Sew Powerful Sew-a-thon & Fundraiser Stats

September 30th was the end of this year's Sew-a-thon & Fundraiser. Here are the results.

The Results: 

The 2026 Sew-A-Thon campaign is completed and we're thrilled to share that as of September 30th at midnight we raised $267,921 and completed over 8,000 purses. Wow! That will allow us to serve 26,792 girls with the supplies they need to stay in school. 

The campaign was made possible by 18 amazing sponsors (be sure to shop from them and let them know you're grateful they supported the Sew Powerful Sew-A-Thon). They are some of the most prestigious brands in the sewing industry and we are so honored to have their support! Some offer coupons in the link above for their products to help you save some $ and they don't expire until 12/31/26.

We had 376 courageous participants who worked hard to raise money, 46 teams that rallied together, and over 1,600 donors who gave to this important cause. We are so grateful for the trust you've placed in our ministry - and the generosity you've shown.

On behalf of our team in Zambia, the women and girls we serve through this program, and all of us at Sew Powerful - Thank You!

Jason & Cinnamon Miles & Team

I want to thank you all who supported Sew Powerful through donating in my honor. I also want to let you all know that they announced the Top Ten Purse Makers for the Sew-a-thon and I came in at Number One!!! I made 252 purses during September. The others in the top ten made from 120-250 purses during September, so I just made top place by 2 purses, whew! This means that next year I will have a purse I make given to a girl and I will receive a photo of her holding the purse that I made. I also will receive another photo with a second girl and another purse I made because I raised $1,000 or more. Thanks to all of you who helped me get there. I will make a couple of special purses for this, so stay tuned to see the purses I make for the 2 girls and later to see them holding them.

All prizes were randomly drawn (except for the top 2 fundraisers who got to choose the prize they wanted). Not everyone received a prize. First, you had to have raised $100 to be eligible and there were only about 85 prizes. I did win something useful, a Kai brand rotary cutter with 3 extra cutting blades. It just arrived in the mail yesterday, so I will give it a test this morning. Thank you Kai Scissors for the prize! Use the sponsor link above and scroll down to coupons and Kai Scissors is offering 20% off their entire site and Free Shipping, using the code listed on the coupon! 

The rotary cutter comes with a clear plastic cover to cover the blade, which is nice. Kai rotary cutters do not have a place to move the blade out to cut, you cut by pressure of placing the blade on the fabric and  just cut. The blade will automatically return when you lift the cutter up. So these Kai rotary cutters are much safer to use as you cannot set it down and have a blade exposed. Safer around small children as well as older people 😁😂who might forget to close the blade. Kai does make excellent scissors too. I purchased a scissor, set, pinking shears and a paper cutting scissor years ago and love them. 

The back of the rotary cutter has a thingee (technical term don't you know 😄😉), that you can move right or left for more or less pressure. This might come in handy for cutting through thicker or thinner layers of fabric. I will test this out this morning and let you all know what I think. 

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Sew Powerful Purses #529-540 for 2026

Last 12 purses that I made from the September Sew-a-thon.

The flower on this flap was made by a friend who passed away over 12 years ago. This was a fabric postcard she made. I sewed it to the flap and added the orange trim to make it pop on the painted background that I stenciled. My friend, Gloria, would have loved the idea of sewing these purses for the girls in Zambia as she was a teacher for the deaf and loved being an educator. So Gloria, this is our collaboration together as I know you would have made purses for these girls too.

These 2 flaps were made from One Block Wonder quilt blocks. I have a whole bag full of flaps I made from the same fabric. Each one looks different and they are so fun to make! This was a great fabric to use, but I only had one yard, so it wouldn't make a large enough quilt, so I decided to use them for purse flaps instead. If I find another good fabric to use for this technique, I will make more like this as they will all look different.

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Sew Powerful Purses #519-528 for 2026

10 more purses made during the Sew-a-thon in September.

Seminole flap with decorative machine stitching and a scrappy pieced flap.

This is the back of the purse from above on the right. I added stars to cover up the pocket I had removed.

I also added stars on the front pocket to cover up the jean pocket I removed.

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Sew Powerful Purses #486-518 for 2026

33 purses! Lots of variety here. Several with coffee theme fabric & scrappy pieced flaps. Donating to Sew Powerful Purse Project.

Painted and stenciled background with an appliqué flower.

Scrappy pieced flaps.

Seminole pieced flap with added decorative machine stitches.

Coffee theme fabric and scraps here and lots farther down below too.

Log cabin blocks pieced together and below too.

These are the backs of the 2 purses below. Upcycled denim jeans, one with a pocket.

Star flap with star fabric and upcycled denim jean bodies.

The front pockets from the purses above.

Machine decorative stitches with yarn couching on the left flap and teacup appliqué on the right flap.

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Sew Powerful Purses #472-485 for 2026

Happy October 1st! The Sew-a-thon has ended and Sew Powerful not only made their goal, but they surpassed it!!! Yay!!! Thank you to all who supported me in this effort to raise money to help the girls in Zambia so they can stay in school. Sew Powerful's goal was to raise $250,000 and they raised $267,920, which means even more girls can stay in school, yippee!!!!!!! I too surpassed my fundraising goal as well as my purse making goal for September too! I raised $1,685 ($1,000 goal) and guess how many purses I completed in September??? My goal was to make 180 purses, but I kept sewing and I ended up making 252 purses in one month!!! That gives me a grand total of purses made so far this year of 541 purses and there are still 3 months left of this year. Well I can tell you I need a break from sewing them this month as I was worn out sewing them for a whole month!😂I even ran out of notecards to include in the last several I finished, so will be working on notecards this month.

On last Monday I sent in 2 large boxes full of purses. One box had 142 purses inside and the other had 143 purses inside, for 285 total purses. I probably won't send in any more purses this year as I don't think I could finish enough by the end of the year. 

Here are just a few of the last purses made during the Sew-a-thon from September. I have more to share in the next few days.

This is the other Intermediate purse with the other flap (Option B). I thought I had shared this one already. I shared the other Intermediate flap in my last post so you can see the differences in the flaps.

2 pineapple quilt block flaps.

These 2 were quilt blocks I made from a Jacquelynne Steves BOM from years ago. The blocks were too large for the flaps, so I cut them to fit the flap size, hence the other fabrics surrounding the appliqué had already been sewn on.

Patchwork squares on the diagonal.

I made this pieced reacup and saucer block years ago. I added a doiley.

Appliqué flower on the left purse is a textured vinyl, the appliqué on the right is from a tie dye tee shirt.

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