Skip to main content

Angels of Hope - Rotary Club Project

What a great Rotary Club I belong to! We have just started a new project to assist a local community support program for young women in crisis. It is a program which offers residential accommodation as well as a skills program. Its aims are to bring hope, build faith, reveal love and restore value.  Yesterday, eight  of us, including our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar,  made some little dolls as gifts for the women. They are called Angels of Hope, adapted from a pattern from Rosalie Quinlan's book, Gift.
While we are aware of the Comfort Doll Project, we wanted to make these dolls ourselves, and enjoy doing it together as a club project.
We were all very keen and started the afternoon reviewing the pattern, gathering fabrics and then allocated jobs. Even the non-sewers had plenty to do.
It was soon very clear that we were a very focussed, determined and industrious group, with sewing machines whirring, scissors snipping, stuffing tools filling dolls' bodies, irons pressing fabric, and pens drawing faces....   
We were given a boost of energy and enthusaism, when our Rotary Assistant Governor  just happened to visit . He politely declined to do some sewing, but was very encouraging.
When the first two little angels were completed , we were all really happy and congratulated ourselves. What better way to celebrate the first couple off the production line than with a beautiful afternoon tea.
By the end of the afternoon, we had completed fifteen dolls, with three just needing some finishing off.  Two dolls were needed immediately for two new residents and we packaged  them up  to be given with our gift bag of toiletries. The bags are made by members of our Rotary club or members of their familes and the contents are kindly donated by local shops. The attached card reads "Angel of Hope... Handmade and donated by the Rotary Club of Wallsend-Maryland . District 9670"
Many thanks to  fellow Rotarians and friends who came to help yesterday afternoon, especially for giving up a Saturday afterrnon when the weather was perfect for enjoying the outdoors. You did a great job making the dolls and I think you should be very proud and happy with the results. I really enjoyed making these little dolls with you , and hopefully, they will bring some hope and joy to the recipients.

Comments

  1. Gorgeous, Gorgeous, gorgeous!!!What a great project!!Bet you had fun doing it too!!!Best wishes on a kind endeavour.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is awesome! Love the beautiful dolls, the fantastic participants, and your goal behind your venture. I know your recipients will be blown away by your thoughtfulness,caring, and generosity. I must share your project on the Comfort Doll blog.
    Hugs and smiles,
    Pat

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Giveaway - Gifts for You on My Birthday

Giveaway Gifts T his week is blog giveaway time! Last week I celebrated my birthday.  I’ve had far too many to count the candles, but I had a wonderful party on the weekend with my family - with an indulgent birthday cake, favourite foods cooked by my husband and great company. ( In case you were wondering about the writing on the cake , Por Por = Chinese grandmother)     I also got great gifts from  my family and friends. There seemed to be a bit of a theme this year – with many of my gifts and cards depicting matryshoka ( babushka) dolls and tea drinking.   As it is also winter here in Australia ,   it was easy for me to  decide what I could offer as gifts  in this birthday giveaway. All the gifts are handmade by me. Gift 1 - two little fabric matryshoka dolls  Gift 2- a little bag made from colourful teapot and teacup fabric . The design is called a jester bag, but it is suitable for carrying s...

Haberdashery - Vintage Find

When I heard the theme for Tag Tuesday this fortnight is "Haberdashery", I rummaged in my sewing drawer to look for "vintage" items of haberdashery which I knew I had in my stash. I was particularly happy and surprised to find a number of cards of press studs, buttons and hooks and eyes. These brought back such great memories of the haberdashery shops which I used to frequent years ago when we lived in small country towns. They seemed to stock whatever you needed. You can tell the age of some of these items in my "habbie" stash as Australia changed to decimal currency on 14 February 1966, and the button card quotes a price of 1/3d...  As I have been making little wearable pins for #the100dayproject, accompanied by a haiku, I thought that Day 30 had to be about haberdashery ... hence my tag within a tag for Tag Tuesday....  "Just a word recalls Sewing notions long since used:  Haberdashery"  This is a cloth /mixed media collage with...