Marathon day

Our chapel craft club are doing a crafting marathon today; we started at 10am this morning, and there will be people doing shifts in the chapel for 24 hours until 10am in the morning.  I have done three two-hour stints, and have come home for the night but there are some stalwarts just arriving for the long night shift, complete with blow-up beds, and all their paraphenalia for the night.  I will go back for the last shift in the morning from 8 - 10am, following which some of the folks are off to the local cafe for breakfast - they will be well deserving of it!

(image from operationchristmaschild.org.uk)

We are doing this to raise money through donations and sponsorship to fill and send our Operation Christmas Child boxes away in November.  We need £75 just for the sending-away money for 25 boxes and then we need some bits and bobs to put in them.  We have most of what we need in terms of hygiene items, and a hat for every child, but we will be buying a little game or toy/pack of snap cards etc for each box as well.  I did very well in Tesco yesterday buying jotters for 20p each and value toothpaste for 14p a tube, as well as sharpeners for 12p each.

I spent my shifts knitting a scarf to put in a child's box: it isn't finished yet, but I am quite pleased with it as it is a scaled down version of the one I knitted for myself and for my Dad last Christmas time.  I have also found a use for the left over IKEA fleece blankets which I bought the other year for curtain linings - one of the ladies and I are going to cut them up with pinking shears and make more children's scarves from them.  They only cost £1.60 each and we reckon we might get 5 or 6 scarves from each one - bargain!  They will also fold up small for the boxes too.

Haven't spent much time at home today at all, as you can guess, so full marks to the girls for doing their chores and helping out.  Each has also spent one shift at the chapel with me, so I was grateful for their company and support there too.  I wouldn't have been able to get out in the garden anyway today as we have had so much rain - it has really bucketed it down here today!