Hope Takes Flight (and a giveaway)

(alternative title: Quilting Insanity)

This is a long post, but it's a good story, so I do hope you'll read it. It's not about me -- it's about a quilt and a young girl.

As a quilter in the {Faith} circle of very popular do.Good Stitches bee, I have the opportunity, 2-3 times a year, to ask for blocks from my bee mates, and make the quilt I have designed. So back in August, I asked the associate pastor at our church if he knew of any needs within the church. He said "No, but Restore Innocence is doing a blanket drive for Christmas. Maybe you could make one for them?"  I'd heard of Restore Innocence, but didn't know much, so I went to their website. And commenced to having my heart broken, over and over again.

I want to just paste every word from their website here so you'll really see for yourselves!! I won't do that, but I will post a few tidbits:

There's this one:

“In the United States, children are subjected to human trafficking in many different sectors. Examples include prostitution on the streets or in a private residence, club, hotel, spa, or massage parlor; online commercial sexual exploitation; exotic dancing/stripping; agricultural, factory, or meatpacking work; construction; domestic labor in a home; restaurant/bar work; illegal drug trade; door-to-door sales, street peddling, or begging; or hair, nail, and beauty salons. Family members, acquaintances, pimps, employers, smugglers, and strangers traffic children
.”  -U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  {emphasis by Melissa}

 Or this:

An estimated 2.5 million children worldwide, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry – UNICEF

 Or this:

Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri William

It. Is. Disgusting.

I honestly can't believe this is happening right under our noses. I mean, we think sex trafficking, and sex slavery happens in places like Thailand. Or Amsterdam. Not here in America! But, it is. And actually, I can believe it. There are some seriously sick people out there. And those are just the ones using the girls...the ones doing the abusing? I hope there's a special hot place in Hell for them.

I copied this from someone on Instagram, but the details were provided by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center 2011.

(I'm gonna let those figures sink in for a sec)

These poor, poor, innocent little girls and young women.

So back to Restore Innocence. They are based in Colorado Springs because human trafficking happens here, but they work with Police and FBI Victims Assistance teams all around the US. So when there is a sting, and a young girl is rescued from the sex trade (read: slavery), they often have very little more than the clothes on their backs. And their clothes are often confiscated as evidence against the sicko pimp. Restore Innocence send Restoration Bags to the VA teams, who are then equipped to offer something to these girls. Something of their own.

Often, the girls that are taken into human trafficking didn't have much of a home to run away from, so it's not like they've got anywhere to go back to...and I highly doubt it would be a supportive and encouraging environment committed to helping the girl heal, physically and emotionally! (Can you imagine?)

So Restore Innocence has been working towards opening The Cinderella House - a place where rescued girls can come and live for a while, and get them the counseling and the assistance they need until they are able to move into a stable environment...whatever that may be. They have the house, and are in the final stages of opening it. :)

Anywho...

Back to do.Good Stitches. :)

When it was my turn, I decided to have the bee make butterfly blocks like we did last March, using Mrs Schmenkman's tutorial.  I asked for 8 blocks, one of each "rainbow" color, with white background and a black "body". My plan was to make one quilt, with all the butterflies pieced together. Like this:

To me, the butterflies represent being made into a new creation, a second chance, a chance these girls need. The rainbow represents God's covenant with Man after The Flood that He will never leave us. The black body represents the the black ribbon that Restore Innocence uses as their logo. The binding is black satin ribbon, for that same reason. They use the black ribbon because a ribbon represents innocence and youth, something these girls have been robbed of. And the color of the ribbon, black, represents what a dark, dark world human trafficking is.  All along, my plan was to quilt with swirls, to symbolize wind currents of the butterflies taking flight.

So when the blocks started coming in, and I threw them up on my design wall, a new plan emerged. Not only did I have a new, fun, modern design, I also would have enough butterflies for 2 quilts!  Because, really, why make one when you can make 2? (Or 5?) Right? :)

Even though I've rearranged some blocks, this design stuck. All the way to the bitter, bitter end.

While I can now say that I am finished, I can not say that this has been easy. This quilt has been fraught with challenges. Oy.

For those of you who follow me on Instagram and Facebook, thank you for walking this journey with me. I am sooooooo glad I had that support when things were difficult, and the next difficult thing happened, and the next difficult thing happened, and the next difficult thing happened. Hah!

The piecing went along fine. (the craft room is still a wreck, so I moved Sewing Ops to the dining room...and the entry to the living room became my design wall...) :)

t was once I started quilting that things got ugly. I always spray baste, but I used Dritz spray baste for the first time, and I'm pretty sure it will be the last. I know some people LOVE Dritz, and that's all they use, and maybe I got a bad can, but it literally took me 2 weeks to quilt this simple quilt.

I immediately had problems with the thread shredding. I changed thread. 3 (expensive) brands. I changed needles. 3 brands. I changed the bobbin 4 times. I moved my sewing machine. I flipped the quilt around.

 

I don't know if you can see it up there, but somehow, the thread shredded and half of it came out of the eye of the needle. Only half...the other half was still threaded and still making stitches. Very weak stitches.

And then I thought I had it all sorted, but MAN was I tired (this was Day 2 of what became a never-ending saga!)

 

Then, on Day 3 (and by "day" I really mean "night), not only was the thread shredding, but it started skipping stitches, too!! Grrrr!  So I took it into the shop. They tried EVERYthing. And they couldn't get it to happen again on anything other than my quilt.  So I determined to simply sew till it shredded or skipped, stop, and start over again. There wasn't anything else I could do!

 

LOOK at that shredding! Ugh.

 

And then my needle bent and broke. I've broken needles before, but never bent it like that! It's like I was trying to sew through Teflon, or something!

But eventually I finished the free-motion quilted swirls in the middle, and it was time to quilt the white. I had originally planned to swirl the whole thing, but since it took me a full week to quilt 1/3 of the quilt, I figured I needed to put away the free motion foot, and just get it finished!!

Wow. Straight-line quilting is deceptively time-consuming! And very physically challenging!  So, that took me another 3 nights.  And when I was finally done with the quilting...

 

I had over 100 thread tails to bury. Yes, I know there are easier ways to stop and start than to pull out the threads and tie a knot, but because of the skipping and shredding, I had to be able to rip out the stitches, and you can't do that if you stitch a bunch in one place before you start quilting.

That took me another tiring evening. But the hard part was DONE!! Now to bind it with the black satin blanket binding, and call it DONE! :)

This is a close-up of the quilting.

 And here is the finished quilt!! Hallelujah!!  I named it Hope Takes Flight.

This is, of course, my sweet little Rocket Man, photobombing the picture in his slow, I'm-gonna-roll-till-I-get-there way. :)

Honestly. Two WEEKS!!! To quilt this thing!! Working on it for 3-4 hours a day/night!  Thankfully, I have very tame children and I could sew some during the day, too, but most of it was done at night.

I had more than a few people ask why I kept at it. Why I didn't just put it aside, buy some fleece and tie a quilt for Restore Innocence's blanket drive.  But I couldn't.

I couldn't give up on a quilt that we were making specifically for a young, precious, girl whose innocence has been stolen from her. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will bring her warmth. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will comfort her. I couldn't give up on a quilt that we have prayed over. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will remind her that God has not forgotten her. A quilt that will remind her that she has been rescued and has been given a second chance. A quilt that will scream to her heart that God loves her. A quilt that will whisper in her ear that God is with her. A quilt that will sing in her soul that she matters.

I couldn't give up making a quilt for someone who everyone else has given up on.

And now...for those of you who waded through all of that... :)  I'm linking up with Sew, Mama, Sew for their biannual Giveaway Day, and one lucky person will win a charm pack of Mama Said Sew from Sweetwater, a lovely Colorado family,

AND one generously donated membership to Amy Gibson's Sugar Block Club! Another Colorado beauty. 

Heck, I might even throw in some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory scrumptiousness.

I'm sticking with the natives over here! :)

The giveaway is now closed. I will announce the winner on the blog on Sunday (or sooner) December 9th. Thanks to everyone for the comments! :)

So about the giveaway...Please leave me one comment telling me what kinds of things you like to sew. And if you don't sew, tell me what your favorite creative outlet is. I will close the contest on Friday, December 7th at 5pm PST, and will do a random drawing. Then I will email the winner and announce it on my blog on Sunday the 9th. (By the way, I'm definitely willing to send internationally!)

If you want to win, you better be sure your blogger profile is not a "no-reply blogger"!! I can't find you otherwise. :) 

Good luck...and please visit Restore Innocence's page...I think our eyes need to be opened to this. Seriously -- thank you for reading this. Seriously. :)