Kissing Pillows

One down...at least a few more to go...

Since I monitor outreach for the Great Lakes Region, I've been hearing about Kissing Pillows lately from other chapters. The concept began with the Yellow Rose EGA chapter in Texas and spread. My EGA chapter, Needle Artisans of Northwest Indiana (NANI), was asked to participate by a member who learned about the project through Chicago ANG (American Needlepoint Guild). The text at the bottom is from the Yellow Rose Chapter outreach page.

The offshoot project NANI is participating in plans to provide 1100 pillows for the Navy helicopter squadron of the brother of a local Chicago ANG member. The squadron will be deploying in early 2011. They use 14 count aida, three colors of floss, and about two-hours of stitching time. If you would like to participate in this project, e-mail me.

Soldier Family Pillows

In 2005, wanting to show our appreciation for the sacrifices made by military personnel, Yellow Rose members began hand-stitching small 4” X 4” patriotic pillows designed to be used as a keepsake for the children and loved ones left behind by the soldiers departing for service of the U.S. ... Each pillow is presented in a plastic bag with a note explaining the purpose of the tiny pillow and expressing our gratitude for their service. The soldier kisses the pillow and gives one to each of his/her loved ones to hold onto until he/she returns from war. When we began this project, we initially thought only about the children, but the wives and sweethearts requested them too, and then, the soldiers wanted one with everyone’s kisses on it to take with him/her off to war.

The response has been overwhelming. A very special project that we hoped would express our gratitude for the sacrifices of our servicemen and women has more than filled our expectations and has mushroomed into something that touches the hearts of everyone.

In the fall of 2006, Yellow Rose began offering the project to all Embroiderers’ Guild of America chapters. In November 2006, the project was offered to chapters of the American Needlepoint Guild. The goal was to have needlework chapters stitching for military units across the United States. ... For more information or to participate, please contact Yellow Rose.

Outreach

We have a lot of outreach projects going on in both of my embroidery groups. I'm involved with most of them.So it made sense that I accept the post of Outreach chairperson for the Great Lakes Region of EGA. If you belong to a GLR chapter and are doing something for outreach, please let me know! That's my new task--to gather up and record these activities.

The small designs shown here are needlebooks for a "learn to stitch" project I'm leading at our show on October 2 and 3. (details to come). The cross stitch design is from Matrioshka Biscornu. I made up the backstitch acorn. I plan for the kits to come ready to go with a threaded needle and enough thread to complete the project.

This photo is of the piles of cutting I did this weekend. Covers and pages for many needlebooks plus cuts of fabric for other outreach projects.The gold and brown are wool felt needlebook covers. All of the white squares on the lower right are wool felt needlebook pages. Above on the left are Hardanger fabric cut into 3" squares for stitched designs we provide to the Hospice of the Calumet Region Crafters. On the upper right are Hardanger fabric needlebook covers and 6" squares for holiday ornaments for Hospice to sell.

Sometimes things come together perfectly! We have all of these projects going on and a member donated a whole roll of ivory Hardanger fabric to the chapter. (Thank you Karen!)It's very long (doesn't quite fit into my trunk) with loads of yards. This is what I've been using for planning piles of projects for the chapter. I sure hope people volunteer. We also plan to use it for samplers for teaching needlework at the YMCA next fall and for more bookmarks for the Hammond Reads literacy program. What a boon for our chapter!

Bookmarks!

EGA is having an outreach project to make bookmarks for Children's Book Week. I'm leading it for our chapter. The book week bit hasn't worked out--I tried calling two local libraries a couple of times each with no response.

I did connect with Hammond Reads through a friend and we're going to make book marks for their literacy program. These are what I've made so far. The tails of the mice are the bookmarks, as are the tulip stems. I found some stiffened felt bookmarks at Michael's--18 in a bag. They are a little thick to use doubled or backed so I am working on creating reversible designs. The photo above shows one side of the pink bookmark and the photo below shows the other side. I think they need some work, all of them. I'd like to make the mice and flowers a bit smaller and also come up with similar designs. The long tails on the balloons on the pink bookmark could be problematic--snagging little fingers--I may glue them down. I also need to work on my stitching. It's a good start.

This is going to be an ongoing project so I'm going to be collecting and making bookmarks for the foreseeable future.