their surroundings. As with many parts of Africa, Maluti is struggling with the amount of HIV/AIDS patients that come to be treated when they do not have the available space, provisions, or equipment. Therefore our church decided to help them out through the Adventist humanitarian aid group, Hope for Humanity.

But our group saw a different need. Due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there are many young children who are left parent less and homeless. Also, unlike what a lot of people think, there are lots of places in Africa that can get rather cold. So our group decided to make baby blankets, to be given to those who needed them most.

The blankets were taken over to Maluti by our lady pastor and her husband who accompanied Hope for Humanity on their latest visit to the hospital. We were scared at first that only half of what we had made would be able to make it to Africa, due to luggage space and the fact that passengers are only allowed one piece of luggage. However, praise the Lord, she found a way to bring over 50 of our blankets with her: space bags. I hope to be posting some of her responses to passing out the blankets sometime in the near future.

We are extremely happy with how well this project went and we pray that God will continue to use us in helping the least of His brethren and His children.

So you might be asking, what now? After this extremely long post, what more can she have to say?

How about an announcement about our new project?

Our new project will be making winter clothing for the young Roma (Gypsy) girls, ages 7 to mid teens, who live in Albania. We were informed of their sad situation by one of our members who read an article in one of our Adventist magazines about a missionary couple living in Albania working with a different group of people, but their two daughters felt that the Roma girls were not getting the kind of attention they should be. The Roma girls are often not allowed to go to school, are not giving many opportunities to grow scholastically, are are often underfed and under clothed, simply because they cannot afford any better. So the two missionary daughters decided to put their money together and actually were able to open up a school just for these Roma girls. But these girls still do not have adequate clothing to keep themselves warm during the coldest months. So our project is to make warm clothes, mainly sweaters, to keep these beautiful and bright young women warm and happy. More information will be posted about this project later.

If you or someone you know likes to knit, crochet, sew, or even quilt, please consider joining or contributing to our group. Anyone is welcome to come by.

If there are any questions, please contact the Spencerville SDA Church office at (301) 384-2920.