Sunday, November 1, 2009

Cross-stitchin' for Project Valour-IT

Okay, the rest of my items for the Valour-IT fundraiser auction are up on eBay...

One of my long-time hobbies is counted cross-stitch. I learned how to do it when I was about 13 years old. We'd just moved to El Paso, where my dad was the new First Sergeant in his unit. The commanding officer, a Captain, was also new there. My mom and the Captain's wife became friends. She was into various arts and crafts, one of them being counted cross-stitch. She was teaching my mom, and I decided I wanted to learn, too. I found a pattern I liked (a unicorn: what can I say, I was a 13-year-old girl in the 80s...), and she helped me get started. Said I had "sticktoitiveness" for completing the project I selected. It got framed and I still have it, though it currently is packed away in storage with most of my possessions. Over the years, I've gone through alternating periods of doing a lot of cross-stitch and long dry spells of doing none at all. I'm currently in one of those "doing a lot" periods.

More recently, I found a set of patterns I thought might prove to be a good thing for fundraising. I did the first project in honor of my grandfather, who served as a naval aviator in the Pacific during World War II:



Now, what you have to choose from are the five services:






The winner of each of these five auctions can request customization with name and rank, as well as details such as years of service, unit or theater/operation where the service member served. Also, the winner will receive the special dual 3.5" x 5" opening 8" x 10" mat.

Again, others have also generously donated items for auction, as well. There are signed prints from Marine combat artist Michael Fay among the auction items. The eBay listings are still being updated, so if you don't see something you like, keep checking back. If the auction items just aren't your thing, but you still want to contribute to providing laptops and other adaptive technology to our severely wounded Warriors, you can always click that donation button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

3 comments:

Cassandra said...

Great post, Miss Ladybug! I'll be linking it later on my auction post :)

I'm going to bid on the Marine one (and maybe the Navy one, too!)

Miss Ladybug said...

If you don't win, maybe we could work something out as a "made to order" kind of thing?

J.L. Smith said...

I'm donating a percentage of sales - through Veterans' Day - of my book "Reporting for Doodie: One Grandmother's Story of Commitment, Frustration and Unwavering Love" to Project Valour-IT which provides voice-activated equipment (such as laptops) to injured soldiers.

Please spread the word about this very worthwhile cause. The book can be ordered through my website at www.ReportingForDoodie.com; visitors can read the first chapter on the "Sneak Peek" tab.

Thanks for your support!