RE-POST FROM SEW BITTERSWEET DESIGNS

Melissa from Sew BitterSweet Designs has given me permission to re-post "Creating a Homemade Holiday" from her blog.  I believe that what she and Kristy from Hopeful Threads are doing this month of September is so important and I'm encouraging each of you to get involved.  After reading this article, please visit both Melissa and Kristy and get involved. I AM! Let's bring smiles to those who are dedicated to protecting each and every one of us!  Below is Melissa's post from her blog:

D-Day (D for Deployment)

As many of you know, my husband is in the US Army and he is currently deployed in Afghanistan.  Being a military family is not always easy. We are pulled in a million different directions and most of the time being pulled apart by outside forces.  It is never an easy path to walk down and we try to do our best every day to make it work.  One of the hardest things about deployment, aside from him missing every single day with our daughter…is being separated for all the special days. Birthdays, anniversaries, the first day of school (ok, we are not there yet, but I know this is hard from watching my other military friends), and the holidays.  These days always feel like they are somehow lacking when half of you is missing.

Since the day he left I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to not only make the holiday season special for Anne and I but how to make it special for my husband and the men and women he serves with. I have teamed up with Kristy from Hopeful Threads for the September 2012 “Remember Service Men and Women” project.  We wanted to not only send Holiday gifts to the soldiers, but something handmade and something useful. After much hemming and hawing we have come up with two different items that we think would be well used down range: Pillowcases and E-Reader Covers.  Every soldier has a pillow and many have e-readers or something similar.  There are lots of things I could talk about in this post, but today I wanted to talk as a military spouse, which I don’t often do…

It is easy to sometimes feel forgotten, especially at this stage in the “war”.  Our family members leave and our whole world changes.  It is easy to feel as though you have no community – it was how I felt before I joined this wonderful community online. The idea of being able to send the men and women in my husband’s battery a Handmade Holiday…well it just makes my heart sing. I know that they would feel loved and remembered and well taken care of. The taken care of part is, I think, what means the most. They are out there every day, laying it all on the line, taking care of us, and I can’t think of a better way to make them feel like someone else wants to take care of them too than taking the time to make a handmade gift.

For more details on the project please head over to Hopeful Threads. Kristy and I have a lot of fun planned for this month including tutorials from some pretty talented sewists and quilters, giveaways from some of your favorite shops and fabric designers, as well as a series of interviews with several army, air force and national guard spouses.  These spouses will tell you first hand what your contribution means to them.

So grab a button and get ready to sew!