Last month I participated in a service project with the women in my church. Our group is called the Relief Society. The service project was inspired by a book called The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.

The book actually made me really sad. It didn’t help that there was an issue of rumors flying around someone I care about. I read the book with that in the forefront of my mind and I really didn’t enjoy the book. It was a sad sad story that illustrated all too well how hard it is to be different. Unfortunately I didn’t feel like there was much resolution to the story.

Anyway, it’s not about the book. So the Relief Society activity was to sew and collect 100 dresses to donate to little girls in need. I went to the activity to help sew. I was put in charge of serging the fabric together forming a tube for the pillow case dresses. It was easy and really fun.

We finished out the night with most of the dresses nearly finished. They only needed one or two more steps to be complete. The incomplete dresses were distributed among the women. I took two dresses home.

It’s been a lot of fun not working on those dresses! Let’s see, how many sewing projects have I worked on instead of finishing the few steps left on these dresses? Nothing like good old fashioned procrastination. I finished them tonight. The activity tomorrow night is part 2 of this service project. Last count I heard there were about 80 dresses the women made. T-shirt dresses and pillow case dresses to be donated to Ecuador and somewhere else. I want to say somewhere in Africa.

I am also donating a dress of mine that I made that has never fit me right along with a bunch of dresses Gwen has grown out of. Those will be donated to local facilities for battered and abused women and children.

Today didn’t work out as I had originally planned this morning in a half dazed state of mind. Isn’t that usually the case? We plan more than there are hours in the day! I tried working on the dresses this afternoon and ran into a snag. I did my best to solve the problem but I was very concerned about whether or not I was finishing the steps correctly. I couldn’t get the arm holes to work right and I was afraid they were too small for the length of the dress.

I got on the phone calling all my sewing friends and family for advice. Nobody was home! Voice mail with every single phone call. In frustration I called Heath and poured out my woes to him. When I paused to take a breath he asked why I was telling him. He had no idea how to help me! “I know! But you’re the only one who will answer the phone!”

My mom called me back and we figured it out with the help of the Pinterest, Google, and YouTube.

My mom wanted to see a picture of the finished dresses. I don’t have the ribbon to add into the casing on the top but this is basically it. They look like long pillowcases with little arm holes!

This is what we’re going for. Pretty cute.

I’m just glad to be done with that item on my to-do list. Now it’s on to the next thing. My to-do list just grew today with an A1 top priority item. I’m a little bummed because I finished Wuthering Heights on Saturday and picked up the DVD from the library today. Now I feel guilty taking two hours out of my busy week to watch it. And I have to return it on Monday since movies are only one week rentals. Decisions decisions.