Saturday, November 26, 2011

Super { Service } Saturday

Who was this Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief? Who is the King of glory, this Lord of hosts? He is our Master. He is our Savior. He is the Son of God. He is the Author of our Salvation. He beckons, “Follow me.” He instructs, “Go, and do thou likewise.” He pleads, “Keep my commandments.” Let us follow Him. Let us emulate His example. Let us obey His word. By so doing, we give to Him the divine gift of GRATITUDE. –Thomas S Monson

We all know that women love to get together, especially when there is some sort of creativity going on. There is a kind of tradition that goes on among the women of my church where a large number of projects {along with instructors} are available for you to work on. It is a yearly event and if the project that you wanted to do wasn't there this year, it'll probably be there next year. We call this day Super Saturday.

This year, we decided that instead of making a bunch of stuff to bring home and wonder what to do with, we would donate our time, talents and materials to make something that would be helpful to those in need. There were several projects going on; through the combined effort of the women in my ward {congregation} we tied a quilt to be donated to a local shelter, put together hygiene and school kits to donate to shelters, made headbands, bows and covered notebooks to give kids in the foster care system, and decorated picture frames to be donated to care centers so the residents could keep a picture of their family nearby. The area I was over was the little sewing room, where we had eight machines plus a serger, cutting table and ironing boards. In there, we turned place mats into little tote bags to hold the school kits and we made pillowcases to donate to shelters, foster care and/or the children's ICU at local hospitals. I cut 27 pillowcase kits {all from donated fabric} and we were able to finish 15 of them; several women took the remaining 12 kits home to finish there.

I put these four pillowcases together. The pink one with frogs on the hem is flannel. It is SO soft!

These three have a theme going on. The two on the left are “Go USA,” and the one on the right is kind of “International” with Big Ben on the pillowcase and the names of lots of different countries on the hem.

Here are a few specifically for boys, and there are half-a-dozen other boyish kits out there to be assembled. The bear is a panel, just the right size to make into a pillowcase. It seemed like a really great idea at the time, but now I'm worried that it might give someone nightmares. The skulls are a little creepy too.

I love how these came out! The fabric for these three, along with six others pictured here, was sent to me by my sweet friend, Wanda. She was cleaning out her stash and sent me a bunch of really great fabrics. I've used lots of it for different projects and loved having so many fun choices to use in these pillowcases.

I think that these two are my favorite of the whole bunch. They are so bright and cheerful and I hope they'll make someone's day a little better.

These pillowcases are fast and easy to put together. I've written up a set of instructions, which you can access by clicking on the button below.

Or, you can go directly to the printable Fancy Pillowcase PDF.

This post brought to you by:

My 2011 Finishes

2 comments:

Shay said...

Oh Elizabeth your pillow covers are just darling. Do you think you were able to get so many done because it was for some great causes?

I really admire you for donating your time and effort in this way. I think it would be fun to get together and do this in a group with a common goal in mind.

Jennifer Lovell said...

I absolutely LOVE it when groups get together for service activities like these, and I bet everyone left way more satisfied with their day than they would have if you had done a traditional Super Saturday, like you said, where the items made are fun, but not always super useful. These pillow cases are great! I bet they will make people really happy to have them. Thanks be to you and your ward for serving and loving our Heavenly Father's needy children!