A Mother's Hope--One Year of Joyful Giving!

  As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others--audrey hepburn

'A Mother's Hope' is one year old!  We have given over 100 quilts to mothers who are attending the Mother/Baby program at Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services.   

This is comment that one of the mother's who received a quilt left on our blog.  I can only imagine that there are 100 other ladies who feel similar to this:
"I was in the hospital back then and I have one of the quilts. You are right about the surprise that came when we were told the quilts were not for our babies. As new moms, we were used to giving everything to our babies. I found it refreshing to keep something for myself. It was an important lesson in self-care. It also gave me permission, in a way, to take care of myself. I think not taking care of ourselves properly is what brought us there in the first place.
It is difficult to put into words what this blanket means to me. I am crying even as I type this. What slays me about my blanket is the hand stitching. The pieces are machine stitched, which takes a lot of time, but the front and the back and the batting are all stitched together by hand. This must have taken a very long time. I often think about the woman who made it and her loving hands doing the stitching. Did she do it in the evening after supper while watching t.v.? Or did she sit around a table and have tea with her seamstress friends at a weekly quilting bee? Did she bring it with her to appointments to work on it while waiting, making use of idle time? I imagine it was a combination of all three. The quilt must have taken a long time. To think that a stranger had enough love for me to cause her to invest all that time really just breaks my heart ( in a good way). Thank you. "

I could write 1000 posts about 'A Mother's Hope' and how much I appreciate our volunteers and the time, money and love they put into their quilts, but I think this comment means more.  I love the part where she is imagining who made it. If you want to get involved please e-mail Carin and she can send you the information you will need.
Here are pictures of the many WONDERFUL quilts that have been donated over the past 3 months!!
I think you will agree that each is unique and beautiful and will catch the eye of one of these moms!
Thank you to Sunny, Kathryn, Pam, Carol, Sherry, Brenda, Lea, Ellie, Jody, and Catherine for sharing HOPE in November and December.