Getting Ready for India

---

Well, starting to get excited. We're down to the last few things getting ready to fly away to India. We are going primarily to visit friends and specifically Dr. Ila ben Pathak, founder and director of AWAG (Ahmedabad Women's Action Group). Ila has been helping poor Muslim and Hindu women for nearly 40 years on issues ranging from spousal abuse, to health issues, to developing job skills and more. Ila is a very wise and kind woman who just oozes strength, kindness, and compassion.

Ila has asked us to share our quilting skills with about ten women currently in the AWAG shelter in hopes that they might develop home-based handicraft skills to possibly earn some income. We have made up 10 little kits, one for each woman. Each kit has some sewing supplies (scissors, lanyard & reel, pins, needles, pin cushion, seam ripper, tape measure, etc.) plus several personal items like shampoo, hand cream, toothpaste & brush.

Today I spent all day making up twelve 14" log cabin quilt squares so that we can demonstrate how versatile this pattern is for making quilts. Yesterday I made up sixteen nine-patch squares. We also are taking batting, cutting mats, rotary cutters, quilting books and other stuff for the class. I think we're ready to teach them some new skills and have fun in the process.

---

Photos

Sewing Kits
We've made up one kit like this for each of the ten women.

Log Cabin Squares
I made up twelve of these 14" blocks today.

Books and Fabric
We're taking several quilting books, some fabric and batting, 9-patch quilt squares, and batting

Photo 5
We've got three sets of mats, rotary cutters and larger fabric scissors too.