The Common Thread Circle

Many thanks to Lenore, Marilyn and Charles for enabling us to meet on August 31. We have lots of fabricworks ready to donate in the upcoming week. Our recent donations have gone to M.D. Anderson, Shriners, Children’s Memorial Hermann, Ben Taub, Texas Children’s, Methodist and Memorial Hermann Hospitals. Good work team!

September will be a busy month. Here are our upcoming meetings:

• Every Monday
  2:00 – 4:00 PM at Starbucks at Memorial City, 12850 Memorial Dr #440 [ map ]
  September 14, 21, and 28
  Bring friends and family to help stuff pillows!
• September 15

  9:30 AM – 12:00 PM at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Room D220 [ map ]

• September 23 [ map ]

  9:30 AM – 12:00 PM at Spring Branch Presbyterian Church

I look forward to seeing all of you. Even though I was enjoying a most excellent visit with a grandchild between bites of fab chocolate, I still missed you and our shared mission to help out in Houston hospitals.

This week we have donated handcrafted fabricworks to Methodist, Spring Branch, St. Luke’s, Triumph Memorial Hermann and the Michael DeBakey V.A. Hospitals. All of the hospital contacts to whom I have spoken have congratulated us on our picture and article in the Texas Medical Center Newsletter. All are excited about our expanding coverage of their hospitals. Bravo to each and every one of you for your efforts. We are making a difference in patients’ lives.

We received this note from Jimmie Jones:

I was in the Blood Center of M.D.Anderson last week and saw pillows donated by Memorial Drive Church’s own Common Thread organization. Those patients were receiving Plasmapheresis, Stem Cell donation, Red Cell donation, Bone Marrow, Sickle Cell and many other procedures and tests. As one person said, ‘Someone made this pillow to love me, so I feel God loves me;’ The patients are comforted by the warm love of the pillows. These pillows can be taken home and used when they drive or when they sleep. The patients in the Blood Center feel ‘loved’.

Upcoming Meeting Dates – NOTA BENE

August 10,17, 24 & 31: Starbucks Town and Country 2-4pm, No Meeting Sept 7 Labor Day

August 12: Knitters/Crocheters and Machine Sewers of flannel baby blankets. Come to my home to pick up supplies. I have lots of yarn and flannel I would love to give you to complete your projects. Stay awhile to knit/crochet, chat about patterns and have some iced tea and dessert. No meeting in September.

August 18: Meeting at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Room D220 at 9:30 a.m.

August 26: Meeting at Spring Branch Presbyterian Church, Activity Room, at 9:30 a.m.

Join us at any or all of the above. You will be very welcome.

Please check out the archive for August, 2009 to see some new pictures of our fabricworks.

Here’s our news for the first half of August:

We are now donating a handcraft to a patient every hour, instead of once every two hours as we were a few months ago. This is a giant leap forward for us.

Our accounting year starts on May 22. For the first two months of this year, we donated 1915 items to area hospitals. Partially because of this success, we have been able to add the VA hospital to our list of local hospitals we service.

Your hard work has made all of this happen. Keep up the good work!

This coming week will be a busy one for our group: Lots of meetings, lots of opportunities to make fabricworks for patients in Houston area hospitals. As Charles Peirsol, Manager of the Town and Country Starbucks says: “It’s all about the patients.”

Please join us at one or all of the following meetings. I can guarantee you will be well fed, surrounded by wonderful people, and feel good about what you do.

Monday, July 20: Meet at Starbucks from 2-4 p.m.

Tuesday, July 21: Meet at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church at 9:30 a.m. in Room 220.

Wednesday, July 22: Meet at Spring Branch Presbyterian Church, 1215 Campbell Rd., at 9:30 a.m.

In the last two weeks, we have donated handcrafted fabricworks to Methodist, Spring Branch, TIRR, M.D.Anderson, Ben Taub , Memorial Hermann and St. Luke’s Hospitals. They look forward to our contributions to patient health and write us appreciative notes. Look for some of their comments on this website.

The first month of our new year was a busy one in which the Circle has really grown.

We were on two local TV newscasts and you all looked wonderful.

We donated 1026 handcrafted fabricworks to: Ben Taub, Memorial Hermann, Children’s Memorial Hermann, M.D.Anderson, St. Luke’s, Triumph Memorial Hermann Hospitals, The Concierge Nursing Home, Memorial Drive United Methodist Church and our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We added three new hospitals. Memorial Hermann Southwest, TIRR and Spring Branch Medical Center.

Our website is receiving between 125-150 visits a day. Be sure to visit and post your comments at www.thecommonthreadcircle.org.

We need some of you to volunteer to cut out material and others of you to sew it at home. The designs would include bears and baby blankets.

We continue to meet on Mondays at Town and Country Starbucks and are very thankful to Charles Peirsol for his hospitality.

We will meet at my home on July 8 to knit and crochet, share patterns and ideas.

We will meet at MDUMC in Room D220 at 9:30a.m. on July 21.

Thank you for helping make our group such a success.

Thanks also to Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, its head minister Dr. Chuck Simmons, and minister Dr. Suzanne Cox Reedstrom for their help and support.

We have worked very hard during the past two weeks and my blue room is filled with our handcrafted fabricworks. They will be donated in the next few days.

This Wednesday, June 10 at 1:30 Knitters and Crocheters and those who want to be will be meeting at my home. Come meet the magnificent Simon and lovely Miss C, learn a new pattern, make some new friends and, yes, take in a few calories. Call me for directions.

Monday June 15 from 2-4 at OUR Starbucks. Come for our usual organized chaos and also meet Leticia Juarez from Channel 39. She wants to see how we work and then follow our fabricworks as they are given to hospital patients. Wait til she sees what a great and caring group we are!

Tuesday, June 16 at 9:30a.m. meet in Room D220 at MDUMC for more stuffing, sewing and fellowship. Please note the earlier hour. I promise to have some great Starbucks coffee waiting for you.

If you missed the Fox news program, go to our nifty report on it.

We continue to meet every Monday at Starbucks Town and Country from 2-4 p.m. Join us when you are free. We always welcome your help.

June 10 1:30 p.m. at Rima’s home: Calling all knitters and crocheters! Bring your needles and yarn and learn to knit quick and lovely baby blankets, lap throws and scarves for cancer patients. Come see the 95 beautifully stitched hats of all sizes created by patrons of Twisted Yarns, my favorite knitting shop. Mance will be here to share her patterns and inspire you to enjoy your knitting/crocheting. RSVP by email or phone.

June 16 9:30 a.m. in Room D220 at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church: Join this meeting to learn about our latest projects and to stuff pillows.

June 18 from 5-8:30 p.m.: Charity Knitting Night at Twisted Yarns in Old Town Spring. Encore yarn from Plymouth Yarn Company has donated Encore yarn for bears, and Cascade has donated Cascade 220 for hats, available to all the participants.

And last but not least, our donations this week went to Triumph Hospital at Town and Country, and Ben Taub and Memorial Hermann Hospitals.

Exciting news! Harris County Hospital District, which oversees Ben Taub Hospital, arranged for a TV Channel News team to videotape our group for their evening newscast! Please come to Starbucks as usual on Monday and for the next few Mondays to show off our stuff! Evening gowns are unnecessary, but come as you want your adoring public to see you. This is a chance for our whole team to demonstrate what we do for Houston’s leading hospitals.

My very favorite yarn shop is going to help us knit bears for our hospitals. What fine support they are giving us, and how very wonderful of Plymouth Yarn Company to donate wool for the event. I will be going and would love company. Check out Twisted Yarns at www.twistedyarnstexas.com.

And here is an excerpt from the Twisted Yarns newsletter:

Special Events: We are excited to announce that Thursday, June 18, we will have a sit-n-knit with the special theme of charity knitting. We’ll be knitting/crocheting bears for kids, and stocking caps for the troops. The finished bears will go to children in local hospitals ~ Memorial Hermann, Children’s Memorial Hermann, Ben Taub, MD Anderson and Texas Children’s. If you would like to participate, you may use some Encore which has been generously donated by Plymouth Yarn Company for the bears, or Cascade 220 Superwash for the stocking caps, also generously given by Cascade. You may use your own yarn as long as it is washable. There is more information about these projects on our blog. We will also have Warren Hanson, author of Kiki’s Hats, here to read from the book, and discuss the inspiration for his book. He’ll also be happy to sign books for you! Join us on Thursday, June 18th from 5 to 8:30. We’ll have refreshments and door prizes of course! See you then!

This an exciting time for Common Thread Circle. I am glad all of you are a part of it.

We had two meetings this week with 35 ladies attending. Thanks to the generous hospitality of the Town and Country Starbucks and manager, Charles Peirsol, our Magnificent Monday group had a great time.

On Tuesday, we met at MDUMC and said farewell to Verlyn Bounds and Mary Brannies as leaders this year. They will be hard to replace, but Christel Dekker, Susan Dunten, Joan Scheuer and Rima Blanc have agreed to co-lead next year. They have already met and have some great ideas for our group . Stay tuned to learn more.

Our donations this week were also magnificent. We donated Breast Cancer Hearts to Methodist and St Lukes. We also donated hearts, isolette covers, blankets, hats, bears and therapy dolls to Methodist, Memorial Hermann, Childrens’ Memorial Hermann, M.D.Anderson. Our total donations so far this year is 5010 handmade items.

We look forward to seeing you at Starbucks on Monday, April 27.

Join us for Volunteer appreciation day at Methodist Hospital on Tuesday, April 28. We will leave the church east side parking lot at 10:30am.

Finally, a huge and ongoing thank you to all of you sewing and cutting at home. We would not be able to give one of our handmade items EVERY TWO HOURS to patients in Houston hospitals without your dedication and commitment.

And an email we received:

You were kind enough to give me your card yesterday when my young daughter and I were in Starbucks. I just wanted to say that I think The Common Thread Circle is a great thing. Keep up the good work!
- Leonard

DONATIONS

This week we donated hand stitched items to these hospitals: Methodist, Memorial City, M.D. Anderson, Ben Taub, Children’s Memorial Hermann and Memorial Hermann. We have been busy!

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 20 Meeting at Starbucks Town and Country 2-4 p.m; bring sewing supplies

April 21 Meeting at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Room D220, 9:30 a.m.; bring sewing supplies

April 27 Meeting at Starbucks

April 28 National Volunteer Day Celebration at Methodist Hospital, Dunn Lobby and Crain Garden,11 a.m.

Please note that our new year begins on May 19, and that we will be meeting all summer. Last summer several teachers joined and charmed us with their experiences and their loving concern. Invite anyone you know who might want to be a part of our growing and caring group.

TESTIMONIALS

Last Monday as we had our usual fun at Starbucks. Two ladies separately stopped by to tell us how much their pillows meant to them as they faced breast cancer and radiation and chemo.

Also, we received this wonderful email from Charles’ Dad, Bob Peirsol:

Just a short note to let you and the ladies know how much I have enjoyed my pillow that Charles brought to me, it has become very useful with the type of surgery I had. Ann and I really enjoyed being with the group and stuffing pillows a couple weeks back; it was a joy just being around all of the ladies. Keep up the good work and please pass this on to all.

Again thanks for being so thoughtful

Hope to do it again sometime soon (stuff pillows that is)

What a wonderful outreach we are achieving together!