Men's Great Banquet #7 starts! :)

So the Great Banquets have started! Mike and I have been anxiously awaiting these weekends, as Dad, Sue, and Sue's mom will be going through the weekends with us. Mike and Dad went to send off tonight, of which they started thier walk to an awesome weekend. :) I really cannot wait to see how each of our guests (Mike and I sponsored the three) come home. I sincerely hope they shall come home on fire and having done some immense soul searching.


I know I've talked about these bags a lot, guess I should show what they are:

Above you will see a closer shot of the design of the bags and the second picture is the bags we'd done for the women's weekend last fall. this round, we have found rainbow colored webbing for the handles. :)

The story behind these bags is an interesting one. I went through my banquet, and while I had my FM system, my large print booklet, and any agape gifts I received at the time, after mid day on Friday, I was flustered and finally asked the Agape team for a bag of some sort to be able to carry all my gear back and forth from upstairs to downstairs and vice versa, of which I wound up with a Walmart bag. So upon coming home from the Banquet, Mike and I were trying to decide on what to do for agape for future banquets. I knew I wanted to do bags and Mike had the idea of putting the roosters on them, so the idea was born to create these bags to give to the guests of the banquets.

These bags are approximately 11 inches tall and 8 inches wide, after hemmings. We bought the quilters cotton fabric by the bolt, cut it to the height needed and hem the top edges of the bags. The fabric is then cut vertically, creating the individual bags. The design is then embroidered onto each bag. This is the longest part of making the bags. It takes about 40 minutes to embroider each bag. Then after the bag is embroidered, I then sew on the handles, which is two 12 inch long pieces of nylon webbing, that we have bought by the roll and cut and melted the ends to prevent fraying. I then sew on these handles and turn the bags inside out, sewing a zig-zag stitch down the edges of the bags. Then I go back over these edges just inside the zig-zag stitch with a straight stitch for a clean seam when the bag is turned right side out. So realistically, you could probably say it takes an hour and a half to 2 hrs to complete each bag from start to finish. Then multiply that by 150-180 bags... as each guest and each team member for the Banquet receives one.

Tonight, we sent 69 bags for the mens weekend, as it was not a full weekend. The womens weekend though IS full and we'll be doing the full 80 bags for that weekend. Currently we have 55 embroidered, leaving another 25 to embroider and all of them to sew handles on and do the sides. So you know what Im going to be working on this weekend and through the next couple of weeks before my weekend. ;)

I would like to share too, the verse and graphic that we put on the bags for the person to read, which Mike and I felt was so appropriate. :)


"Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." --Exodus 4:11-12

Mike & Kacie Weldy, IWGB 3&4


Well, it's super late and I need to get to bed. I pray that Dad and Mike have a nice "quiet" evening and looking to Him in reflection, and I will be up early in the morning for Sue to take Meaghan to preschool for me, as I begin my weekend as a single parent. ;)

Toodles!