tote bags for breast cancer February 26, 2014 – Posted in: Family, Giveaways, Sewing

I’ve been collaborating with some amazing blogging ladies on the Facebook page The Daily Sew. One day last week a reader informed us of a unique service project for a wonderful cause and it immediately piqued my interest.

I bookmarked the link to the post about the project. Please read about it HERE.

I didn’t read the post until yesterday in the car pool line waiting to pick Sofia up and as I read, tears rolled down my face. The post is written by a woman named MJ, who discovered 9 years ago, as a very young woman and Mother, that she had breast cancer. I was immediately moved by her drive to give back to the women who follow in her heartbreaking footsteps. It takes a lot to fight cancer, and a lot more to turn it into a chance to make a difference.

I’ve always felt very passionately about breast cancer and its research, awareness, and fundraising. Breast cancer hasn’t been something that’s affected people in my life, but for years and years it’s touched my heart. There are a LOT of women in my life–my Mom, 2 Grandmothers, my sister, sister in law, cousin, 3 nieces and 3 daughters, and countless more that come in the form of friends, peers and neighbors. My Uncle’s Mother has been battling it for the past year and a half and she’s just so amazing to me.

I love a good service project. I’ve sewn dresses for girls in Africa. I make pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer and donate them locally. And I LOVE the idea of this project. There are so many stories now about the never ending Mommy wars and this is such a beautiful way to gather together as girlfriends, and spend some time lifting each other up, restoring our of community of giving, loving, charitable women.

MJ is asking for bags to be mailed to her by Mother’s Day. That’s 10 weeks from now, including mail time, and I’m going to challenge myself to make 2 bags a week. 20 bags that will forever touch the lives and hearts of the women who receive them. What a wonderful way to serve others. I’ll be using the tutorial she links to from Skip to my Lou since it’s what she recommends. These bags sew up super fast and are a great way to use up some of those scraps we’ve all got laying around waiting for a wonderful cause.

You can either mail yours to MJ at the address listed in her post, or donate yours locally if you know of a place that would like to have them. As a thank you to all my readers who choose to sew and donate, for every 5 bags you make, I’ll give you one of my patterns. Just send me pictures of your bags and which pattern(s) you’d like to have and I’ll get them to you.

I’m all in. Will you join me?