AMERICAN SEWING GUILD MAKES ANOTHER HOME RUN!  

Every year the members of American Sewing Guild (ASG) make community projects or I like to call them sewing acts of kindness.  My favorite is the T.A.G. Bag (Teach Another Generation) which is a great project we use to teach sewing to younger sewing enthusiasts at a nearby camp. (SEE article below)  For more information on American Sewing Guild you can go to www.asg.org.

Each bag is made by a member and then the club fill will the bags with sewing notions (ruler, tape measure, ripper, thread, needles and pins, etc.).  These notions are paid for by us and donations to our organization.

The campers have to earn the bag by completing different sewing projects.

Some members will make just a few and others will make as many as they can over the year.  Much of the fabric and ribbon is donated some is provided by our sewers from their "stash".  Many of our sewers have embroidery machines and add designs and our logo.

ASG logo tags can be sewn on by hand or with the sewing machine.

Check out the article from the Ponderosa Pines &Needles newsletter.

Friendly Pines Camp Tour

Yvonne Hooker invited us to tour and lunch at the Friendly Pines camp on July 19th. The camp has been in existence for 77 years. Yvonne has worked there each summer for the past 48 years and met her husband there. She told us that 426 campers took the sewing classes this year! 

Seven of us headed up the Senator Highway, on that morning, to attend the tour. We brought our umbrellas with us as it is monsoon season and it did rain on us just as we went to get our lunch. However, the rain did not damper our tour. Two of the counselor trainees took us on a tour of the camp. We saw the various areas that they have activities such as archery, horseback riding, camping and of course sewing. The camp houses all the children in small buildings, based on age, can accommodate 4 to 8 individuals. Each building has a live-in counselor that stays with them overnight. The children range in age from 5 to 14 and stay from a week or more for visits. They have a huge “mess hall” that they eat in or they can eat outdoors under cover. We didn’t get to see the lake that they have where the campers can swim or water ski but it sounded like a fun place. I have to say personally I was impressed on how the camp keeps over 200 children occupied and organized. And I never saw a cell phone either! 

After our tour, we stopped by the sewing building to help out with the young sewers. Yvonne Hooker, Carol Presnall and Marcy Olson were on staff but we jumped right in helping the kids cut out items and sew them. Joyce Moore was also on staff earlier in the season but was not there when we visited. Joyce brings her grandkids to the camp while she works in the sewing building. Way to go Joyce, kill two birds with one stone! 

We all grabbed our “cowboy lunch” and headed back to the sewing building to eat. During lunch, Yvonne showed us many of their completed projects. All of them were super cute. The owner of the camp came to visit us while we were eating. She was very appreciative of our efforts with the TAG bags we make for the sewers.

Watch for more articles about American Sewing Guild asg.org