A Reason to Shop!

Peace is not made at the Council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men. (And women.)

-- Herbert Hoover

(with a little bit of help from me!)

I'm sorry for the short notice, but I just found out about a wonderful opportunity to reach across the ocean and help a sister seamstress, while making your own grassroots contribution to world peace. An Army soldier stationed in Iraq - son of a quilter, husband of a quilter, and father to a future quilter - noticed how difficult it is for Iraqi women to get sewing supplies. So he conceived of a project to help put sewing supplies into their hands.

It is called "Iraqi Bundles of Love" (or IBOL) and he calls himself IBOL Guy. You can read all about his project on his blog, here. Basically, he is asking for volunteers to send him packages of (neatly bundled up) sewing supplies - raid your stash, hit the fabric stores, whatever - and he will oversee their distribution in Iraq. (Use the special USPS flat rate boxes for members of the military overseas - the postage is fixed, regardless of weight.)

He won't be handing each box out personally - he will put batches in the hands of other U.S. military units, Iraqi Security Forces, local police, etc. If you are interested in participating, leave a comment on his blog and he'll email you the address.

The catch - boxes must be in the mail by NEXT TUESDAY (September 8th). I know, I know... Like I said, I'm sorry for the short notice - I just found out about it myself.

The email that I got from IBOL Guy said that the Iraqis love green, but don't go in for cutesy cartoon character prints. So, I picked these 2 homespun plaids (thinking that they would make nice shirts for men or boys):

And this "Indian Summer" polyester (thinking of a woman's skirt, maybe?):


Sammy, sweet and considerate as usual, was eager to help me pack the box:



I topped off my bundle with a zipper, some buttons and two spools of thread, all in the same color scheme:





Here it is - all ready to ship!


If you get a chance, take advantage of the Labor Day sales and make up your own Iraqi Bundle of Love! It'll never be easier to do something personal (rather than just sending money - not that that's a bad thing) to help another seamstress. Besides, what a great excuse to go shopping! ;)