Come Shop Hope at Patchwork!

We have been accepted into the hip and popular Patchwork Hand Craft Fair to be held on November 2nd in Long Beach California, Marine stadium. 
We will be featuring a fun selection of our Boutique items. Handwoven scarves, hand felted soaps and several other fiber art items will be available for purchase at the show.  Hope is very proud to be accepted in this contemporary hand craft venue.  It would be great to see friends of Hope U there to enjoy the cool ocean breeze and Pacific view.  There are many restaurants and other places to take in the sights nearby.  Make a day of it in Belmont Shore, walk main street in Seal Beach or even take a tour of the Aquarium of the Pacific, of course all after shopping the Hope University booth at Patchwork Long Beach.  See you there!

Santa's Elves Can Knit!

Ben was excited to see his hand knitted gift was his favorite color, red!

Darren's hand knitted hat fits him perfectly.

Kim just could not get over how soft her hand knitted scarf was.

Gary looks like a little elf in his hand knitted hat.

Jason will be warm  while waiting for the bus in his hand crocheted scarf.

Joe loves his new hand knitted hat almost as much as he loves baseball.

You can see by Crystal's smile how excited she is about her new hand knitted hat.

Rene and Gary show off their new hand knits.

Darren was pleased to pose for a photo in his new hand knitted scarf. 

This Holiday season a local knitting group became Santa's knitting elves as they adopted us for their seasonal charity.  They hand knitted scarves and hats for the students of Hope University to receive as presents.  The knitting group is based in Long Beach California and is called the Long Beach Stitch and Beach and can be found on yahoo groups.  One of the instructors at Hope U is a member and her knitters were so taken by her stories of the clients that they wanted to contribute.  We here at Hope are so grateful to this wonderful group of ladies for giving of their time to create knitted gifts for the students.  Each gift was hand delivered by Santa and as many of us know, there is nothing quite so nice as a hand knitted gift.  Thank you Long Beach Stitch and Beach for your big hearts and warm knits! 

Field Trip to the Queen Mary in Long Beach

On August 25th, 2008, Monday, we went on a field trip to the Queen Mary in Long Beach California. It was a perfect day for a field trip to the water. The boat is amazing and huge! Did you know that the Queen Mary is TWICE the size that the Titanic was? Well it's true. We were able to go on a guided tour of the ship and we learned a lot about her. One of our favorite places on the ship was the 'Winston Churchill' suite. It was very big and had great closets! The wood in the ship is just beautiful. The tour guide told us that there were over 50 different types of wood used in the interior of the ship. Here are some photos of us on our field trip. One is of Jim standing in front of the Queen Mary, another is of Cathy and Paul in front of an English phone booth and there is a wonderful photo of Jim, Cesar, Michael and Darren getting ready go up the gang way into the ship. You can see what a beautiful sunny day it was. After visiting the ship we went to a picnic area near The Aquarium of the Pacific for lunch. We were right by the water and were able to watch harbor cruise boats and pelicans come and go. It was a great day.