What Next?

Many of you have asked or wondered, perhaps, where the Kitambaa Sewing and Quilting Project goes to next. I thought I'd take this opportunity to fill you in a little. What is very clear to us, is that our time with the Bitenge Designers in Uganda was a beginning, not a one-time event. There is huge potential for this project to grow, and we will be doing everything we can to facilitate this. We'd like to provide the women with ongoing training, to teach them new items to make, to add new members to the group when the time seems right, and to support Alice in her efforts at building a new school. To do this, we will be incorporating ongoing raising of funds along with other Kitambaa-related activities. Pictured here are the luggage tags we've been making. They sell for $6 each, with all of the proceeds going to the sewing project. We will continue to see our "African Stars", also for $6 each. Included with these is the pattern to make the small piece pictured here. So if, perhaps, any of you are members of a guild or group through which you could sell these, please let us know, and we would be happy to send them to you. Or if you would like to contribute to next year's sewing project (we plan to return in mid-January 2010), or to support of the secondary school students we are now sponsoring, or to the sewing machines we will require for new students, please get in touch with me, and I'd be happy to tell you how to go about that. And now I must run - Joan and I are on our way to the Nanaimo Quilters' Guild, where we will make our first presentation on the work that we were involved in, in Uganda, and also where we'll have the items made by the women for sale. Perhaps we'll see you there, or in Victoria, or Abbotsford, or Vancouver, or Vernon, where we'll be giving the same talk? And for those of you who are further afield, and are interested in the items for sale, I'll be sure to get them on this blog and on my website in the next few days.